Photoshop photomerge - different brightnesses

[Spargo]

I decided to try out the photoshop photomerge feature by taking a few pictures of my back yard. Photoshop did an extraordinary job at stitching the matching parts together, but because I took pictures of parts both in the shade and in the sun, the brightnesses did not match on some overlaps. This may also be due to the fact that I didn't have my lens hood on and the sun was shining in it. Is there a way in photoshop I could make it all look like one picture, in brightness/contrast wise?

[Radtech1]

Is there a way in photoshop I could make it all look like one picture, in brightness/contrast wise?

With the shot that you already have, you will have a hard time getting (close to) perfect results. If you reshoot the image, make sure to shoot it in Manual mode, with the same exposure/apeteure settings on all of the shots. I don't know if the 300D will allow you manually set the Kelvin, but if so, do that, too.

You will not get the "correct" exposue for all of the components, but the total final product will be "normalized" one part to the other.

If you are REALLY concerned about having some areas too dark and others too light, shoot the components in RAW, then process each component twice, one set light - for the shadows, and one set dark - for the highlights then make TWO panos and from there, follow these instructions on Digial Blending (http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml)

[Spargo]

Thanks for the suggestions. And I don't even know what Kelvin is. :D

[Radtech1]

Thanks for the suggestions. And I don't even know what Kelvin is. :D

"Kelvin" refers to color temperture. 3000 is red 10000 is blue. You can set the color temp on your camera to match various light sources. If you are shooting indoors and all your pictures end up kind of orangy becuase of the incandescent light, you can set your cameras white balance to compensate for that. Same as shooting outdoors and everything looks kind of blueish.

On the 10d (dont know about the 300), you can manually select a specific temp. If the 300 can do that, then by all means do so. No matter what, though, do NOT have it set to "automaitc" when shooting multiple shots for the purpose of stitching them together.

Rad