"Stitching" a Picture Together

When a picture is too large for your scanner, you need to scan it in sections and stitch them together.  It's so easy because the computer does most of the work.  Here is an example:  This is a paper scrapbook page I made for my mother about the three years she spent in New York as a nanny.  It is 12x12" and will not fit in my scanner. I wanted to digitize it so I could share it with my children, as well as use it in an Internet book.

 This is how you do it in Photoshop Elements.
1.Scan the right side of the page and save it.  I like to include an "R" so I will know it's the right side.
2.  Scan the "L" side of the page.  (This could be "top" and "bottom" if you're scanning a long document. (Note that each part of the page is overlapped.  I usually scan each side as wide as it is on the scanner. That way it's easy for the computer to match them up.)

These are the two scanned sections, Left and Right

3.  In Photoshop Elements, click the Expert tab at the top, then go to Enhance, then Photomerge, then Photomerge Panorama.

4.  Click on the Browse button and select both files.

5.  Click OK.  Like magic, your two pieces will be blended together.  You may need to do some cropping around the edges depending on how good your scans were. If you get a question "Would you like to automatically fill in the edges of your panorama?" click Yes, and see how it looks.
6.  You can now save your image as a new digital page!

Here are some other things that may need to be stitched:

A piece of paper not available in digital format

A large family picture from the wall

A panorama picture that you took on location.  The bottom picture on this scrapbook page is the Waimea Canyon on Kauai, Hawaii.  I took it in four sections and stitched them together.  Best to use a tripod for this.  I didn't have one at the time, so I tried to keep the camera on the same level and overlapped the individual pictures.