Max Lyons Image Gallery
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High Resolution Digital Images. All of the images on this site have been created by joining two or more individual photographs into one larger composite image. When done well, this composite image is completely seamless, and there is no indication of where the images have been merged. (Here are "before" and "after" pictures illustrating the individual and final composite images.)
Most of the images here were created using my own PTAssembler software, one of the most sophisticated panoramic image creation programs currently available. Combining 5 or 10 images from a 12 or 15 megapixel digital camera produces a picture with the equivalent of 60 to 150 million pixels -- capturing far more detail than is captured by any of today's consumer-level digital cameras, exceeding 35mm and medium format film cameras, and rivaling large format film cameras. Combining more images creates pictures with remarkable amounts of detail -- exceeding anything that can be accomplished with standard film or digital cameras. Because of this detail, these stitched images produce extremely sharp, detailed prints at sizes of up to 40x60 inches and well beyond. In contrast, prints of this size from single digital camera images typically lack detail and appear soft. Click here for a more detailed discussion about image detail, with an example from a 725 megapixel stitched image. Taking this idea to an extreme, I created in 2003 what was the first, stitched gigapixel image (over 1,000,000,000 pixels) which was exhibited in Las Vegas in 2004. Since then, I have been working on a number of similarly sized photographic images, some of which are on display at a new website: maxlyons.net. This site contains some of my "smaller" images, focusing on landscapes and architectural images.
Even after JPEG compression, the full sized versions of these images can be hundreds of megabytes, and would take a long time to download, even over a high bandwith connection, even if I had the storage capacity to make them available on-line. Moreover, they are far too big to be viewed easily in a web-browser. Thus, I've resized the images, shrinking them by about 95% (image area) from their original size in order to make them more manageable. I am making available prints from selected images exhibited here. Pictures for which prints are available will have a "Purchase This Image" link displayed. I also make digital copies of these images available for commerical purposes. Please contact me for more information.
Blended Exposures. This small gallery of "blended" images contains images of very high contrast scenes which typically cause problems for digital (and film) cameras. Because cameras cannot capture as wide a range of light and dark subjects as the human eye, these scenes would normally be recorded with bright areas as completely white, and/or shadowed areas as completely black. By taking two images (one that captures the bright areas correctly, and one that captures the dark areas) and then blending them using software, a composite image can be created that portrays the scene as a human eye would perceive it. The technique I use is outlined in a great tutorial on the Luminous Landscape website. Stacked Images. This gallery contains images that are produced by layering (or "stacking") multiple exposures of the same scene on top of each other. There are several results that can be achieved using this technique, but my primary objective is to create "synthesized long exposures"--lasting several minutes or longer. Most digital cameras (mine included) are incapable of taking exposures longer than 30 seconds, which normally makes star-trail photography, moonlight landscapes and other interesting images impossible. All of the images in this gallery were created using Image Stacker, a program I wrote to create these types of images. I also use PixelZap, a program I wrote to reduce the amount of image noise--a constant problem with long exposures taken with digital cameras. Thanks for visiting. Send any comments to Max Lyons.
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Why go through the exercise of "stitching" multiple images together, when one would
suffice? One reason is to create a panoramic image -- one that
covers a wider field of view than would be possible with a
conventional camera lens. Just as important -- perhaps even more
important for me -- is the ability to create big images.
For those interested in trying PTAssembler, I've written a
