Scanning & Stitching Layouts
Stitching Layouts in Paint Shop Pro
By Laurie Pawlowski
Jul 31, 2004, 12:53

Here’s how to “stitch” 12 x 12 layouts together using a scanner & Paint Shop Pro.  It shouldn’t be much different with other graphic software.  The menu’s might be a little different but that should be about all.

Scan your 12x12 layout twice (left half then right half) so you have both halves of your 12 x 12 layout scanned.  When you are done and open your scanned images into your graphics program you will have 2 images that look something like this.

Next you will make a new canvas in your graphics program.  I usually make my new blank canvas really big then crop my image after I get it all “stitched” together.  Really, this is nothing more then copying and pasting the 2 pieces together into one image by overlapping them.

 In the popup window (see below) I tell PSP I want my new blank canvas to be 2400 x 2400 PIXELS.  This should be plenty of room for me to copy and paste (overlap) both my images and line them up into one image.  I leave the background TRANSPARENT and the Colors at 16.7 Million.

Your screen will now look like this (see below).  Two scanned images and a blank canvas.

Next you will click on the Left side of your first scan to make it “active”.  From the menu you will choose EDIT, COPY

Then click on your BLANK canvas to make it “active” and from the Menu choose EDIT, PASTE AS NEW SELECTION (see below)!

Once the image comes up on the Blank Canvas you can drag it to the spot you want it and left click on it to set it down.

Now you will click on the second half of the layout to make it “active” and do the same steps as above.  From the Menu choose EDIT, COPY.  Click on the Blank Canvas and from the Menu click on EDIT, PASTE AS NEW SELECTION and you will now have both images on the blank canvas.

Here comes the tricky part.  While your second image is active on the blank canvas you will need to attempt to line it up (overlapping) onto the first image on the canvas.  Don’t worry if you don’t get it right the first time.  You can always click on EDIT, UNDO from the menu to try again (see below).

To “tack” the second image down you will click on the Selection Icon on the button bar

Then left click off in a blank space on the canvas and it will remove the “dotted” lines and “tack” your image overtop of the first one.

The hard part is finished.  Now from the Menu choose Layers, Merge, Merge All (flatten)  This will take the 2 layers you overlapped and merge them into one image.

Once your image is merged you can close the 2 original scanned images leaving just your merged image.  Next we need to crop the new image out of the blank canvas we “stitched it onto”.  To do this in PSP you need to click on the cropping icon on the button bar.

 Highlight the entire image area with the “crosshairs” and drag from upper left to lower right to highlight. Then from the menu choose IMAGE, CROP TO SELECTION (see below).

When you are done your new image should look like this…

Now you can resize the image to make it smaller if you wish to upload or email it as it will be much too large a file to email/upload at this resolution.  To resize the image, from the Menu choose IMAGE, RESIZE

For this image I resized the image to 35% of the original.  What result you are looking to achieve is to have your image no bigger than 600 pixels WIDE.  Don’t worry about the height of the pixels.  They will automatically adjust themselves proportionately.  In this case my resized image will end up being 585 x 618

This is what your finished “stitched” image looks like after it’s been resized (below).

Save your image from the menu choosing FILE, then SAVE AS (see below)

In the popup box (see below) point to the folder you wish to save the image in

Be SURE TO SELECT JPEG-JIFF Compliant from the Save as type box.

Click on Save and it’s done!

Hope this tutorial helped!  Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro are very similar and if you are familiar with Photoshop you should also be able to stitch your 12 x 12’s together.  This might seem complicated but it’s really not.  Once you’ve done it 2 or 3 times it’ll seem very simple.  It’s just a little time consuming that’s all.

Have Fun!