Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I was hoping to use QU to do something that I can't see how.
1.)
I'm playing with panorama pictures from 4 or more photos stitched together. If I use 'fit to page' or 'fit to paper' it fits the height and fills the paper but only has a fraction of the width included. I was trying to get the program to do the work of fitting in the maximum width possible on a horizontal page, the height would take care of itself.
2.)
Of course the maximum width available would be along the diagonal, the panorama would need to rotate about 40 degrees anti-clockwise for that. If the panorama height varies that make an interesting problem.

I can do it with trial and error and calculator in photoshop but can anyone see a short cut or two?
   The hours we spend!
                                      John
 

Hi John
I know QU can probably do what you are suggesting - see my next post.
I use Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) to make panoramas and stitch images. It can stitch any number of images together. It's free, very easy to use and can be downloaded here.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52459 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52459)

You can see an example of mine here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/terry-m_flickrphotos/18731477572/in/album-72157654351062122/ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/terry-m_flickrphotos/18731477572/in/album-72157654351062122/)
There are details in the description below the image - I have a 56 inch wide print of it at home courtesy of a friend of Fred.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/531/18731477572_5ed7a1bb97_b.jpg)
More:
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3945/15656016251_290e8a5e3f_b.jpg)
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8452/28850009292_54417edc26_b.jpg)

I hope that convinces you  ;D
Terry

John,
Me again, I didn't read your query properly  ::) as I got carried away with ICE
Turn off Auto Crop and use fit to page.
Terry

Thanks Terry,
It was the auto crop that fooled me, I didn't think of it because it's on all the time. All works OK now.
I've used ICE for years but not the multilevel type that seems to be used with your pictures, they look great.
I'll have a go with that. I have done HDR panoramas using ICE, lots of room for errors there.
 Any thoughts on part 2.) rotating wide narrow panoramas to get the greatest width from the paper?

John
 
 

Hi John,
Yes, that's easy too: rotate the image in the editor. See screen shots below, editor rotated 30deg and page preview. I got the angle by trial and error but you could calculate it. The image used was just a cropped version of one in a recent folder.
Again, fit to page with auto crop off was used.
Terry

EDIT:
The new measuring tool in the page  editor enables you to check how much advantage there is in using the rotated image.
In the one shown the overall length increased by 20mm (~3/4") on A3+ paper. That's only 4% - is it worth it? Using a non-rotated image I could get 3 prints on the one page!

Thanks again Terry,
I agree, not worth the waste of paper with rotating it, I just couldn't work out the way to do it.
   John