Good morning Folks.
Thanks for stopping by and for following the stuff I’m sharing. I really appreciate the love.
Today we keep things simple. We take a seemingly flat panoramic image and transform it into a world of its own, almost literally.
My favorite shooting spot in Nairobi is the viewpoint at Uhuru Park (I know, I’m belaboring this point) and if you remember, I shared the above image, Night & Day, on Instagram & Facebook. It was also featured on Wallpaper Monday by Mutua Matheka.
It is basically a blend of two photos, but, I will focus on the ‘daytime’ bit of the blend.
The result we are going for is what is commonly referred to as Tiny Planet.
Our goal is to go from this image …
… to this image.
First up, we have to shoot and make a panorama – a series of 5-7 overlapping images stitched together to create an extra wide composition. Here, I use my Nikon DSLR mounted on a tripod and in portrait mode.
When shooting, be sure to have a 30% overlap between adjoining photos to have enough room to allow seamless stitching later in post.
Next, we bring them into Lightroom, do some basic editing and then stitch them up using the native feature.
These are the 7 frames we will use to make the panorama
CTRL+M will take you to the panorama window.
Export the image into Photoshop and edit to taste.
This is the end result I get in Photoshop.
Next, crop the image and retain the contents that you’d want to work with. Keep in mind a few things;
The two ends of the photo have to be at the same level/height to give a very clean and unassuming joint. See the blue horizontal guideline on the image below.
The composition shouldn’t have overly pronounced subjects as to draw the eye directly to that point, unless that’s exactly what you’re going for. Here, I chose to eliminate Nyayo house and its communication mast.
Note:
Check the “Delete Cropped Pixels” box for this exercise so that you’re only left with the bit you want to work with. Otherwise the steps below will not work. Remember to uncheck it after you’re done.
Resize the image to a square via Image-Image Size (Alt+Ctrl/Cmd+I). The easier way round it is to type in the value of the height as the value of the width – 1722px in our case.
Flip the image vertically via Image-Image Rotation-Flip Canvas Vertical.
Next, head to Filter-Distort-Polar Coordinates. If you’re satisfied with the preview of the final image, check the Rectangular to Polar box and click OK.
You end up with the image below, which you then rotate and crop as desired.
Now, marshal up all your healing and cloning abilities and smooth out the area where the two ends meet so as to make it look like there was never a joint.
The cleaned-up final image, with some additional editing.
Congratulations!
You’ve just created your very own Tiny Planet! Now, sit back and enjoy your work of art.
Again, the final result.
Try out different images and see what comes out of them. It will take lots of trials and many errors to finally nail the technique, but you’ll agree with me that it brings a fresh and exciting dimension to otherwise bland images.
A variant of the same panorama, before cropping. I did not like it much.
Start working with scenes with a generally uniform foreground and uniform sky, which means shooting with the sun behind you – in other words, keep is simple. But, if your Photoshop skills are at Pro level, go on and try this out on some sunrise and sunset shots.
So, go on and make some magic. Forget not how to have fun while at it.
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