Little Planet Photography

by EstefaniRM

17K21251

Intro: Little Planet Photography

I have decided to make this tutorial because I wan to share with you this photography techique.

I love it because is very creative and I enjoy it.

You don´t need special knowledge of photography, just basic knowledge of Photoshop and how to use your camera.

STEP 1: You Will Need

1.- A panoramic photo or to take one. It is better if your photo is 360º, but if not you can use a 180º or any other panoramic format.

2.- Camera. If you need to take a foto, you will need your mobile camera or other camera.

3.- Tripod. When you´ll take a photo, the tripod will be very useful.

4.- Photoshop to edit the photography.

Note: If you have a photo, you won´t need a tripod or camera
If you don´t have a suitable photo, you can download a free photogaphy from Freepik Don´t forget to mention the author of the original photo.

STEP 2: Choosing an Appropriate Photo

It is better to use a 360 degrees photo, but you can use any panoramic.

The reason is that 360º works better because their edges line up perfectly.If it is not a 360º, it can works but possibly you might need to do some edition work in order to match colours and objects where the edges meet.

However, I´ll be using a non 360º panoramic to show better this tutorial.

STEP 3: The Horizon

In order to get a perfect Planet, we need the horizon line to be straight.

Maybe the photo you have chosen is correct, so you can skip the step.


But, as you can see in my photo, the horiozon line it is not straight.
And if we create our planet with a non straight line, our planet wouldn´t be perfect.

- Select the Ruler tool in Photoshop

- Drag from the starting point of the horizon to the ending point
- Go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary
- Press Ok
- Now our horizon line is straight but we have some blank spaces.

- We use the crop tool, selecting the part of the canvas we want. Double click with the mouse and we have our image cropped.

STEP 4: Converting the Image to Square

- Go to Image > Image Size.

- Uncheck "Constrain Proportions"

- Set the height to match the width.
- Press Ok

STEP 5: TURN THE PHOTO UPSIDE DOWN

- Go to Image > Image Rotation > 180° to flip your image upside down.

Note: If you skip this step, you won´t get a planet, but you might get a nice and interesting photo too. My advice is to try with and without image rotation.

STEP 6: POLAR COORDINATES FILTER

Here comes the fun part :D

- Go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates.
- Make sure "Rectangular to Polar" is selected

- Press"OK".
- We already have our planet almost ready. SInce it as not a 360º photo, we need to make some edition.

STEP 7: Final Edition

- We may need to edit the center of the image, to delete some parts we don´t want, or match colours, to rotate our planet, etc..
- Depending on the image, the tools can help you are: Spot Healing Brush Tool, Clone Stamp Tool, fill content aware, colour gradient, etc...

STEP 8: Some Inspiration

Here are some Little Planets I have been creating so you can have some inspiration to create your own Little Planets.

Thank you and Enjoy.

25 Comments

Handy_Bear 7 years ago

My phone has even this option built into the official camera app :P

Handy_Bear 7 years ago

I have a Sony Xperia L, but all Sony phones should have this feature.

EstefaniRM 7 years ago

Thank you! I hope you enjoy!

Ninzerbean 7 years ago

Eeeeks! I can't figure out how to make the planet not have the extraneous stuff beyond the circle - I've tried everything I can think of. I want the planet to be a circle. Please advise.

EstefaniRM 7 years ago

Hi Ninzerbean. maybe you should try selecting the planet, make a selection with the Elliptical Marquee, then invert the selection (go to Selection - Invert) and press Delete button. I hope it helps.

Ninzerbean 7 years ago

Wow this is going to be so much fun! Thank you for sharing and you'll get my vote in the contest.

Fathomlis 7 years ago

That looks so crazy awesome! Great stuff

chefspenser 7 years ago

Very creative work, thanks for sharing. Did you use a DSLR? A special pan head on the tripod?

EstefaniRM 7 years ago

My camera is canon DSLR, but you can use any photo. And my tripod is a regular and cheap one.

halciber 7 years ago

This is a great tutorial. Thanks for sharing this!

EstefaniRM 7 years ago

Thanks! I´m glad you like it!

karthiki5 7 years ago

I like it,dear.. but how to install photo shop??

EstefaniRM 7 years ago

Sorry, I did not explain how to install Photoshop. When you purchase Photoshop it is explained how to install it. You can find information here: http://www.adobe.com/downloads.html

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