Introduction to the Stitching Wizard


The Stitching Wizard helps you make a Panorama Factory project.  It leads you step by step through the process of building a project.  When the Wizard finishes, it leaves you with a complete project that you can save, print or modify as you wish.

Everything the Wizard does can also be done using the Classic interface.  You don't need to worry that you'll be giving up any capabilities if you decide that you like the Classic interface better.  For more information on the Classic interface, see Chapter 4 “Using the Classic interface, step by step.”

The Wizard panel can be docked to the left, right, top or bottom edges of the window or it can be moved to float on top of the main window.

      

To dock the panel, click with the mouse in a blank area of the floating panel and drag it to one of the edges of the main window.  To make the panel float on top of the main window, click with the mouse in a blank area of the panel and drag it into the middle of the window.

Each Wizard step displays helpful tips indicated by a lightbulb icon.  All of the tips are shown right on the panel when the Wizard is floating.  When the Wizard is docked, the tips are displayed in a popup dialog box the first time you enter each Wizard panel for a panorama.  You can disable or enable these popup quick tips with the radio buttons:

Automatically show quick tips
Select this option to display the quick tips automatically the first time you enter each Wizard panel.

Do not automatically show quick tips
Select this option to disable automatic display of the quick tips.  You can also view the tips by clicking the lightbulb button.

We recommend you read all tips the first few times you use the Wizard.

For certain Wizard steps, the tips change depending upon the settings you have chosen.  For example, the instructions for Wizard step 3/9 – Describe your camera change depending upon the selection of camera type and the instructions for Wizard step 6/9 – Place stitching points and Wizard step 7/9 – Preview at low resolution change depending upon what stitching method you have chosen.

You may also press the Help button to display the help page containing complete instruction for the Wizard step.

NOTE: For photo stitching, the Stitching Wizard expects all your images to be the same size (the sizes may vary for document stitching).  If your images need to be trimmed before stitching (e.g. negative strips) you must use the Classic interface to trim the images first.  After trimming, you can stitch with the Classic interface or you can run the Wizard on your trimmed images with the Stitch with the Wizard command (New image menu).

The steps that the Wizard follows to create your panorama are:

1.      Import your images

The first step of the Wizard prompts you to import the images that you will use to construct your panorama.

2.      Select stitching method

In the second step of the Wizard you select one of three stitching methods based on how you took your photos.

3.      Describe your camera

The third step of the Wizard helps you describe the camera you used to make the images.   The Panorama Factory requires a description of your camera to correctly merge the images.

4.      Control image quality

In this step, you control the tradeoff between image quality and stitching speed.

5.      Select panorama type

In this step, you describe the type of panorama you want to create.

6.      Place stitching points

For semi-automatic and manual stitching you place corresponding stitching points on overlapping pairs of images.

7.      Preview at low resolution

In this step, you preview the results of semi-automatic or manual stitching to decide whether the stitching points are acceptable.

8.      Create your panorama

Here you make final choices about the form of the panoramic output file.

9.      Save & print your panorama

In this step you save, view and print the final panorama.

10.  Learn more about...

The final step of the Wizard helps you learn more about The Panorama Factory so that you get the result you want.




© 1999-2009, Smoky City Design, LLC
Updated: March 6, 2009