Mike DelGaudio

In Part 1 of this series, we examined how to set up your camera to take effective source photos to create a panorama.

Update: fixed some bad HTML markup

All-righty, then. Now that you have your pictures that you want to stitch together, move them from your camera an into your computer. I find that it is much easier to create a separate folder for each Panorama you took.

Now, go and get yourself a copy of Autostitch. This program is free, although it is not Open Source. Read the license agreement for what you can and cannot do with pictures stitched together with Autostitch (short version: if your are making images for personal use, you’re all good.)

Unzip the files to a folder on your computer. Autostitch requires no installation, once you are unzipped, you are ready to go.

Create your First Panorama.

Ok, here we go. Start Autostitch by double clicking the autostitch.exe file. You’ll see Autostich’s rather minimal interface:

Just Select “open” from the “File” menu. Navigate to the folder you created with the Images for the Panorama, and select all those images. (CTRL+click to select multiple images)

Once you click the “Open” button on the dialog box, Autostich will get busy creating the Panorama. Depending on how many images you have, and the speed of your computer this assembly can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. A small window with a progress bar will let you know that Autostitch is doing it’s thing.

When the progress bar disappears, your panorama has been created. You will find a new file in the folder where your source images were called “Pano.jpg” Open that picture to see what you have created.

By default, Autostitch makes pretty small images. This is to keep rendering time down, so you can see what it will look like in a minimum amount of time.

From Create a Pano…

If you are pleased with the result, you can have autostitch create a high-resolution version. Just go to “Edit” then “options”

Look for the “Output size” in the upper left hand corner. Select the “Scale%” radio button, and change the value to say 100%. Click OK, then repeat the steps to create the panorama. This will take MUCH longer to create. Have patience.

Here you can see the source images, and resulting panorama using autostitch.

Create a Panorama

If your panorama needs any adjustments, you can always follow this tutorial using Picasa.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Have you created a panorama using this technique? Link to it in the comments, I’d love to see.
I know there are a whole mess of other panorama-creating programs out there, are there any easier / better than Autostitch?

[tags]Autostitch, Panorama, Picasa, tutorial[/tags]