Create and Export Synth Panoramas to Photosynth with Photoshop

As of the start of this month, leveraging the Microsoft Image Composite Editor is no longer the only way to create synth panoramas for Photosynth.

Instead photographers can now turn to one of the main digital instruments for editing photos, Adobe Photoshop.

This is possible because the Redmond company just announced the release of the Photosynth Export Plug-in for Photoshop.

Put together by the same team that’s behind Microsoft ICE, the Photosynth Export Plug-in for Photoshop is available as a free download via Microsoft Research, and is designed to allow users to create panoramas with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements and then seamlessly upload them to the Photosynth web service.

“Photosynth added the panorama feature back in March, but up until now, Microsoft ICE was the only way to generate panoramas.

“A few clever people figured out how to bypass this restriction (see users xRez_Studio and OrasulMemorabil), but their solution takes a lot of effort.

“With the Photoshop plug-in, you can now use any stitching program (AutoPano, PTGui, Hugin, ICE, GigaPan Stitch, Photoshop, etc.), edit the results in Photoshop, and simply select “Export” from the Photoshop file menu to upload full-resolution, interactive panoramas to Photosynth,” a member of the HD View team stated.

With the Photoshop extension, customers are now able not only to put together immersive 360-degree panos of almost any size, but also to export them directly as synths.

And come 2011, more and more of new panoramas that have been stitched, blended and exported from Photoshop will make their way to the first page of Photosynth, according to the Redmond company.

“We are going to feature Photoshop-exported panoramas on the home page of Photosynth.com for a few days after the holidays, so if you'd like to be in the running for this honor, tag your pano with "photoshop" and we'll choose the best of them,” the software giant promised.

Photosynth Export Plug-in for Photoshop is available for download here.

Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) is available for download here.