Photoshop Tip: Create Layered Panorama PSDs with Microsoft ICE

Is Photoshop’s Photomerge too slow or not giving the results you need? Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) may be your answer. It’s one of the fastest panorama stitching tools and outperforms many commercial stitching software - yet it’s free. It can even save your panorama as a layered PSD file. Should you use Microsoft ICE instead of Photoshop’s PhotoMerge? Read this article and find out why Microsoft ICE may be a better choice.

How to Create Layered Panorama PSD with with Microsoft ICE

Step 1

Download and install Microsoft ICE. Microsoft ICE is only compatible with Microsoft Windows.

Step 2

Run Microsoft ICE then go to File > New Panorama. If your panorama is created using a robotic head like the GigaPan, then choose File > New Structured Panorama.

Step 3

If you are creating a structured panorama, Microsoft ICE will automatically detect the settings for you. If everything looks alright, click OK. If you have a GigaPan or other robotic panoramic heads, this Structured Panorama tool will be very useful for you. I found better and more consistent results with this tool than Gigapan Stitch.

Step 4

Microsoft ICE will now render your panorama. This may take a minute or more but it’s a lot faster than Photoshop’s Photomerge. Here’s a screenshot of Microsoft ICE when it’s done processing your panorama.

Step 5

Most of the time, ICE does a fine job detecting your images and creating the best panorama out of them. If the panorama doesn’t look good, you can tweak the projection method by clicking on the

on the top. This will bring you the Projection menu where you can change the type of projection. For our panorama, we can fix this by changing the projection from Cylinder (Horizontal) to Perspective.

Already you can see that the image has been improved and we can improve it more by adjusting the centerpoint. Start by aligning the horizontal line to your horizon. To do this, click and drag on the middle-vertical line. If your horizon is tilted, drag anywhere outside the bounding box to rotate the horizon.

Next, drag the horizontal line to rotate your panorama. Because the sidewalk is the primary subject of this photo, I rotated it so that the vanishing point appears at the end of the path. This fixes the perspective of the lamp and bricks at the expense of cropping off the side of the landscape. When you’re done, click Apply.

Step 6

Once everything looks good, you can crop it and save the image. We prefer to leave the cropping to be done in Photoshop or Lightroom so we won’t be cropping it. Before you save, set your Export settings to Adobe Photoshop. Enable Maximize Compatibility if you’ll be using this PSD/PSB file with Lightroom.

Step 7

Open the PSD/PSB file into Photoshop. You’ll see a lot of layers but the only one that matters right now is the Composite layer found on the very bottom. Hold Alt and click on the visibility icon so that only the Composite layer is visible.

Next, you’ll want to change the appearance of your layers so that you can see the thumbnails. To do this, right-click on the thumbnail of any layer then enable “Large Thumbnails” and “Clip Thumbnails to Layer Bounds”. Now it’s way easier to see your layers!

Step 8

Use the Crop tool to crop the image. Make sure that the “Delete Cropped Pixels” option is disable – this way you can uncrop the image at anytime.

Step 9

You can use layers to remove or add object. For example, I have a problem with this duck and want to remove him from the picture. To do so, find the layer without the duck, add a black layer mask to the layer (Layer > Layer Masks > Hide All), then used the Brush tool (B) with a soft edge to paint over the duck that I want to remove. This is the benefit of working on a layered panorama.

9 comments on “Photoshop Tip: Create Layered Panorama PSDs with Microsoft ICE”

Smithk403 says:

May 15, 2015 at 5:14 am

Really enjoyed reading ur blog.

Maidul Islam says:

September 20, 2014 at 11:03 pm

Nice technique. Really useful…amazing!! great to see the amazing work of great experienced art directors!!thanks for the post…

Jamie says:

May 6, 2013 at 12:06 am

Good info.. thanks! I'd love to have a Gigapan for myself one day.

Sila Mahmud says:

December 18, 2012 at 8:40 am

Your blog is great! These pictures are so interesting , I like cartoon very much, I want to make friends with you

Denver9999999 says:

November 7, 2012 at 6:30 pm

I don't care about making panoramas but the last picture of the sharpness is interesting. Can you do that with a set of photos and trick it into just sharpening the image? I.E. Using burst mode to take 3 pictures of the same scene then putting it into Photosync to sharpen it.

1. dennytang says:
  
  November 11, 2012 at 12:40 am
  
  @Denver9999999 Haven't tried but that's a great idea. Photoshop does have a way to do that using Stacking modes. You can go to File > Scripts > Load into Stack and then go to Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode > Mean or Median. Those are more for reducing noise but can sharpen the image as a result of less noise. Another software to try is PhotoAcute (http://www.photoacute.com/)
Matt says:

November 7, 2012 at 6:01 pm

Just noticed that you posted to Photosynth: http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=1b77eff0-b816-40bb-a131-a640cd31bce6

I'm not sure if you found the Photosynth Export plugin for Photoshop: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/PSPlugin/ ? This lets you use the workflow that you describe here and still upload to Photosynth.

1. dennytang says:
  
  November 11, 2012 at 12:33 am
  
  Thanks for the tip Matt! That's a useful addon
Pauline says:

November 7, 2012 at 6:51 am

Doesn't work for Mac :,(