Quick Start

A quick tour of PhotoWarp

Once you've installed PhotoWarp and followed the setup assistant, you're ready to unwarp images. You should have some one-shot images handy to continue.

PhotoWarp should now have an empty "job" window visible. If for some reason a job window isn't visible, choose File → New Job to open one.

Job window

Empty job window

The process PhotoWarp uses to convert one-shot images into interactive panoramas is called Unwarping. Unwarping combines the steps of changing the geometric projection of an image, applying various image filters, and exporting to one or more panoramic file formats for presentation.

1. Add a Source Image

Let's begin by unwarping a single image. Select the image file you want to process. You can do this on Windows through an Explorer window by selecting the image file icon. On a Mac, select the file icons in the Finder, or select thumbnails in iPhoto for the image. Drag the image onto the PhotoWarp job window. Alternately, you can choose Source → Add Source... to choose image files from an open dialog.

You should see the image displayed in the main pane of the job window. The image is overlaid with a target mask, and the mirror is outlined with a solid target line.

Job with source

Job window with source

2. Position the Mask

If the target line doesn't outline the mirror correctly, you can reposition it by clicking and dragging in the center of the outline. To change the diameter of the line, click and drag on the line itself.

3. Check the Preview

Choose View → Preview to reveal the Preview window. This shows a low-resolution preview of the unwarped image.

Preview window

Preview window

Click and drag inside the preview image to look around. If you find a certain view appealing, click the Save button to use it as the default view (the view first shown when your panorama is displayed).

4. Choose Output Formats

Click on the Format button to switch to the Format pane. Icons for the current output formats are shown in the tray at the bottom of the window.

Format pane

Format pane

For this exercise, we'd like to generate a QuickTime VR movie and a simple web page for the panorama. A QuickTime VR format is already present in the tray, so we need to add a Web Script output for the web page.

Choose Format → Add Format → Web Script to add the Web Script format to the job. A new Web Script icon appears in the tray.

5. Unwarp

We don't need to change any settings here to get the output we want. To unwarp, just click the large Unwarp button. A save dialog will appear. Enter a name for your panorama, then click Save.

The job will begin to unwarp. You will see the image as it unwarps in the main pane.

Unwarping

Unwarping the job

6. Review Results

In a few moments, unwarping will finish and the Output pane will show. Here you can review the results by clicking on the output icons in the tray.

Output display

Output pane with web page

Congratulations! You've unwarped your first image. To unwarp more images, you can simply drag more images onto the job window, then click Unwarp again.

Unwarping your next panorama

Let's look at what steps you will take to unwarp other panoramas.

Once you've chosen the formats that you like to use, most of the hard work is done. If you have more images to unwarp, just follow the following steps:

Unwarping images in 5 easy steps:

  1. Create a new job, if necessary.
  2. Drag in source image file(s).
  3. Choose the default view for each source (optional).
  4. Click Unwarp.
  5. Review your results.

As you can see, PhotoWarp is very straightforward to set up and use, and stays out of your way when you just have some images to unwarp.

In the next few chapters, we will examine PhotoWarp's features in more depth.