Panoramas for Dioramas (1 Viewer)

[PolarBear]

Many of you have large scale dioramas that you wish to place against a panoramic photographic backdrop to enhance your scene's realism. Such photos can sometimes be purchased. However, it is possible to make your own. The problem for most of us, however, is that our printers can only do 8X10 prints. Well here is a tip for dealing with that.

This is a real example that Tim (fish) asked me about for his Napoleonic scenes:


I have put together a sample of how a panorama might work. I went to Webshots online and searched for France panoramas (or french countryside panoramas) and came up with this one to try. Most of the photos on Webshots are hi-res and about 33 inches wide. This panorama is 33X11. When you click on full-size on the Webshots page showing the photo you will see how big and and hi res they are. So I dragged it on my desktop from the enlarged version and then brought it up through Photoshop. I then cut it into 3 separate sections using the "crop tool" that could be printed out as 8X10s to attach together for your backdrop. So below you will find the original photo and the 3 parts. When you do do any printing I hightly recommend you use something like HP Premium Plus Photo Paper Soft Gloss. The Soft Gloss makes all the difference in the world. It is much better than matte which dulls your colors and the Soft Gloss does not have the reflective glare of High gloss. I have not used software other than Photoshop to do this but the cropping could probably be done in programs such as Photo Bucket?

When attached together the 3 8X10s will make a 30 inch wide panorama.
[note the first cropped image is wider since the original photo was 33 inches rather than 30. When printing out scale all 3 photos to 8X10 size]
Others: Please feel free to add tips to this that have personally worked for you

Hope this helps.

Randy

 

[fishead19690]

Randy thanks again! Thats exactly what I was looking for. I want to get a program like photo shop and figure out how to use it and find even higher resolution panoramic photos and chop them up like this into even smaller sections and print them on 8x10 paper from my printer and try and reassemble with as little view of the seams as possible and assemble them into a much larger back ground.
You,ve got the idea of what I want to do with spliting it into 3 sections but I was looking to go even larger, say 6 or more 8x10,s
I don,t know how this would look and if the seams would be to visible and ruin the look of the background but its worth a shot????

Thanks for the photo back drop of france, That will make a nice back drop for my Napoleonics and is the first step in what I,m looking to do. Have you printed it out and tried to join the seam lines yet? And if so what did you think of the results???

I think it might work if you can get a nice taped straight seam and then tape the attached photos to a harder cardboard backing to make it more stable.

 

[PolarBear]

Randy thanks again! Thats exactly what I was looking for. I want to get a program like photo shop and figure out how to use it and find even higher resolution panoramic photos and chop them up like this into even smaller sections and print them on 8x10 paper from my printer and try and reassemble with as little view of the seams as possible and assemble them into a much larger back ground.
You,ve got the idea of what I want to do with spliting it into 3 sections but I was looking to go even larger, say 6 or more 8x10,s
I don,t know how this would look and if the seams would be to visible and ruin the look of the background but its worth a shot????

Thanks for the photo back drop of france, That will make a nice back drop for my Napoleonics and is the first step in what I,m looking to do. Have you printed it out and tried to join the seam lines yet? And if so what did you think of the results???

I think it might work if you can get a nice taped straight seam and then tape the attached photos to a harder cardboard backing to make it more stable.

Glad this helped. Since the photo is 33" wide I'm not sure how 6 sections would work. No I did not print this out to test it. I'll see what happens with 6 sections. It might lose some resolution. I'll let you know.

Randy

 

[PolarBear]

Tim

Cutting up the picture into 6 parts does not seem to work. I don't think it can be made 66 inches rather than 33 inches without distorting it. Once you increase the width of each section it also changes the height. Why not just print it out twice to get the 6 parts or combine it with another similar set of 3. On webshots there are albums and often there will be a series of shots of the same area.

Here is one of 6 sections but when I increased the width to 10 inches it made the height go to 17 inches. Scaled for TF's 1000X800 pixels this is what it looks like: note the distortion At the 17 inch height there was no distortion however. Possibly it could be scaled on your printer for 8X10 without the distortion. I will email you the section here that is unaltered for TF for you to try printing out at 8X10. let me know the results.

Randy

 

[Wraith]

I'm afraid I cheat. I print off on standard A4 paper (11 3/4" x 8 1/4" - UK standard size), then take it to a secret place that may or may not have something to do with my work eek, and blow it up on a colour photo copier to A3 size (double A4).

That size is big enough for a lot of dio photos, but I have doubled it and doubled it again so that I've ended up with 2 x A3 together, but I had difficulty discuising the join line effectively.

 

[Harrytheheid]

I'm afraid I cheat. I print off on standard A4 paper (11 3/4" x 8 1/4" - UK standard size), then take it to a secret place that may or may not have something to do with my work eek, and blow it up on a colour photo copier to A3 size (double A4).

That size is big enough for a lot of dio photos, but I have doubled it and doubled it again so that I've ended up with 2 x A3 together, but I had difficulty discuising the join line effectively.

Simon,
If you have access to Photoshop software, the join line between two pictures can be hidden quite easily. I was latterly getting quite good results last time I was home.
Cheers
H

 

[debrito]

Randy, have you any kind of very dark clouds sky panorama ?

Cheers

 

[PolarBear]

Randy, have you any kind of very dark clouds sky panorama ?

Cheers

Rod

I'll see what I can find and get back to you.

Randy

 

[mbennett]

I was in a hobby store recently that catered to train officianados and saw some panoramas that measured 38 inches long and 13 inches high. Many had city scenes, but there were some with only natural background, and some with clouds only. They sell for about $12.00 each. Here is the link for the company that produced them:

http://www.realisticbackgrounds.com

 

[PolarBear]

I was in a hobby store recently that catered to train officianados and saw some panoramas that measured 38 inches long and 13 inches high. Many had city scenes, but there were some with only natural background, and some with clouds only. They sell for about $12.00 each. Here is the link for the company that produced them:

http://www.realisticbackgrounds.com

Thank you for this very useful link.

Randy