# Merge to Panorama



## carleast (Jul 31, 2011)

I've just bought Lightroom and I'm trying to merge some photos together.  Can anyone tell me if this is possible in Lightroom?  I've gone to Photo>Edit In but the Merge to Panorama is greyed out.  Is this because I also need photoshop?  Seems crazy that I would spend a couple of hundred pounds and then need to spend hundreds more just to stitch photos together.


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## b_gossweiler (Jul 31, 2011)

Welcome to the forums, carleast 

Composing a panorama is not a function of LR, you need some other software to do that. If you have Photoshop, you can choose the option you mention, but there are also other, less costly options available. I use Photoshop Elements, which is available from about $150.00, and there might be other, even free solutions, which could be called via secondary external editors.

Beat


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## eschurr (Aug 10, 2011)

Beat,
what is your workflow to go from LR to PSE to do a pano?  I've done this before, and I even think I had a plug in to do it, but maybe I only dreamed it because I can no longer find an "edit in" or "export to" option to do it!


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## clee01l (Aug 10, 2011)

eschurr said:


> Beat,
> what is your workflow to go from LR to PSE to do a pano?  I've done this before, and I even think I had a plug in to do it, but maybe I only dreamed it because I can no longer find an "edit in" or "export to" option to do it!


I'm not Beat, but I do panoramas in PSE. I have PSE7.  The process may vary with older or newer versions. 

In LR, I elect every image that will go into the Panorama.
 With them all selected, I right click on one of the selected images to bring up the context menu where I choose {Edit-In}.
 This opens a TIFF copy of each with LR adjustments.
In PSE, I choose Photomerge and do all the necessary panorama bits
Since the Panorama target does not exist until PSE creates it, I have to save it as a new file back in the folder where the TIFFs were stored by lightroom.
Once I close PSE, I'm back in Lightroom where I need to Sync the folder that contains the Panorama file.


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## b_gossweiler (Aug 10, 2011)

Agreed.

Beat


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## eschurr (Aug 11, 2011)

Thanks, guys.  that all makes sense. I may be dreaming, but I swear I had a plug-in in LR that let me "merge to PSE panorama" directly from LR.  Eliminated the need to do all that intermediate stuff.  But maybe I just made it all up.


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## Chris_M (Aug 11, 2011)

eschurr said:


> Thanks, guys.  that all makes sense. I may be dreaming, but I swear I had a plug-in in LR that let me "merge to PSE panorama" directly from LR.  Eliminated the need to do all that intermediate stuff.  But maybe I just made it all up.


I don't know about PSE.
Having said that, I use PS, and when it is installed, there IS an option, not a plug-in, to "Merge to Panorama in Photoshop",
in fact my main computer is rendering a Panorama using that method as I type this post.

I assume PSE should also have such an option (mark photo series to be merged, then: Right-click -> Edit in -> Merge to Panorama in Photoshop(Elements)?).


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## RikkFlohr (Aug 11, 2011)

Perhaps this is what you remembered: http://thephotogeek.com/lightroom/elemental/


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## carleast (Aug 12, 2011)

Thanks for the replies.

I'm a relative beginner to all of this and I have to say that when I spent all of that money on Lightroom 3.0 I thought that it must do at least everything that Elements does.  I'm kind of shocked to find out that it doesn't.


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## eschurr (Aug 12, 2011)

RikkFlohr said:


> Perhaps this is what you remembered: http://thephotogeek.com/lightroom/elemental/



yes! that's it!  i need to look into why it doesn't seem to work anymore.  thanks!

at least I know I'm not (totally) crazy!


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## eschurr (Aug 12, 2011)

carleast said:


> Thanks for the replies.
> 
> I'm a relative beginner to all of this and I have to say that when I spent all of that money on Lightroom 3.0 I thought that it must do at least everything that Elements does.  I'm kind of shocked to find out that it doesn't.



Once you get familiar with LR you will be thrilled.  When I was first exposed to it I thought "huh? how do I do all the things I used to do in PSE?"  What I've learned -- and I think what we've all learned -- is that you can do 90% of what you used to do in PSE but a lot faster, easier, and in a non-permanent way in LR.  And there are many things you can do in LR that you can't do in PSE (publishing and building websites are two LR facilities I really love).  I only use PSE now and then for special things (like panos, or removing people from photos).  For most of my regular photography I can do what I need in LR.  I'm a total addict and convert!


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 12, 2011)

carleast said:


> I'm a relative beginner to all of this and I have to say that when I spent all of that money on Lightroom 3.0 I thought that it must do at least everything that Elements does.  I'm kind of shocked to find out that it doesn't.



Hi Carl, welcome to the forum!

It's a different tool to do a different job - Elements is targeted at editing one image at a time destructively, whereas Lightroom's designed to work with large numbers of images non-destructively.  They compliment each other so well.  Elements is great for doing detailed pixel-based retouching, and things like merging multiple images.  Lightroom is all about workflow - it'll take care of your cataloguing and organizing, do tonal edits quickly across hundreds of photos, and give you various output options.  

If you're still on 3.0, you might want to do the free update to 3.4.1 as there have been bug fixes along the way.  And make yourself at home here - it's a friendly forum and you'll learn everything you need to know.


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## carleast (Aug 13, 2011)

Thanks Victoria.  Looks like I'll have to buy Elements for the panorama.  In the mean time I'll keep checking out LR.


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 13, 2011)

If that's the only thing you need it for Carl, you might find some free alternatives such as http://hugin.sourceforge.net/


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## pdxrjt (Aug 13, 2011)

eschurr said:


> Once you get familiar with LR you will be thrilled.  When I was first exposed to it I thought "huh? how do I do all the things I used to do in PSE?"  What I've learned -- and I think what we've all learned -- is that you can do 90% of what you used to do in PSE but a lot faster, easier, and in a non-permanent way in LR.  And there are many things you can do in LR that you can't do in PSE (publishing and building websites are two LR facilities I really love).  I only use PSE now and then for special things (like panos, or removing people from photos).  For most of my regular photography I can do what I need in LR.  I'm a total addict and convert!



Totally agree with this.  I end up using another editing program on maybe 1-2% of my photos.


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## carleast (Aug 14, 2011)

Victoria Bampton said:


> If that's the only thing you need it for Carl, you might find some free alternatives such as http://hugin.sourceforge.net/



Wow!!!  Just tried this out and it's amazing!  Thanks so much for the tip.


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