Little Planets and How To Make Them

TowerBridge March2015 7

So I've had a few questions about how to make Little Planets ... if you don't know what one is there's one right above you.  A round, planet image of a normal picture.

It's a clever bit of photoshop that can bring lots of fun pictures

So where do you start.  

1. It's best to shot the image with the knowledge that you'll make a Planet in mind.  Make the ends line up etc.

Here's my starting point for the London Bridge Picture, you'll notice I've added the Photoshop ruler so you can see that it's level.

Planet1

2 Make the picture SQUARE ... yup it'll look silly but make it SQUARE.  In Photoshop the menu is Image > Image Size and this window pops up.  Ive made the image 6000 x 6000 pixels.  You may have to click the little chain link between width and height to stop it from keeping the aspect ratio

Planet2

Once you've done that turn it upside down Image > Image rotation > 180

Now you've got this

planet3

And this is where the fun starts go to Filter > Distort > Polar CoOrdinates

planet4

and finally Rectangular to Polar

planet5

Then a little bit of cloning and cleaning to bring the end to match up and you are done ...

Here's a link to a few on an older blog of mine https://ganderphotographyblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/little-planets/