NYC Pano

first shot at it... I think it needs work

sharpness? the right side seems to go out of focus a bit.

It's a good try (especially compared to my first attempt at one of these), but I can make a few suggestions.

1) Make sure your tripod is level. Hopefully, there will be an actual level somewhere on it you can use to make sure you don't get a tilted horizon.

2) Focal length is important. If you're set to too wide an angle, it will look unnatural, and may need lots of cropping. Best results, I've found, come from using a focal length of around "normal," meaning that what you see is the same as you would see with your own eyes at the same vantage point. For full-frame DSLRs, that ought to be around 50-55mm; for DSLRs with a 1.5 magnification (like most) it would be around 33mm or so. For compact cameras, it's a bit more tricky, but try to set the image on your LCD so that it isn't noticeably wider than what you see when you take your eye away from the camera.

3) Find the most important part of your panorama -- usually it's the midpoint. Find the proper focus and exposure of that part of the scene, then put your camera on manual and dial in those settings. Don't have the camera on auto -- few things mess up panoramas more than having the focus and exposure change from section to section.

4) Make sure you have enough overlap between shots. I try to start each shot at the midpoint of the previous one. It makes it easier for your software to stitch them together.

5) No matter which software you use to stitch, be prepared to take the resulting panoramic image into Photoshop or whatever image editor you use for a quick touch-up -- you'll rarely get everything right without it.

Hey...I think I just found another article topic for my website. ;-)

which is not as good as cs3, from what I have read, but it is what I have

good pointers, thanks... and yeah that would make a fine article for a website

The view looks familiar... I have some totally blurry evening shots from a few months ago that "feel" to my memory like this shot.

park/fishing pier there

Really nice. Good job putting it together in PS.