How to Stitch Your Shots Into a Pano

You can combine your individual frames into a single panoramic image (we call this “stitching”) in either Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, and it’s pretty much the same except for how you start the process, so I’ll cover both. In Lightroom: Press-and-hold the Shift key, click on the first thumbnail in the pano (not the one with your finger in it—the frame after that), then click on the last frame in the series (the one before your two-finger shot) to select them. Now, go under the Photo menu, under Photo Merge, and choose Panorama. If you’re using Camera Raw, press-and-hold the Command (PC: Ctrl) key, click on your pano images in the filmstrip along the left side of the window, and then press Command-M (PC: Ctrl-M). No matter which program you’re in, this opens the Panorama Merge Preview dialog, which shows you a preview of how your final stitched image will look. You have a choice of three different types of pano processing, and usually, it will choose Spherical, as that one is often the best for most panos. The middle choice, Cylindrical, is really more for architectural panos, so I don’t generally use that one, but there’s no harm in clicking it to see if you like the results better. You can also try clicking on Perspective, which tries to keep your lines straighter. (Note: It won’t always be able to render this choice, so if it doesn’t work for you, don’t sweat it—our first choice will almost always be Spherical anyway.) If you turn on the Auto Settings (or Apply Auto Tone and Color Adjustments) checkbox, it applies the Basic panel’s Auto adjustment when the pano is complete (I usually leave it on as a starting place, but lower the Shadows and raise the Contrast back up immediately).