Master panoramic pictures

You can get a good idea of what’s possible with the various hardware and software setups at the worldwide panorama site.

Object panoramas
Object panoramas provide a 360° rotation of an object. They are typically used on e-shops to show products. To produce one, you need to place the object on a turntable and take photos at, for example, 20° increments, through 360°.

HDR
High Dynamic Range images capture a wider range of tones than is possible in a single shot by compositing several bracketed exposures of the same scene. HDR files store a vast amount of tonal information in 32-bit floating point files.

This information is then tone-mapped to produce an eight- or 16-bit file. You can produce HDR images in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or a specialist HDR application such as Photomatix or Enfuse, which creates tone-mapped images without producing HDR files.

Fake depth of field
You can fake a limited depth of field effect in any photo-editing application that supports layers and has a blur filter. I showed how to do this in detail way back in August 2004. Strictly speaking it isn’t a multi-image effect because you can do it with several versions of the same image.

By creating several image zones and applying different degrees of blur, you can achieve very realistic results and literally focus attention on your subject.

Photoshop Auto Blend Layers
If you own a copy of Photoshop CS4 you can deal with the opposite problem to the one above ­ limited depth of field. If you shoot in low light or are keen on macrophotography you’ll have frequently experienced this problem, where you can’t keep all of the subject in focus.

Photoshop CS4 has two smart tools that, used together, can create a single pin-sharp image from several blurry ones. The key to success is to take several shots, changing the focus point in each so every part of the subject is in focus in at least one of the shots.

First, Auto Align Layers superimposes each image on its own layer in exact register with those above and below – ­ it even works with hand-held shots. Next, Auto Blend Layers produces a layer mask for each layer, masking blurred image detail and revealing only what’s in focus.