WetLeather Motorcycle Rider Information

P-shop CS3 has an interesting new feature which automates the process of creating panoramic photos. I decided to play with it this week at my son Cole's soccer game last Wednesday. I picked a spot to stand next to the field, took a light reading, and set the aperature and shutter speed manually to ensure consistent exposure in each shot. I then took six photos, moving across the panorama, ensuring that there was some overlap in each frame.

Because this was a soccer game I had to shoot quickly, otherwise I'd have players appearing in multiple frames. Of course there are times when this can be funny, like in large group photos, but that wasn't what I was going for here. So I waited until the action was near one of the goals and started shooting.

After scanning the six images into Photoshop, I clicked File --> Automate --> Photomerge, selected the six images, and clicked OK. Photoshop literally did the rest, detecting common elements at the edge of each photo and seamlessly weaving them together into a new PSD image, with each frame a separate layer. Here's the result:

Click here for a slightly larger version. One frame is a bit blurry (I must have jiggled the camera in my excitement) but overall I'm pleased with the result. One significant problem, however, is that there are dark areas in the region where each frame meets. I *think* this has something to do with the lens on my camera. Does anyone have ideas on how to avoid lens-related exposure issues such as this?