Archive for 360 photography

OSXcellence – DoubleTake Review

Aren’t panoramas dramatic? I think so, certainly, and given the number of images which I see online that are as wide as a bus, there are plenty of other photographers out there who like the format. Panoramic images do come with a down-side, however – you have to spend hours stitching them together. Photoshop does a reasonable job, but what about if you want a simple, quick stitch? This is the niche which the app DoubleTake is aiming to fill.

Echoone, DoubleTake’s developer, claims that this app is the “nano” of its genre, and DoubleTake lives up to that billing. Open the app, drag-and-drop in your images, and you’re ready to stitch. DoubleTake’s automatic detection of stitch-lines isn’t great, but manual positioning is quite effective. In addition to mouse-based manoeuvring, images can be adjusted in terms of rotation, tilt, direction and scale, with sliders.

Additionally, the overall image can be adjusted with the standard forms of adjustment – brightness, saturation, etc.

One helpful feature that comes with DoubleTake is the ability to create 360º stitches. For a quick and easy 360º, DoubleTake works well enough, although I would recommend looking at specialist software if you’re going to work with 360s regularly. Read More→

360º Product Photography: by Michael Leather

As a photographer my preferred line of work is in the studio, taking shots of people and products. My aim is to always create images that need a minimal amount of post production. This not only saves me time but I feel it forces me to be a better photographer. If I take my time composing a shot with consideration to how it’s going to end up looking on my screen or in print then hopefully it will come out right with minimal post production work. It’s not easy to do this and far too often I hear people say ‘ah that will do, I can Photoshop it out’. True, with the right skill set on Photoshop there is very little that is not possible these days. But does that make you a better photographer, no it makes you a better illustrator or image retoucher or essentially a lazy photographer!

If you can get an image spot on with minimal editing why would you not choose that path? Unless you are more of a photo retoucher and enjoy editing image after image why do it? Well an answer to this question may lye in the economic climate of todays world. Businesses are having to become very clever in their marketing strategies and to keep on to of the game they need something fresh and new. Good photographers are no different; constantly on the look out for new ideas, new challenges and finding a niche or edge over the competition.

So you’re a product photographer and your client is looking for something different or fresh for their website, why not offer 360º Product Photography? Read More→