Re: [Gimp-user] Project Question

[Akkana Peck <akkana shallowsky com>]

Doug asks:
> > I have taken a series of photos
> > laterally across the potential area.  I now need to 'stitch' them together

Liam R E Quin writes:
> There are four steps, whichever program you use:
> (1) combine all the images into one big image, e.g.one per layer (File-
> > open as layers in gimp)
> (2) correct for rotation and make obvious exposure corrections to the
> photos - this is especially necessary if the lighting, focus, or camera
> settings such as exposure time and aperture varied between shots at
> all;
> (3) determine known common points in each pair of pictures and move
> them to connect at these points, using perspective and barrel distort
> as needed
> (4) correct colour casts, darkness etc between separate parts of the
> joined-up image and crop away the uneven edges.

(5) If the edges still don't match perfectly, use layer masks with
black/white gradients to fade out the edges of adjacent images so each
image blends into the next.

> Hugin will do step 3, which is the hardest part.
> The others, you can do in gimp.

Hugin can be hard to use and doesn't work on every collection of
photos, but when it works, it does an amazing job on steps 3 and 4
both. Definitely try it.

And Doug: when googling for more info on this technique, "panorama"
is a helpful search keyword. You should find lots of tutorials and
examples if you include that in your search.

        ...Akkana