June 24, 2007
Auto-Align: It Will Change the Way You Take Photographs
Last year around this time, I took 5 photos from the observation deck of the Calgary Tower which were intended to be merged together to make a wide panorama:
I tried my best to merge the photographs in Photoshop CS manually using layer masking and free transformation and managed to merge just three of the photographs together and the result was this:
The first of many tips from the Creative License Tour
On June 14, I attended the Creative License Tour and learned of two features I did not know existed in Photoshop. These features are Auto-Align and Auto-Blend, and this will change the way we take photographs as we know it.
Typically to capture shots which are required for a panorama, you need to take shots which revolve around an axis as shown in the diagram below:
With these two new features in Adobe Photoshop CS3, the tripod is no longer needed. When you perform Auto-Align, Photoshop will scan through the layers of the current document and calculate which pixels match with the proper layer, and transforms each layer appropriately to achieve astonishing results. What this means is that you can take a photograph every few steps while walking along a street (without a tripod of course), and Photoshop can do all the dirty work for you.
Auto-Align does all the nasty free-transforming for you
Let’s take those 5 photographs I took last year and use them as an example.
To create a panorama out of these, it requires just 3 steps:
- Bring all the photographs into one document in Photoshop
- Select all the layers
- Edit > Auto-Align Layers
(After you click it, you will be presented with some advanced options. I use automatic because I trust Photoshop more than I do myself, but feel free to experiment)
And voila!
Ok, so maybe you’re not so impressed yet. The issue is that each photo can have different exposures and the layers are overlapping. This is where Auto-Blend comes in.
Auto-Blend: This is the part where your jaw drops
The Auto-Blend feature of Photoshop CS3 is meant to be used in succession after Auto-Align. Essentially, it masks each layer appropriately after they’ve been aligned so that they blend properly, resulting in one smooth panoramic photograph.
To use Auto-Blend, just follow these two steps:
- Select all the layers in your document
- Edit > Auto-Blend Layers
And the result…
And the final result cropped…
When I first saw this demonstrated at the Creative License Tour, I was in total awe and amazement, it’s like Photoshop did some magic trick on me! Even as I did this again for this post, I was still amazed.
Feel free to leave any questions or comments, stay tuned for more tips I learned from the Creative License Tour.
yayayaya goood !! thanks !
[...] Photoshop Auto-align: It Will Change the Way You Take Photographs Found this quick tutorial that shows you how to auto-align layers to let you take ‘panorama’ photos and get Photoshop to do the mats for you and align the images together. (tags: Photoshop CS3 design) [...]
Great stuff. I think this is a huge step for photography and a massive step for photographers!
It’s already been available for a few years with open source software, but photoshop makes it easy. Good job to adobe for bringing it to the photographers that aren’t computer-obsessed!
Thank you for your fine tutorial.
but please how can i bring 5 photos in 1 document?
Thank”s
“Thank you for your fine tutorial.
but please how can i bring 5 photos in 1 document?
Thankâ€s”
You copy and paste every picture into a new document. Photoshop should create a new layer for every picture…
@bluenahariya: Like Rob said, you can copy and paste every picture into a new document, or you can also click and drag each photo into a new one using the move tool.
great stuff!!!!
I think the auto-align wizard to create a panorama is a joke and is a utter waste of time.
For this wizard to operate you need some very specific set of photos where each photo have unique pixles. Otherwise the wizard will only produce a horrible ugly mess. Try to take a panorama of a beach, the skyline, horizon and everything on the picture will be distorted and there will be sharp glitches between each photo.
Imo, the only way to take a panorama of a “natural” setting is still to use a tripod and manually edit it afterwards.
I agree you managed to produce a nice panorama thou. But I find the occasions the wizard works are very few.
@stormfrog: I don’t think it’s really fair to call the auto-align wizard in Photoshop CS3 an “utter waste of time”. The steps taken to achieve my result required only a few minutes, which I’m sure any photographer who is willing to stitch a series of photographs can spare. It should actually be a first attempt for any photo stitching before delving into manual methods as that would take much, much longer.
However, it is true that each photograph needs unique pixels in order for the wizard to know where to properly place each image. In a scenario where there are multiple photos of the horizon at a beach, it’s possible that the pixels may not differentiate well and auto-align may not work. Still, I think the likelihood of not having enough differentiating pixels is not as occasional as you say. With the exception of beaches and possibly horizons at the arctic circle, other natural settings should have enough differentiating elements so that Photoshop can still calculate what pixels match with what.
wow, you have opened a HUGE door for me and my photography, it really is only 3 steps… A+ for you
Thank you so much for this very useful tutorial!
All of this is very interesting and looks great, but as for stormfrog’s comments, I agree. It does not always work. a free program that does work is Autostitch. Google it and you will be even more amazed that what Photoshop can do. That’s my two cents!
You rock! Thanks very much for explaining this intresting feature!
I am having trouble trying this. I have Photoshop 7.0. There is no auto-align under edit, and I can’t even figure out how to select multiple layers, can you help me out?
@Marylynn: Unfortunately, this feature is Photoshop CS3 only. Also, Photoshop 7.0 doesn’t support multiple layer selection I believe.
hey look for panorama maker … http://www.arcsoft.com/products/panoramamaker/ … does the same, very easy to use
[...] out GoSammy.com to learn [...]
now do this with The Gimp and I’ll be impressed…
Very helpful – I stitched 3 photos together painlessly that I had tried to do manually with no success.
