How to Create a Panorama

Using Legacy Charting, I’ve created a nice descendancy wall chart of my parents, showing off their kids and grandkids. At 59 1/2" wide, it’s fairly wide and will make a nice piece of artwork for the wall, especially if I choose the matte canvas paper type in the Order Options.

Every chart needs a nice background – a picture of the mountains, a nice sunset, or something meaningful to the family. The problem with adding a background picture to a wide chart is that it may appear stretched or pixelated because the dimensions of the chart are wider than the digital picture.

To solve this problem, you can create a panorama, or a very wide picture. Follow these steps:

1. Bring your digital camera to a scenic location. You’ll get the best scenic pictures by joining us on the 2009 Mediterranean and Greece cruise. (I just had to get that in somehow!)
2. Using your camera, take 6 or 7 pictures of the scenery. Just pan to the right for each subsequent picture, making sure to overlap between 25-50 percent of the previous picture.
3. Photo editing software will then stitch together all of the pictures, creating a wide panorama.

On our 2008 cruise to Europe, one of the countries we visited was Estonia. Here, we found a beautiful spot that overlooked the entire city of Tallinn. I wanted to remember the entire view, not just the small view my camera offered. I took six pictures, panning a little to the right each time. Using Photoshop Elements 6.0, I created a panorama using these steps:

1. In the Organizer part of the software, I highlighted all six pictures, then clicked on File > New > Photomerge Panorama.
2. Click on the Add Open Files button, and click OK.
3. Photoshop Elements then stitched all of the pictures together into a smooth panorama. After cropping it just a bit, the picture was over 200 inches wide – well wide enough for a good background for my chart.
4. Save the image to your hard drive.

To add the panorama as a background in Legacy Charting, follow these simple steps:

1. In Legacy Charting, click on the Appearance tab, then click on the Background button.
2. Click on Select Image, and locate the image.
3. Change the Display Options to "Stretch to Frame".
4. Adjust the Transparency slider until the chart looks great.

Print or Order the chart
So the chart now looks great on your monitor, but it will look even better hanging on the wall. On the Publish tab in Legacy Charting, you can either Print the chart to your printer, Export the chart to a file that can be taken to your local printing store, Email the chart to your family, or Order the chart through Legacy’s inexpensive chart printing service.

The best thing about our chart printing service is that when you click on the Order Chart button, in the right panel Legacy Charting displays the total cost of the chart based on your paper type, paper size, and quantity options you select. If the cost is a little higher than you want to pay, simply click on the Appearance tab, and using the Sizing button, make some sizing adjustments. The cost of the chart will automatically adjust too. This solves the problem of not knowing exactly how much the local printer store is going to charge you until you’ve given them your file.

When you’re ready, just click on the Purchase Chart button, fill in your information, and in a short time, your chart will be delivered to your front door.

About Legacy Charting
The Legacy Charting software is included at no extra cost with the Legacy Family Tree deluxe software. The chart seen below was created with the free Standard edition of Legacy. The only limitation in the free Standard edition of Legacy Charting is the number of generations, which is limited to four.