Double edged present

Well Lesley has finally aquiesced and allowed me to put some of my photos up at home.
To that end, she bought me some photo frames for our anniversary, and here's the problem.
They are each designed to take 5 6x4 photos. But I never take "sets" of shots, so I'm struggling to come up with 5 similar / complimentary shots to use in each frame ( and there are three of them ).

Oh well! I'll just have to get out with my camera more and she can't complain now, because it is her fault! (Well, thats' what I'll tell her ).

Ahhhh I guess Ikea(we have several), get the themed close ups going.

Do some jewellery shot and flowers and nice things. Women like nice things.

I'm working on Landscapes etc. I have a few Autumn ones which the colours will match the room and we're just coming to the time of year when I can get some more.

I did think of my rally photos, but she said "No way"! Can't win can we?

Well now is the time to come up with some series - a great excuse to get out with the camera .


What about some of those great photos from your holiday?

Yep, definitely got some of the landscapes picked out, but not 5.

Still going through a couple of years worth of photos, hadn't realised how many I'd taken. I need to come up with some sort of catalogue system.

I've got 3 "seasons" pics as well, but need a spring, then one other. For some reason, for all I've promised myself for a couple of years, I never seem to go out and about in spring.

One victory at a time Ted.

Take the mount out and shoot a panorama at that boat museum to fit.

Funny, just talking about that.

How ( exactly) do you put a panorama together. Does it need special software, or does standard PS software do it?
I have PSP9 and one of the Adobe PS ( Can't remember which version as it is on my laptop )

Get up to your nearest reservoir/lake. Should be able to get four or five contrasting shots tied together by being around the same landscape.

For example, if I was doing something like this here I'd go up the Elan Valley and shoot:

The buildings at the foot of the lowest dam (as a study in Victorian industrial architecture)

A shot out over the water which doesn't show any man-made structures

Some of the rugged moorland up at the top of the valley

The control tower on the top dam (already done, hanging in the toilet as there isn't much room in there so a sharp photo with a lot of detail works well)

The cutting known as "Devil's Gulch" on the railway trackbed, which looks nothing like the rest of the scenery up there

There is automatic stitching in PSE, don't know about PS though. Panoramas work best if the camera is in portrait format and the more pictures you take the better. Take care with the light, you don't want the sun going behind a cloud or something halfway through.

Also put the camera into manual so you keep the same exposure.

A good tip with panoramas is to take a photo of your finger then the series of panorama photos followed a photo of two fingers, so you know which ones you intended for the panorama, and don't miss any out.

PSE 6 and above do a fantastic job of stitching panoramas. I believe the later PS does too.

There are lots of tutorials on the web of how to stitch in PSP.

Another good one to try is Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor). Even better is that it's (surprisingly for Micro$oft) a free download.
I have used it before for stitching panoramas and it's actually quite good and easy to work with.

Great! Lots of ideas. Next dfew weekends are tied up, but that will give time for autumn's colours to really come out.
Watch this space

I'm not sure if there's a Windows version of Hugin, but it's a pretty handy piece of software for panoramas.

Hugin is available for Windows.... still free I think.