Scan & Stitch

At my old place I had a corner of a room where I could set up a little makeshift photo booth complete with soft lighting. I used it to take snapshots of stuff I was selling on ebay as well as things I wanted pictures of like LP covers, toys, and even movie posters.

At my new place I just don't have the room, also my really nice cannon gave up the ghost. I still have a small pocket digital camera but it's really not the same. It does ok photoing small stuff, but LP covers and huge movie posters are a pain in the ass.

Not that it was easy when I had a dedicated space, it would take me sometimes 15 to 20 tries to get a centered squared picture. I had looked into scanning large images and stitching them together with software, but at the time (3 years ago) the software and results just wasn't were I wanted them to be.

Last night after miserably failing at taking some photos of some original artwork I got the idea to give the whole image scan and stitch thing another try. I downloaded five pieces of software last night. Some trial versions, others completely free, and one I already owned.

I was looking for the simplest route, add the separate images hit a button sit back and wait for a big finished picture. I was also looking for a tool that would let me tweak the individual parts to my liking. I won't go into detail about the ones I didn't like but rather the ones that produced the best results without much fiddling.

AutoStitch [download]

Very simple to use program that produced great results on almost always the first try. The Windows app is free for noncommercial use, Mac users are out of luck with the exception of an iphone version.

Photoshop CS3 Auto-Align & Auto-Blend Tools [download]

I haven't upgraded my copy of Photoshop for a couple of years but I really don't see the need, CS3 does everything it's always done and I'm still finding new tools to use everyday like the auto align/blend tools. These two tools work in tandem to make great single images out of a lot of smaller ones. I like that it's all done in the same Photoshop interface we have all grown to know. It gives you great control over each image. If you already own Photoshop it's worth searching for some tutorials on image stitching rather than buying a standalone app.

Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) [download]

I know it's hard to believe that Micro$oft produced something worth while that's not only free but also works rather well. How good does it work? This was the only program I was able to load a really big composite into and get a near perfect picture the first time. If your a Window's user it well worth the download.

Below are some examples of my stitch's. Note: I used a really cheap thin profile flatbed scanner I took the lid off of and turned upside down on the covers and posters. It's really a crappy scanner, producing scan lines on all of my pictures. The same results can be produced with out the lines if a better quality scanner is used.

AutoStitch was responsible for this one, this was the

result after the first try, not perfect but still very good

This one was done in Photoshop, almost perfect if it

wasn't for the scan lines

The back cover, look how well Photoshop lined up the
small text without much tweaking

Satanik OST Picture disc, Stitched with M.S. ICE

A true testament on how well M.S. ICE works

5 rows of 6 separate images, 30 images total

This was the outcome, first try.