Alain Hamblenne, an independent graphic designer and teacher of visual communication and panoramic photography at the École Supérieure d’Infographie (Haute École Albert Jacquard) of Namur (Belgium), has just created a stunning 3D and high definition virtual tour of Saint Jacques church.

If you want to fully enjoy his work, just slip your anaglyph lens (red/blue) on your head & use fullscreen mode to appreciate details. You can also have a look at Alain’s previous panorama using the same technique: Liège-Guillemins train station & learn more about his know-how concerning 360° virtual tour & panoramas.

Here is an extract : «  If you don’t want to complicate your life much with technique, you should know there are efficient software for easy panoramic photos stitching. The one which won the public’s support is Autopano Pro 2.6.1 (or Autopano Giga 2.6.1, more complete). It deals with most of the corrections that may be needed for the stitching of pictures. Distortion, vignetting, exposure are automatically optimized to get the cleanest render. Even better, Autopano Pro is able to find stitched panoramas automatically by searching in a file of photos with great efficiency : it even stitches vertical and horizontal photos together successfully!

Declic Photo is available at http://www.bopresse.fr/declic-photo-magazine-abonnement-1-an-france-metropolitaine.htm

Kolor has recently launched Neutralhazer, a new filter for Photoshop which removes the haze in photos. Franz Szabo, an Austrian photographer, has tested Neutralhazer – « a clever tool » – and talks about the experience concerning:

• The plugin installation
• Pictures uploading (JPEG, TIFF)
• The adjustment of intensity correction
• The adjustment balance between foreground & background

In order to test Neutralhazer, Franz selected a sunny panoramic view of Wurzeralm, a ski resort in Austria. Franz Szabo’s final opinion: “Neutralhazer, a simple tool offering incredible results with an excellent value for money”.

Read the article (in German)

More about Neutralhazer

Discover “Top of the Alps”, the exhibition of Matthias Taugwalder and Willi P. Burkhardt, two pioneers of Alpine panoramic photography. The exhibition offers seven large-format panoramic images of different glacier-covered regions of the Alps.

In three walk-through 360° rotundas of varying sizes, visitors find themselves in an exhilarating Alpine landscape in which looming summits, plunging precipices and high Alpine glaciers transport them to a world that is normally inaccessible to them.

The extraordinary resolution of these cutting-edge panoramic photographs can be experienced on a touchscreen computer: a black dot in the panoramic view is transformed into a mountain climber armed with pickaxe and crampon.

The exhibition takes place in the Glacier Garden, Lucerne (Switzerland) until September 16, 2012.

> Visit exhibition website (in German)

> Read Matthias Taugwalder announcement

> Download Autopano Pro and Autopano Giga 2.6.3.

This free update brings bug fixes (see change log below).

The change log

Kolor released version 1.0.2 of its new Neutralhazer plugin for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. This free update fixes enhances the installation process.
If you have not tried it yet, discover Neutralhazer now and download a free trial.

> Download Kolor Neutralhazer 1.0.2

Keith goes trough:

• the software installation
• the automatic detection of panoramas
• the panorama editor
• the third-party plugins including the Autopano plugin for Adobe Bridge
• the gigapixel import module including the Gigapan input
• the different types of projections
• the rendering choices

You can read Keith Coopers’s full article by clicking on the thumbnail below.

Here is a stable version which fixes somes bugs such as windows installer.

Download Neutralhazer 1.0.1

What if you could get rid of the haze that tarnishes your landscape photos? Kolor launches today Neutralhazer: a filter for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements that removes the atmospheric phenomenon of haze from your photos.

The speciality of Neutralhazer is detecting the thickness of air in each pixel which allows for the definition of the areas of foreground and background: you can therefore keep the foreground intact and gradually remove the haze in the background, while choosing an intensity of correction.

In a blink of an eye, give back all the colors that your photos deserve.

Grab a license (39€) or try Neutralhazer for free: www.kolor.com/neutralhazer

Download the press release

Christian Bloch

Christian is an acclaimed Visual Effects Artist who has been working professionally in the field for years. He is the principal author of the famous HDRI Handbook. He was born in Germany and lives in Hollywood. His work can be seen in Star Trek: Enterprise, Smallville, Invasion, Lost, 24, and a growing number of movies and commercials. He has been a pioneer in the practical application of HDRI in post-production, specifically under the budgetary and time restraints of TV production.

Ignacio Ferrando Margelí

Ignacio is a multimedia developer and photographer through the company Ábaco Digital that he founded with a friend in 1998. His passion for panoramic photography led him to push the techniques to the limit to capture impossible panoramas. He creates impressive virtual tours that always make you wonder how he could shoot them.

Uwe Steinmueller

Uwe is recognized as a leading photography workflow expert. He was born in Germany and has been living in the US since 1999. He works with his wife Bettina as a photographer team: Bettina focuses on the artistic expression and Uwe handles both the artistic and the digital workflow. Their favorite subjects are nature and urban landscapes and their hidden details. They both run Digital Outback Photo which is one of the premier digital fine art websites in the world.