Stitching pictures together

There are many specialised tools available to stitch, mosaic, or create a panorama. But if you just want to create a simple banner for your web site or blog, then you may be able to use your favourite graphics or image manipulation programme.

The following steps are how I created a banner for a web site using images from BurningWell.org and the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).

Create a new background canvas the final size of the banner that you want for your blog or web site. For this example, I chose the “Web banner common 468 x 60″ listed in the template drop-down list. The Create a New Image dialogue allows you to change the dimensions, so I changed the height from 60 pixels to 80 pixels.

Collate the images that you wish to use to create your banner. For example, I downloaded the thumbnails of four images of circus performers from BurningWell.org.

Add the images to your canvas. I aligned my file manager window alongside the GIMP canvas window and dragged the images onto the canvas roughly in the order that I wanted them.

Position the images as you wish. For example, I needed to move the images so that the person or action was centered in the banner.

Most graphics programmes will add new images into what is called a layer. Think of the images as printed photographs that you are spreading out on the table in front of you. You can choose to butt them up hard against each other or overlap them.

To change which image is on top of another, you will need to locate the dialogue or view function that allows you to manipulate the order of the stack of images.

I filled in the gaps by adding the image that has a black background and added it to either side to complete the banner.

Don’t want the rubbish bin in the picture

Being able to manipulate photographs on your computer saves you the expense of a dark-room and requiring a lot of skill in photography.

The most common manipulation (thing you can do with digital photographs) is to create a new digital image from the original so that your subject fills the picture. That is, you wish to remove a lot of the background or unrelated subject matter.

My first steps at macro photography are not going to pass muster with professionals, but it doesn’t matter as the purpose of having the picture is not to include it in any print publication of garden plants, but as a personal record that the Frangipani cutting that Ethel gave me is starting to do its thing. Actually, all of the pieces of Frangipani have started to grow much to my amusement as I had this notion that if one survived I would be happy.

Find on your computer the application or programme that allows you to do things with images. At last count, I had three such applications that would do the job, but decided on the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).

I don’t want the photo to include a lot of the Frangipani branches or the fence, which are out of focus anyway.

Remember select, then, do?

Select that part of the photograph that you wish to keep, in this case a budding Frangipani branch.

Find an option to crop that part of the photograph.

Then remember to save this new digital photograph. Note: It is probably a good idea to save your new image with a different name to that of the original. Digital cameras have silly number schemes for names anyway. I called my cropped digital photograph frangipani051118.jpg to include the subject and the date.