How to Make a Panograph: Easy Illustrated Beginner Tutorial

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: April 5, 2021 Tested

A panograph, or a David Hockney collage, is an assemblage of overlapping photographs to make a bigger picture. Designed to mimic the way your eye captures a scene, panographs of landscapes or architecture make for an eye-catching decoration in any room. By capturing the photos from a single location and combining them digitally, you can make a panograph of whatever you want!

Part 1

Part 1 of 2:

Taking the Photographs

1
Find something interesting to shoot. As you’ll need to take multiple pictures to create a panograph, you’ll need to choose something relatively stationary to be the focus of your image. Look for large buildings, interesting architecture, or open landscapes which will remain mostly still for the 20 or so minutes you’ll need to capture every picture.^{[1]
X
Research source}
- Pick something that has 1 or 2 obvious focus points that your eye will be drawn to. This will give you a clear starting point when assembling the panograph.
- A landscape or building with clear lines or sharp edges will be easier to put together when you’re finished.
2
Set your camera to a fully manual mode. If any setting on your camera is set to automatic, it will change as you move your camera around to take photos and make your panograph inconsistent. Disable any automatic settings on your camera, either by setting the camera to a manual mode or disabling each automatic setting yourself.^{[2]
X
Research source}
- Most DSLR cameras will be easily able to switch to a fully manual mode by adjusting the dial on the top. The manual mode will normally be indicated by the letter M.
- If you are taking pictures with a smartphone, you may need to download a custom photograph app in order to set it to a manual mode. Look at the app store on your chosen device to find a photography app with a manual mode that works for you.
3
Adjust the settings on your camera. Point your camera at the central or focal point of your panograph, and use it set the white balance, focus, f-stop, shutter speed, and zoom on your camera. Take a few test pictures and adjust the settings further until your first picture looks the way you want it to.^{[3]
X
Research source}
- If you’re unsure how to adjust any of these settings or don’t know what they do, check the instruction manual for your camera or learn more about taking photographs.
- Make sure you don’t adjust any of the settings while taking pictures for your panograph.
- Zoom your camera in to make a panograph made up of more pictures, or keep it zoomed out as far as you can go.
4
Choose a place to stand while taking pictures. In order to construct a good panograph, the perspective has to stay the same while the camera tilts around the capture the scene. Choose a point with a good view of the main focus of your panograph, looking through the viewfinder on your camera to make sure it provides the framing that you want.^{[4]
X
Research source}
- Make sure you choose a place you can stand comfortably for 20 minutes or so. Don't pick somewhere with a lot of traffic, or anywhere unstable or dangerous.
- To keep the camera perfectly still, lock it to a tripod placed on the perfect spot. Loosen the ball head and use the handle to rotate the camera around the scene slightly as you take photographs.
5
Take the first photograph. Standing in your chosen perspective point, rotate your body and tilt the camera to the left and downward. Pick a starting point for your panograph that will make up the first picture in the bottom left corner. Without adjusting the settings, take the first picture for your panograph.^{[5]
X
Research source}
- The settings on your camera might feel off, or the picture you take might be slightly out of focus. Don't worry about this, as the settings are designed to draw your eye to the focal point of the panograph.
- You can choose a different starting point for slightly different effects. Start in the center and work outwards in a spiral for a more circular or spherical image. As long as you capture every part of the area you want to make into a panograph, it'll turn out great.
6
Rotate slightly to the right and take a second photo. Keep looking through the viewfinder on your camera and rotate it slightly to the right. You should still be able to see a small amount of the content of your first image on the left side of the frame. Snap the second picture, again without adjusting the settings.^{[6]
X
Research source}
- Make sure that around 1/4 to 1/3 of the left side of your first picture is included in the right side of your second picture. This will ensure that there is plenty of overlap when you go to construct your panograph.
- You can frame different points in the center of each picture you take to draw focus to them, as long as you can still overlap each image at the end.
7
Work in a pattern to capture the entire scene. Continue rotating your camera slightly to the left and taking another picture until you reach the point you want to be the bottom right corner of your panograph. Tilt the camera up slightly, so it still overlaps with the previous picture, and begin working back across the scene in the other direction. Repeat this process until you've captured everything you want in your panograph.^{[7]
X
Research source}
- Its better to have too many pictures than too few. Capture more images than you think you'll need to ensure you cover the entire scene and don't miss even a tiny point.
- The number of photos you need to take will depend on how zoomed in your camera is and the size of the area you need to capture, so there's no perfect number of photos you need to take.
- Any pattern of taking photos will work, as long as it's something you can easily follow.
Advertisement

Part 2

Part 2 of 2:

