The Base Image
- The most important image you will be creating is what I
like to refer to as the base. This will be the foreground scene used in every
panel. The idea behind a base image is to guarantee that all your panels tile
properly without any edge problems caused by varying heights or mismatched
coloration. You need to find a scene in one of your images that fits this
classification such as gently rolling hills, a continuous treeline, low level
desert foliage, etc. Try to pick a scene that doesn't have many variations
in it remembering that this will be repeated in all your panels. This will
save you the hassle of having to perform major editing. The base needs to
be exactly 1024 pixels in width..
- Use the Selection Tool to highlight the portion of your
image you would like to use as the base by left clicking at the top left and
keeping the the left mouse button held down, drag diagonally right to the
lower right corner. Release the left mouse button once you have reached 1024
pixels (the width size of your selection is indicated at the lower left hand
section of the PSP7 window by the third set of bracketed values highlighted
yellow in this pic).
You
will see a dotted, rectangular box around your final selection.
- Choose Edit from the main toolbar and then Cut.
- Choose Edit and then Paste As New Image to make your selected
base area a new image.
- Select the Paint Brush and a size of 10 or higher using
the floating Tool Options menu. Use the Paint Brush to erase (white out) the
area above your terrain. It is a good idea to do the majority of this work
with a larger brush and then change to a size of 2 or 3 for the final editing.
I recommend painting a couple pixels into the top of your terrain region with
the smaller brush. This will ensure that only the colors directly related
to your terrain region will be visible in the final panorama.
- Make sure this window is full screen before continuing.
Next use the Selection Tool and highlight approximately half of your image
(you can start and end your entire selection actually outside the image window
in full screen mode if you are zoomed out enough). It is best to end the right
side of your selection at a section of your terrain that is relatively flat
at the top. What we will do in the next couple steps is flip flop the two
halves in another image as new layers. This will make both edges of your final
base image align exactly to each other.
- Choose Edit and then Cut.
- Next create a new white image (1024x512) by selecting the
New Image icon
from
the top toolbar.
- Choose Edit and then Paste As New Layer to add your copied
selection as a new layer in the white image. Click on the layer and drag it
toward the lower right corner to generally position it, we will fit it exactly
to this corner later.
- Switch back to the previous image which will still show
your original selection on the left side. Choose Selections from the main
menu and then Invert. This will automatically select the remaining portion
of your image.
- Choose edit and then Cut
- Choose edit and then Paste As New Layer. Go ahead and drag
this layer to the left hand corner.
- Now you want to zoom in at a 3:1 ratio or greater. You can
use the + key but I find it easier to simply position my mouse cursor near
the bottom left area of the screen and then use the scroll wheel on my mouse,
forward zooms in, back zooms out. You now need to align both layers exactly
to the bottom and corresponding side so that there is no visible white region
below or to either side. This can be tedious at first but after some practice
you will be able to align the layers in a matter of seconds.
- Click on Layers from the top toolbar, then Merge and finally
Merge All (flatten) to combine your layers into the base white image.
- At this point both ends of your base image are in good shape
but the middle will have a visible seam which will need some editing to blend
the two regions together naturally. Select the Clone Brush
and right click on an area you want to use as a starting point to copy from.
Now left click, holding down the mouse button, just to either side of the
middle seam and drag across this area. Notice that the source area will also
move with your mouse motion so take this into consideration when selecting
the source region. Use the Paint Brush tool to edit the small area at the
top of this middle seam and smoothe out the rest of the terrain. The Clone
Brush is a very powerful tool, use it to your advantage to also remove any
unwanted scenery such as a large boulder by copying another portion of the
image. I have attached two images below to show a before and after Clone Brush
edit on a sample base image.
- Another important factor to consider is that foreground
images are naturally slightly darker in appearance to the human eye than visuals
in the far distance. Since you will be adding secondary layers behind your
base image in Part 2 of this tutorial you may find it necessary to adjust
the look of your base image. The one I have chosen for my base was taken from
the middle depth section of a large panorama picture. To get the desired look
I am going to use the Photo Effects in PSP7 to enhance my image. First choose
the Magic Wand
to select the white area of your image. Next use the Selections menu and Invert
to highlight your terrain. Go to the Effects menu, then select Enhance Photo
and lastly Automatic Contrast Ehancement. I used the following options to
darken the image to a satisfactory level. Bias-> Neutral, Strength->
Normal, Appearance-> Natural. Below is the final result.
- Once you are happy with your base image you will need to
save it as a Targa (.tga) file. To keep yourself organized create a folder
with the name of your pano such as Rolling Hills that you can use to save
all your final images to while working in PSP. Now save this base image as
baseRolling Hills.tga in your Rolling Hills folder.
- You are now ready to make your 12 panel segments.