Photo-Merge

This is a really simple, but really helpful tutorial. Ever take panoramic shots and then have to go through each one and try to find where they match up? Well, with CS3 you don't have to. Just open up as many shots as you want, go to File - Automate - Photomerge and select your settings. If you already have all the images open, you can just select Add Open Files. Then, sit back and watch as Photoshop automatically lines them up to each other, and uses masks to hide the parts that are not needed. Here's an example.

I took these six images. . .


















And, using Photomerge, got this:

Dark Photos

Sometimes it's simple impossible to get a shot that's neither blurry nor dark without professional equipment. Dark photos can be very interesting, but most often they need tweaked a little. These are just a few ways to handle dark photos.
I'm going to start with this photo.



You can always try lightening it with levels [Image - Adjustments - Levels...], but that often causes graininess with very dark images like the one I'm using. If you want a similar affect, you can try changing the exposure [Image - Adjustments - Exposure...]. If you raise the exposure, it will look just the same as if you raise the levels. The difference is that Exposure gives you two other options. Fiddle around with the Offset and Gamma Correction.



This does not look good on this photo, but it could certainly work for others. Another approach is to not try to change the darkness, but change the sections that aren't dark. One way to do this is by raising the contrast and/or brightness [Image - Adjustments - Brightness/Contrast...].