Ever been at some historic site or scene of grandeur and wish that you could capture the whole thing in one picture but you just can’t step back any more because of that cliff or lake?  Don’t fret.

All you need to do is start at the left (or right) and take pictures one after another capturing the entire scene with a little overlap between pictures.  Then, when you get home, put them all on your computer and fire up Windows Live Photo Gallery.  Windows 7 computers come with this, or you can download it at http://explore.live.com/windows-live-photo-gallery?os=other.

Once open, browse to where your pictures are located. Click on all of your sequence of pictures while holding down the CTRL key.  Then, go to the “Make” menu item and select “Create panoramic photo.”  The software will do its thing and out will pop a single picture.  Cool.

Occasionally you may find a few errors in the transitions between pictures but you can use a photo editor such as Photoshop or Gimp to smooth those out.

Good luck!