This is just a little post to show the progress of making a wide field micrograph. As the title states this can get a bit onerous given the time and effort it takes to finish one.
A wide field photograph is a stitch of many images to get one large very high resolution image, with a great amount of detail. In microscopy this is used since under a microscope it is nearly impossible to get a entire subject in focus, with this you can take small sections of the subject to get one fully focused image.
Lets start with this first one, this is a photograph. Just your basic standard issue photo. This along with about 350 other photographs will be put together to make one fully encompassing image.
This is the first section of the final photo and shows the bottom of our subject, this section stitched on Photoshop is roughly 75 photos.
As we continue stitching we see the second area, notice the overlap? This is needed so the processor can recognize familiar areas and a final image can actually be produced.
Third section, nothing really exciting here...next!
This is the final section, notice how its much larger then the rest? Terrible idea! This is about 160 photos and you start to see that the processor doesn't like that too much. With this much information at once you start to see your computer start freezing.
But with time and hours of stitching a load of photos you can finally be finished. To get this one finished I was using three desktops and a striking amount of patience. With a little cleaning up you can show to all your friends and endlessly be asked what it actually is.
That's the simple walkthrough. With time and patience- and a microscope anyone can do this. Its a enjoyable way of making the tiniest of things and making a grand display of it.
