Thanks very much everybody!
If anything, I have but one question remaining: How in the world do you make your wide-angle panorama shots?
I have tried so many times now, but for the life of me I can't work out the issues I am having. The panoramas I try to make usually consist of 15-20 images, using the "Merge" option within Photoshop. But it seems like Photoshop just doesn't seem to manage to line them up because of the image distortion based on the wide angle one is shooting with. You have any tips or tricks?
I'm honestly not very good at these, but here's what I do:
The way I do it is this: 2-4 photos in GT5 at about 25mm
In Photoshop (I'm using CS5 on Mac OS X)
File → Automate → Photomerge...
Layout = Auto
Select all images you want to merge together, and check
Blend Images Together,
Vignette Removal and (this is important)
Geometric Distortion Correction.
Hit OK and PS will do all the merging and blending.
I then edit the image (sometimes the corners are rounded off so I either can crop the image into a rectangle or use the clone stamp tool to paint in the missing edges.)
Then I have the image and can do the regular editing.
HOWEVER, sometimes Photoshop glitches and closes the window during the auto-blend.
After some hardcore googling, I found a solution to this, which is just a slightly longer way of doing everything above. No reason to use this method if the first one works.
File → Scripts → Load Files into Stack…
Then use Edit → Auto-Align Layers.
I have to use some trial and error on the checkboxes to get the panorama to look good
Anywho, I used this method on a new image which I am very proud of!
8500th post, yeehaw!
[URL=http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceiling_fan/7276594608/in/photostream/lightbox/]
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