STEP BY STEP

Get stitched up

1 Open the start files

Use our panorama start files if you want to follow our tutorial exactly – they are numbered 1-7. You should open them directly from Camera Raw by first selecting all seven files, then right-clicking any one of them and choosing Open in Camera Raw from the menu.

2 Merge to Panorama…

When you open more than one image in Camera Raw they’re displayed as a vertical filmstrip on the left side of the window. In the top corner you’ll see a drop-down menu icon, and from here you need to choose Select All and then the Merge to Panorama menu option.

3 Choose your settings

After a few moments spent merging the images, Camera Raw will open the Panorama Merge window, where you choose the ‘Projection’ settings and Crop and Warp settings. By default, the ‘Spherical’ projection is used and untidy edges are cropped off.

4 Preview the projections

You’ll see the effect of the different projections more clearly if you deselect the Auto Crop box. Spherical projections combine the images on the inside surface of a virtual sphere, cylindrical projections use a virtual cylinder, while Perspective simulates a super-wide lens.

5 Set Boundary Warp

The Auto Crop option inevitably crops off some parts of the panorama, and, if you don’t want that, the alternative is the new Boundary Warp tool. This ‘warps’ the full panoramic image to push it right to the edges of the frame – the downside is that it does introduce some distortion.

6 Merge the images

When you’re happy, click the Merge button in the top-right corner. When the merge process is finished, a new merged DNG file appears in the Camera Raw filmstrip (even if you started with JPEGs). You can now open this in Photoshop or simply save it out as a new file.