A Different Lightroom Pano

The other day I wrote about a technique to create a panorama using a singe image and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  Today I want to look at a slightly different take on this.  When I was out in New Mexico this past week I took some panorama shots from the top of Sandia Peak.  I took a series of overlapping images to cover the desired scene looking out over the city Albuquerque.  I actually took 5 shots overall.

After looking at them in Lightroom, I went over to the Print module and noticed a printing pre-set that I had downloaded from my buddy Scott Kelby.  The pre-set that caught my eye is called SK 5-Wide, which is set up for one row of five images, each one being about 2.5 inches wide by 4 inches tall.  I went back to the Library module and selected the 5 pano shots and then processed them in the Develop module.  To maintain consistency, I developed the first image and then synched the other 4 to that image.

This gave me consistent processing across all of the images.  It should be noted that I shot all five with the same camera settings in Manual mode so there wasn’t a wide variation in exposures that you can get by using one of the automatic modes like Aperture Priority. Once I finished processing the images, I made sure they were all selected and then moved over to the Print Module and selected my SK 5-Wide pre-set which placed all of the images into the frames.  I then placed my mouse over each frame and spaced them accordingly so that they aligned across the page.  Finally, I changed the Identity Plate and output my image to a JPEG file.

I could have just as easily printed the final but that would have made it harder for you to see.  While I was using Scott’s pre-set, there’s no reason that you can’t set up your own for this type of print.  Simply set up your page size to 14″x6″ and then use these Layout settings to get the proportions right.

You also want to make sure that you have the Zoom to Fill checked under the Image Settings section.

Here is the final shot assembled in the Print module using the SK 5-Wide pre-set.  It’s a different take on making a pretty cool panorama.  Give it a try and see what you think.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Related posts:

1. Did you forget to take your Pano shots? Don’t panic.
2. Saving the Shot with Lightroom 2
3. Inserting a Link-Back in your Lightroom Galleries
4. Looking for a Pano Printer
5. Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby