In our ongoing coverage of the CS3 Beta we now get to the main show, Photoshop. In this part, we examine Auto Photomerge
Auto Photomerge
This new facility makes much use of the Align Selected Layers Based On Content and Blend Selected Layers Based On Content features to make the stitching or panoramas or mosaics easy.
It can operate in five modes
Auto seemed to always select Perspective, at least with me
Perspective
Cylindrical
Reposition only
Interactive Layout
I found Interactive Layout gave the best result for me, as these two examples show, including verticals. You can work manually or automatically.
You can turn off automatic snap to image, allowing you to position the images in anyway you like, including obviously strange ways.
Auto Photomerge works amazingly well. Since I have the latest version of Stitcher to review, I will do a comparison shortly. Photomerge certainly lacks the lens distortion compensation and calibration of Stitcher. That said, it still does an amazing job. I would have to say that what I have seen so far shows Photomerge to be excellent for panorama creation. One of the best things is that it leaves the image as separate layers with layer masks, so if you want to change something, it is easy to do so.