Hong Kong "planet"

[pdanev]

Finally I had a go at this "planet" type of thing myself, used one of my Hong Kong panorama pictures as a base for it. Changed the colours of the original panorama obviously, to get a bit of "fire" look.

[jayhawk]

Nice one!

[Alok]

someone please link me a tut?

[pdanev]

Pretty easy, no need for a tutorial.

Take an image, preferably wide panorama. Make sure the sides are the same so it can be joined together. E.g. copy a fraction of the right side, paste on new layer, flip horizontally, and put it onto the left side, make small adjustments to integrate into the picture. Stretch up your panorama so picture becomes a square, rotate by 180 degrees, go to polar coordinates and you're done.

Of course you'll need to smooth some parts out in the end, centre especially etc, but those are minor adjustments.

[MorroW]

You are freak, you know that?

Any change for 1600x1200 resolution wallpaper?

[pdanev]

Yes, but quality is not really good in such high resolution.

http://pic.phyrefile.com/2007/11/29/...0x1200_000.jpg

[Alok]

Originally Posted by pdanev

Pretty easy, no need for a tutorial.

Take an image, preferably wide panorama. Make sure the sides are the same so it can be joined together. E.g. copy a fraction of the right side, paste on new layer, flip horizontally, and put it onto the left side, make small adjustments to integrate into the picture. Stretch up your panorama so picture becomes a square, rotate by 180 degrees, go to polar coordinates and you're done.

Of course you'll need to smooth some parts out in the end, centre especially etc, but those are minor adjustments.

Yea, the basic idea was sort of clear, but what i meant was programs used, stitching and what not..

[pdanev]

Nothing, just pure and basic PS.

The basic panorama picture I used was done with autostitch, but other than that its nothing but PS. No add ons no plugins no fancy stuff. That's the beauty of it.

But like I said, the picture to start with doesn't have to be panorama. Its just nicer if you have a wider angle of view because then you have more stuff to wrap around your "planet". And the steps are exactly how I described them.

If you want a more automated version, DoN has done plenty of similar stuff and I remember him telling what he used. I think it was in the lens flair thread, look at all his posts (not that many) there you should be able to find what he uses. I actually find the method I used pretty simple and fast, so I don't personally see a need for anything automated.

[LurkerPatrol]

:O

I must make one now! +Rep for that!!!!

[pdanev]

http://pic.phyrefile.com/2007/11/30/HKDayPanorama.jpg

This was my original image. As you can see it's cloudy, so the background for the planet are in fact those clouds from the original.

The middle (sea) I had to work on a bit because after applying polar coordinates it had some patterns. So I took the original panorama, cropped out just the sea, stretched it to make a square. Then I could see there was some small vertical patterns that I could smooth out pretty easily. Applied polar coordinates, reduced size and placed over the planet. Then I think I copied it once again and set to colour so it glows a bit more.

The overall color change I got with a warming photo filter adjustment layer, set to 100%, and then a blending mode on the layer, can't recall which one exactly.

But again, these were just small adjustments for minor issues with this particular image.

PS: I forgot one thing, actually its pretty obvious and easy to fix, but still. After applying polar coordinates your corners will be have some stretching lines. Of course you'll have to fix that, just pick a colour from their range (usually blue since that'd be your atmosphere part), pick a large soft brush and paint them over.

edit: Here's an example.



This was just a shot from the ring, MXM in particular.
Anyway, I didn't bother to make this nice, just for illustration purposes that it works with any picture. Of course like I side the wider the batter as you will have more stuff to wrap around. This one I just flipped horizontally and extended my canvas, and then polar coordinates, that was it. You can also see that it helps if you have some foreground on your picture, sea river etc will work better, but then again it depends what you're after.

edit2: Same picture just rotated 180degrees before polar coordinates. Generally speaking you want to rotate your image before polar coordinates, so you have the sky on the bottom of the picture to have that wrapped around the edges. Otherwise your sky will be in the middle and everything else around it, also a nice effect, depends what you want.

[Alok]

So, having never used autostitch, just a question. When i take pics at 17mm say, there is some lens distortion, does autostitch take care of it?

[pdanev]

Autostitch takes care of everything no worry, just give it the pictures.

I mean it will align everything nicely (most of the time), but you may still see some signs from lens distortion. Though I wouldn't worry about it too much.

PS: the pictures I used for that panorama were at 6mm focal length.

edit:
http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Tracks
http://don.vn.cz/photos/planets/
These are the ones DoN made I was referring to earlier. His method is more elaborate than mine though.

Originally Posted by DoN

well, you need panorama that covers 360° horizontally and 180° vertically (so basicly EVERYTHING around you has to be in the panorama)...then its just matter of changing the projection (which can be done in many progs, including photoshop)