I have walked past the yucca plants growing on a hilltop in a local park for more than twenty years. I don’t photograph them every time I walk by, but as a photo subject they are up there with the Statue of Liberty in terms of being obvious. Recently the lighting was good, so it was time for yet another yucca photo.

There was back lighting on the dried grass running up the hill, so it was time to feature the grass. I was only carrying a pocket camera on our early evening walk. I took three frames to cover the hill up to the hilltop yuccas:

I left the camera on automatic, so it adjusted the focus and exposure for each frame. To get a blue sky to appear blue, one of the frames has to be nearly filled with sky. To let the software transition gradually, there should be a frame that includes some sky and some ground. The near foreground will be sharp if there is a separate frame with a relatively narrow range of close distances.

Once the frames were captured, the Photoshop stitching worked in automatic mode, and there was only cropping and minor tweaks to contrast and sharpness after that to yield:

The sequence is (1) the whole sky to get blue, (2) some sky for the transition, and (3) a near foreground for close-up focus.

We have tutorials on splicing, perspective correction, and back lighting on the QSA site.