Wimbledon Photostitch of Henman Hill (Aorangi Terrace)

[mcgillianaire]

Click image to enlarge. If you zoom in you can see a blurry London skyline to the left and Canary Wharf to the right side of it. The match on the screen is between Rafael Nadal and Andreas Beck, a first round clash.

I started using Autostitch a couple days ago and it's absolutely amazing!!! It's a small download, free, so easy-to-use and stitches images like these in just a matter of seconds. I can't believe I didn't discover it earlier. But I suppose better late than never. Not surprisingly I've since gone nuts with it and am working my way through all my photos dating back to 2005, searching for potential panoramic material. This one's from June 2008.

Comments

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

Might I suggest you check out Microsoft ICE, if you have not already done so? I found a big improvement over my Autostitch results.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip! I couldn't find the thread (on your journal?) about photostitch software so I just googled it and downloaded the first one that came up. Big improvement sounds really promising!

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

The results will still depend on the input images, of course, so for optimal results, avoid having people at the intersection of images. Using a tripod is not essential, especially if your subject matter is far away. But obviously, it helps if you don't move the camera too much.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that advice! I won't be posting any new panoramas for a while because I don't currently own a camera but will bear it in mind for the future. I used ICE for the image above and the Autostitch result was better as the ICE image curved downwards on the left side and it had to be cropped more than the one above in order to get rid of all the black bits. I'll need to fiddle around a bit and learn from trial and error.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

You can play with the ICE image to minimize your losses. Click on the cube, near the 'File' menu, to adjust the perspective. Moving all the images at once will often help you bend the stitched shot into a shape that allows you to take out an entire rectangle without loss.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

It does do horrible things to the layout of my Friends page, though! I'll be kind and not ask for lj-cutting, though if these are going to be a regular event I might make a gentle hint. I think they're fantastic photos, though, so please don't stop posting them either way!

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Ah that's probably due to the size. I wasn't sure whether a width of 1280 pixels would be too much. I'll post the next one at 1024. If that's still too big then I'll make it smaller and so forth till the problem stops. I never liked it when such pictures disrupted my Friends page either so I completely understand. Though luckily on my new computer that isn't the case any more so I'm less sure what it's like for others.

[(Anonymous)]

To be honest, you might as well keep it at 1280. You see, I have a rather odd format for my Friends page -- my eyesight being what it is, I restrict the actual post width to 450 and the posts to (I think) 600. That's why the photos I post are thumbnailed to the size that they are. I wouldn't ask you to reduce things by that much, so what I may do is set up a Custom Friends group with everyone but you in it, and check your posts separately. I already do that with the "doctorwho" LJ community, which is otehrwise so prolific as to drown out everyone else!

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Ah, I have wondered all this time why your pics were that size! I'm sorry these posts will impose such a change... hope you won't forget about me! :) On an unrelated note, it occurred to me that we added each other almost exactly four years ago when we "met" in the sixesandfours community either just before or after the last Indian tour began. Time has flown.

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

That will be appreciated. I am looking at it on my laptop with an extra wide screen and it still messes up my friends page.

Nice photos.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Thanks and gotcha. Will resize the next one at 1024. Might even post a poll after that to see if it still affects people.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Oh and thanks! I suspect I will be posting quite a few of these over the summer. I still haven't worked out whether I want to post them regularly, in an orderly fashion or fit them into a relevant story (like the one above, with the tournament recently concluded). Perhaps I just need to take it easy and remind myself it's just a bloody journal!