PolarBear
Major
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2007
- Messages
- 6,706
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
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