Sizing issues with panorama's

Hi all,
I am trying out panorama's for the first time and have came unstuck whilst trying to save my picture. What dimentions to I save it at. Typically I save my pictures at 3 sizes. 3600 x 2400 for printing, 1024 x 1024 for POTN and 800 x 400 for flickr.
What do I save a pano at ?? Does it make any diference how many shots I take ? I blended in PSE7 and I use LR3 too.
Thanks,
Ian

Save it at the size you processed it, then resize for printing or web use as required. My A3+ R2880 will print 13" wide at 360ppi, so 4680 pixels by as long as I want, 10 metres? No problem!

The number of seperate shots makes no difference. I prefer to overlap my frames by at least 50%. I do flatten the image because I can easily upset the hard work I've done blending the pano otherwise.

Thanks for your reply Richard,
I blended it in PSE7 then exported it into LR3 to do my PP workflow. When I look to export from LR3 my options are the size of the previous pic I processed, ie, one of the sizes I mentioned above..... What pixel size should I aim for on each side. I did do a 50% overlap, I only blended 3 as I was just trying out PSE7 to see how it does with panos.

Ian,

What pixel size you save it at all depends on what you intend to do with the image. I never throw valuable pixels away, I've spent a lot of money on kit that gives me 21.1mp and I fully intend to hang on to as many as I can.Does LR really limit your options to that extent?

No LR allows you to specify any size you want for an output file. In the export dialouge you have the opertunity of setting maximum sizes for one or both dimnsions of an image. If you leave them both blank then it will output at the original size (inclding any crop you may have set). If you need the image to fit a particular height or width then set that value and the other size will be set automaically. The final option is for the situation where you need the image to fit in a box of arbitary size, such as posting on POTN, where you would set the POTN limit of 1024px in each size box and it outputs a file with the long edge at the correct size for you. There are also options in the export to stop a smaller (for example one that has been heavily cropped) from being resized up to fit the output dimensions. This is all done automatically so that you can output a large batch of images with one command. There are lots of options for export, and if you just use the export command it remembers the last settings used. Of course as with most LR functios you can save a set of output settings as a preset, and it coms with 3 to start you off, harddrive, facebook, and iirc flicker. That is just the export to file options, there is then also a whole other section of LR devoted to direct printing.

Al

Ian, the size in pixels is a bit irrelevant, since you are already starting with mult-megapixel shots which can be printed quite large and stitching them together makes for an even larger potential print size.

To me when I think about printing a panorama I'd think more about the framing dimensions -- do you want to frame this with a "custom" frame, made to your specifications, or do you want to be able to walk into a crafts store or go to an online vendor and find a frame that would "fit" at a lower price?

such frames are available, like, say, a 12x36 frame, you will just want to crop your pic to fit a frame size. Or, you can print your pic with a border so that it will fit, or you can use matting with your pic to fit a frame.

I wouldn't "resize" a pic to a specific pixel resolution unless you had a good reason to. Yes, you could resize to get a smaller file size, or yes, you could resize for a large print that you then apply some sharpening to for the large size, but say you want a 6x18 print or a 12x36 print you really don't need to worry about resizing/resampling.

Aaaaah the light bulb has just illuminated. I understand now, I just resize for the longest side then the rest is done for me.......... Thanks for everyones help, now I'm off to do some more
Ian