PT GUI is much better.
Good stuff tho.
That’s a great feature that I hadn’t heard of before. I’ve been using panorama software for several years now, but had no idea that CS3 had this capability built in. I’m going to try this on some of my panos tonight!
very cool tutorial.
This really works great!
AMAZING.
I use to do that with sticher but i like Auto blend and I will try it. Thanks
It’s not working for me.
I have three layers, selected them all and I went trough ‘Edit > Auto-Align Layers’ but the image doesn’t change. I still have a 800×600px large image and nothing is auto-aligned.
What do I do wrong?
Nice. It would be nice to see a 360 tutorial version too. It would be much more useful.
@Dominik: I’m not sure why your image isn’t auto-aligning. It’s possible that your photos might not be differentiating well enough, but perhaps you should try contacting Adobe Support or leave a message on the support forums to see if any other users would know.
@John: To create a 360º panorama, all you need to do is make sure you cover all the angles when taking your photos. This means you probably need a tripod in this case and take maybe 8 or so photos like an octagon (Refer to the diagram above on how you should rotate your camera on its own axis). If you want to convert your 360º panorama into something like a Quicktime VR, you would need separate software to do that.
My photos were the problem. I took new ones and it’s working perfect. Thanks for your tutorial!
I used this on a friends dissertation for his phd’s about history of art. he has this whole huge cathedral’s cellings afrescos, photographed by him (imagine all the professionalism) made of 6-7 photos. This worked like a charm… and i am quite tech savvy, but the way it undid the lens barrel of awesome. try it b4 ranting on it folks.
[...] Auto-Align: It Will Change the Way You Take Photographs photoshop cs3 introduces new tools to help make panoramas easier (tags: photoshop tools photography tutorial) [...]
So far I was using Photostich from Canon to do this job, but since it’s quite a pain to open 2 programs, I can only say THANKX!!! for this photoshop tip – it will spare me allot of time.
The auto align worked perfectly…but the auto blend is grayed out in the menu…? Any suggestions?
matt – I’m not doubting you, just double checking; did you have all layers selected before trying auto-blend?
yes…100 percent positive on that. I quit and re-opened..problem persists. It is very odd. would the color profile have anything to do with it??
Matt, right now it could be anything with a problem as mystifying as this. I would try asking Adobe because it might as well be a software issue. The steps above were exactly what I learned at the CS3 conference so unfortunately I can’t help much else here. If you do call up Adobe and figure out what it was, be sure to let us know.
Hi, i have got all the photos as layers, but when i go edit> there is no auto allign layers option.
I have cs3, do you know any reason why this might be? tnx
Sorry charlie, got no idea why you wouldn’t be seeing it there.
oh well, thanks anyway…
i may try a reinstall.
Or just get an Olympus, like my SP-550UZ or the cheaper Stylus 1000 and take all the panorama you want. The accompanying software Olympus Master automatically stitches together up to 10 shots seemless as long as you have an overlap. The overlap is easily found with the help of a margin in the viewfinder. This is perhaps too easy a solution for the CS3 wiz, but it´s fun and the results are perfect.
If you dont get it working try having a larger portion of the images overlap, so that ps has more information it can use to fit them together. Also try to rotate the camera around the vertical axis through the sensor plane for the best result and to avoid parallax shifting on close objects. Of course you always get the best results with a panoramic tripod head, but this feature is nice to have for less serious shots and can give really nice results if you take care when shooting.
That’s good advice Daniel, it’s important that the images do overlap somewhat or else PS will not have anything to work with so it will know what to join what.
And on a side note, I’ve tried out this method with photos taken with a wide angle lens and PS didn’t do a thing. Thus, this method does have it’s limitations (as well with photos which might not differentiate that well).
Thanks for the Auto-Align,Auto-Blend Tutorial,and it’s use in stiching panoramas.
However, it seems to me that the auto-align’auto blend feature in CS3 is best suited for aligning similiar images to perhaps increase the apparent dynamic range of an image,or maybe combine and mask similiar photos to modify the composition of the final image.
Why not use the “improved” CS3 PHOTOMERGE option for stiching panoramas instead? Opinions?
Morris, I wasn’t aware that the Photomerge feature in CS3 was improved from CS2. The presentation I went to where I learned this method of stitching panoramas was done by representatives from Adobe and I recall the presenter suggesting that we use this over Photomerge.
However, I’m assuming that you’ve tried out both ways and prefer to use Photomerge instead when stitching panoramas. Have you found any advantages using Photomerge over auto-align and auto-blend?
Scratch my last comment. I just tried out Photomerge and it appears to be doing the exact same thing but only requires one step! Thanks for the tip Morris.
Re: above 3 comments Auto-Align vs. Photomerge
Thanks for the quick response.
Perhaps there is at least one reason to use auto-align,auto-blend rather than the quicker automated photomerge,that being control. Using the separate commands allows for manual fine tuning of exposure,correction of alignment errors etc. How’s that for an about face.
[...] Stunning panoramas using photoshop cs3 at gosammy [...]
Interesting photos.
[...] of CS3 ? I really like the improvement in lining up photos, like for panorama’s, a la… Auto-Align: It Will Change the Way You Take Photographs It makes WAY superb panoramas compared to CS2 (using this technique & I think there is a [...]