I have almost completed the rail laying of my first layout, and wish to place some backdrops before building any mountains or other scenery. I have 5 photos to join together as seamlessly as possible,could anyone please advise me how to go about joining them. They are on fairly heavy photo paper and cut very carefully so as to be square to each other. Many thanks in advance.
The hardest part is trying to hide seams in the sky part. Many folks using pre-printed paper or photo backdrops remove the sky part and paint their backdrop an appropriate blue (perhaps with it being a little lighter near the horizon, and with clouds) and then attach the backdrop over that.
If you are satisfied w/ the seam when doing a dry layout, I would locate the seam area on the backdrop and paint it to a close color of the sky, terrain etc. Your backdrops should be primed and any seams/ screws etc filled/ skimmed. Some have had success w/ heavy duty pre-mixed vinyl wallpaper paste. I have seen the excessive moisture affect some of the thinner papers and have caused bubbles, buckling. Spray adhesives work great, but give you no working or slip when installing. If there is going to be some excess cutoff of the backdrop, I would experiment w/ those first. The seams themselves can be glued w/ tube of clear wallpaper seam adhesive and rolled w/ the seam roller. Did the manufacturer suggest an adhesive?
Have you tried the option of taking the photos to your local Kinko’s or other print house & having them print them out as a banner? They can make them in all sizes.
You can also set up the process in advance, using any number of ‘poster’ programs available for free on the 'net; these allow you to ‘stitch’ the pictures together & save it as a banner file, which you can then take to your local printer as described above.
I use one of these, an old one called ‘Poster 7’, to create overlapping pictures which then meld together, mosaic-style, to produce a large background. I simply input the photo(s) I want to use, then tell the program how big the space is that I’m trying to fill, & it prints it out on 8.5"X11" sheets, allowing for overlap, to cover the space. One tip: use matte paper, as a glossy stock is terrible for taking pics later, as you can see in the second pic.
Two techniques that I use are:
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Cut one side of one backdrop starting at the top and slanting it down to the end, following some scenery contour line such as a hill. Then glue that on top of the other backdrop near the end (overlap it) to hide it’s seam. This can use a lot of backdrop to do properly.
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Plant a tall tree directly in front of the seam, really close to or touching the backdrop. Sometimes I use a half tree, similar to a background building flat.
Do the “stitching” programs allow you to save the composite image as a graphic file (TIF, for example)? If they do, and are of sufficient resolution, you could take the resulting file to a digital shop and have them print the image as a poster (single sheet). Thanks for the ideas. Glenn
Here’s a link to a list of various stitching programs. Most surprising in the list is the “Windows Photo Gallery” - I too was not aware that I had a free stitching program already installed, - and highly recommended!
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-digital-image-stitcher.htm
Have fun!
I have used quite a few of your suggestions for joining my photos and my first effort turned out really well. Many thanks to you all…
Thanks VERY much for this guidance and the link. I presume I can take the composite (stitched) image to a printer and have a single-sheet background made (assuming I have the format right). This is a huge help, thanks. Glenn
Hi folks. Does anyone have experience working with FedEx-Kinkos on one of these? I’m wondering about the available formats, etc.
What options for paper do they have, and will their paper hold up long term?
Looking for someone who has used them before since I have one close and it would be the best option.
Thanks!
I would be hesitant to use a banner size sheet of paper because it would be very easy to have problems handling the installation. On my layout I took a 5-7 foot images and cut them into smaller sections on the computer and then printed them on a color laser so that there would be 1/16 inch overlap. The first ones I did, I installed them edge to edge but then after the adhesive dried they shrank slightly and left gaps. On the second go around I overlapped them so that the overlaped edge was away from what ever the normal line of sight would be. It is almost impossible to see the joint. As has been suggested above if there is a natural edge in the picture that would probably be a good place for a seam between pictures. I also agree that the best way to do the sky is to paint the backdrop and cut the sky off of the pictures.
Several modelers here in the Milwaukee area have used the services of a guy who helps with backdrops. And one of his skills is taking photos of structures, such as he finds in a Walthers catalog, carefully cutting them out and mounting them on good stiff cardstock. If he can match the perspective and general coloring of the backdrop, this give a slight but nonetheless impressive 3D effect. It is particularly effective when viewed head on (from the side you do slightly notice the thickness of the card stock but if edges are painted black this tends to disappear).
He also paints forest scenes or farm fields on this cardstock and similarly mounts it on the backdrop again to create an illusion of closeness and distance.
More to the point, this notion of 3D pop-outs mounted on cardstock is an excellent way to mask the joints between backdrops.
Dave Nelson
No different than installing wall paper is it?
sorry - double post
In our town there is a blue print company that will print banners from photo files. Their service is much more personalized than the Fed-Ex Kinkos in town. I would think there would be similar companies in most communities. I downloaded Windows Photo Gallery (thanks bigpianoguy) and it works well. The question is, would the resolution hold up when enlarged (to 1’ x 9’in my case). I used the highest res my camera (Canon digital rebel) would permit. The program doesn’t recognize RAW files so we’ll have to see. I took the resulting panorama into Photo Shop to crop it to the right format. Installing could be an adventure but I’m anxious to give it a try. Thanks for all the info in this thread. Glenn
Another thing I am curious about - would the final resolution be higher if you stitch, say, 5 photos versus 3, requiring less enlargement of the individual shots?
The big difference is that wall paper is usually applied vertically so gravity keeps it fairly straight. On a backdrop you will probably be applying a strip 1-2 foot tall by several feet wide. Depending on the type of adhesive you use getting a wide strip straight will be much more difficult.
Gwolfe
If we are talking the 10MP version of the camera, the degree of enlargement needed should lead to acceptable prints. (a 300dpi print would be about 13in wide; commercial backgrounds are typically 300dpi).
As the camera is a 3:2 ratio, the print size is about 11x17 per image, so you will need 6 images to fill the horizontal space (9ft you said?). Of course if you are cropping the height (probably the sky?), you would need fewer panels. Print resolution should still hold (keep in mind, high quality magazine or book photos may only be 150 to 175dpi).
Very helpful. I’m ready to shoot and try as soon as spring melts the 10" of snow that fell last night. Thanks.