Assembling the Panograph

1
Choose a photo editing software to use. Assembling all of your photos into a single panograph will use a bit of computing power and some special tools, so a good photo editing software is a must. Choose something such as Photoshop or GIMP, which allow multiple layers of photos, easy rotating and transforming, as well as the ability to edit the opacity of your images.
- You may be able to construct your panograph in a software like Paint or Paint.net, but it will be very difficult.
- Photoshop is a professional photo editing software, so it works very well but is also quite expensive for casual users.
- GIMP is a free photo editing software with many of the same capabilities as Photoshop, so it's a great option for making a panograph.
2
Import the photos into your photo-editing software. Transfer all of the images you captured from your camera onto a folder on your computer. Open your photo-editing software of choice and import all of the photos into a single document. Keep each of the photos on separate layers so that you can move and edit them more easily.^{[8]
X
Research source}
- In Photoshop, select “Files”, “Scripts”, and then “Load Files into Stack”. This will bring up a window where you can browse for images you want to import. Select OK once all of your images are selected to bring them into a new file.^{[9]
  X
  Research source}
- In GIMP, press select “Files” and then “Open as Layers” to select images to import from a file browser.^{[10]
  X
  Research source}
3
Set the opacity of each layer to 50%. One of the benefits of working digitally is that you can see through the images to line them up perfectly. Select all of the images in your photo editor and change their opacity to be around 50%, so you can just see what's underneath them.^{[11]
X
Research source}
- Set the layers themselves to be opaque, rather than editing the opacity of the images. The former will only change the way they appear, whereas doing the latter will permanently edit the images themselves.
- In Photoshop, you can select all of the layers by selecting the first one, then holding down the Shift key as you select the last one. Edit the opacity of the layers by clicking on the “Opacity” drop-down menu and lowering the slider to 50%.
- In GIMP, you must select each of the layers and edit their opacity individually. One by one, click on each layer and lower its opacity with the toolbar above the “Layers” tab.
4
Increase the size of your canvas. Importing the photos will have set the size of your canvas to the size of your largest photo. As you’re combining the photos, you’ll need a much bigger area to work with. Click and drag to expand the corners of the canvas, or adjust the size of the canvas in the image settings.^{[12]
X
Research source}
- In both Photoshop and GIMP, select “Image” and then “Canvas Size” to increase the canvas size.
- Make the canvas 3 or 4 times bigger than it is currently. This will give you plenty of room to work with, and you can crop the image once you're done if you want to remove some excess white space.
5
Overlap the images to create a single picture. Choose an image to use as a starting point and begin assembling your images like a puzzle. When you find parts of a picture that have the same features in them, rotate, resize, and move the images around until they perfectly overlap. Repeat this process until you have a single image.^{[13]
X
Research source}
- Depending on how big your panograph is and how many pictures you took, this may take a while. Work slowly and patiently to get the best results.
- If you run out of space, increase the size of the canvas rather than trying to move the images around. You can always crop the image when you’re done.
6
Reset the opacity of the images. Once your panograph has been assembled at 50% opacity, you can reset the opacity to full to see how it looks. Select all of the layers and turn the opacity back up to 100% to make your images fully opaque.^{[14]
X
Research source}
- If you like the way your panograph looks when it is slightly transparent, you could leave it like that. Play around with different opacities on different layers until the image looks the way you want it to.
7
Move the layers forward and backward to change the focus. With the images at full transparency, the lines between each of the individual pictures might become more obvious. Reduce these or alter their placement by bringing more prominent or interesting images to the front. Move the individual layers around to change the look of your panograph.^{[15]
X
Research source}
- If you have an object that you want to be a clear focal point, bring an image with that object to the very front of the panograph. This will make clear, distinct lines around it that make it stand out.
- In both Photoshop and GIMP, you can move layers to the front of the canvas by dragging them towards the top. You can also move layers backward by dragging them closer to the bottom.
- If you're using a different photo editing software, you may not be able to adjust the positioning of each image once you've set it into place.
- If you find your panograph looks too crowded, you could try deleting images from it entirely. Find dense spots in the panograph and delete different layers around it. Make sure you don’t delete anything that leaves a blank spot in the middle of your picture though!
8
Flatten the pictures into a single image. Take a look over the panograph and make any final adjustments you want to make. Flatten all of the layers into a single image, which will make the file size smaller and the image much easier to move around.^{[16]
X
Research source}
- In Photoshop, select all of the layers, right-click on one, and select “Flatten Image” from the menu that appears.
- In GIMP, you can right-click anywhere in the “Layers” and select “Flatten Image” from the menu that appears to flatten all of the layers into one.
- If you want to continue editing your panograph, you can skip this step, although it will make subsequent steps more difficult. Alternately, you could save a copy of the Photoshop or GIMP file somewhere before flattening the image.
9
Apply any final color correction to your panograph. Select the flattened image in your photo editor and apply any final adjustments to the brightness, contrast, saturation, or anything else you want to edit. Play around with all of the adjustments in your editing software until your panograph looks exactly the way you want it to.^{[17]
X
Research source}
- In Photoshop, select the layer your panograph is on and go to the“Image” menu in the top bar. From the drop-down menu that appears, choose “Adjustments” and select the parameter you want to edit. A pop-up box will appear to let you adjust the image accordingly.^{[18]
  X
  Research source}
- In GIMP, select your panograph layer and go to the “Colors” menu in the top bar. From the drop-down menu that appears, choose the parameter you want to edit and alter it in the pop-up that appears.^{[19]
  X
  Research source}
10
Save and export the finished picture. Once you’ve perfected your panograph, it’s time to export it into a more manageable picture. Save or export the file, as a PNG or something similar to maintain the high quality, to a location on your computer where you can easily find it.^{[20]
X
Research source}
- In both Photoshop and GIMP, go to the “File” menu in the top bar and choose “Export” from the drop-down menu that appears. Choose a file type such as PNG to maintain the high quality of your image, and press “Export” to save the image to a chosen location.
Advertisement

Expert Q&A

Search

Add New Question

Ask a Question

200 characters left

Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.

Submit

Tips

You could also assemble a panograph by hand if you have printed out the pictures. Stick them to a wall or canvas, overlapping images to create a single finished picture. It might help to lay them out first to get the arrangement perfect before sticking the photographs in place.^{[21]
X
Research source}

Thanks
Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Share your picture online so that other budding panographer’s can see it! There are plenty of panographs uploaded to Instagram and Flickr that you can add to or look to for inspiration.

Thanks
Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
If you accidentally change the setting on your camera for a few images, you may be able to edit them individually in a photo editor to stop them from standing out. Alternately, try making the whole image black and white to hide any differences in color.

Thanks
Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0