Update: The book is now available in English under the title 'Assembling Panoramic Photos: A Designer's Notebook', available online at O'Reilly.
French VR photographers Laurent Thion and Gilles Vidal recently published a Photo Panarama book in collaboration with six other photographers. The glossy French-language book, (soon to be published in Spanish and possibly English) ‘ Cahier 17 du Designer: Photos Panoramiques par Assemblage’, published by Eyrolles, (96 pages, Euros 22.00), shows how to assemble photographs in the panoramic format through a series of eight chapters, each using different techniques. Various software, such as Stitcher, QuickTime VR, Images Assembler, Panotools, CubicConverter and Photoshop, used for each pano is discussed. The eight ‘making of’ chapters vary topic matter from landscapes, interiors, photomontages, etc. Each creation makes it possible for the reader to follow a particular artistic approach.
Laurent Thion writes, “some workshops are directly in relation with QTVR (mine, Gilles) but others are only dedicated to print pictures. But in each chapter, there are some tips anybody could use in a QTVR product.”
The author of each chapter chose one of their own panoramas and details the process from capture to end product in about ten pages of color drawings, photos, diagrams, software and text. The book is in French only (which I do not understand unfortunately) but appears to be targeted to the amateur panorama photographer, as well as those more experienced with a view to learning specific techniques. It’s certainly well laid out, with lots of photos and illustrations in every chapter detailing the specifics of each author’s process.
Chapter 1: Bertrand Bodin’s chapter, ‘Cascades de glace’ focuses on one panoramic print picture produced from four separate photos, with a fine optimization of contrast and color.
Chapter 2: Arnaud Frich’s ‘Au restaurant’ uses the same approach as in Chapter 1 but with geometry corrections, because it’s an inside view and it need to be perfectly straight.
Chapter 3: Albert Lemoine adds some characteristic panoramic artifacts to standard photos with Photoshop for some spectacular effects.
Chapter 4: Christophe Noel chapter details the process of creating a multi self-portrait of the artisan author working in his trade with Photoshop and includes the sketches he made to set up the portrait.
Chapter 5: Sacha Popovic starts with the same process as a QTVR pano but the final picture is optimized for a printable version with some specific work in Photoshop. (Jook Leung, Romuald Vareuse and some other are doing these kinds of pictures.)
Chapter 6: Peet Simard uses many photos to create a wide angle rendering. Peet uses iView MediaPro2, Stitcher 4.0, Photoshop and The Imaging Factory’s Plug-in De-Barrelizer.
Chapter 7: Laurent Thion describes the process to build a specific cubic QTVR render. The planar projection in the book is only to show the process and is not a printable specific work. This picture is only for screen view and not composed for print. Laurent uses Photoshop, Panotools and Cubic Converter.
Chapter 8: Gilles Vidal uses Stitcher 4.0, Photoshop and QuickTime 6.5 to build a cubic QTVR, using the Stitcher 4 new functionalities to resolve problems about reflections on the water of a Venetian canal and to integrate moving people. His picture was taken with multirow method, and the psd export from Stitcher 4 is well explained.
