In this tutorial I will show you how to create little planets using a regular photograph or a panoramic one and Photoshop. It’s very a very simple technique but with a really cool end result.

Before we start let’s take a look at the final result!

Step 1

Let’s start with a regular picture. Just open it at Photoshop.

Step 2

Using the Crop Tool, let’s resize the pic as bellow.

Step 3

Go to Image>Image Size and resize the picture making the width and height even as you can see bellow. Don’t forget to unmark the “Constrain Proportions” option.

Step 4

Now that you have a squared photo go to Image>Rotate Canvas>180º.

Step 5

Go to Filter>Distort>Polar Coordinates and select the option “Rectangular to Polar”.

Step 6

Now you just need to rotate as you like and also do some treatment to remove the failures. As you can see, the right side of the pic get together with the left side, forming this failure at the planet. However, when you select the picture, make sure that the sides of them are alike and check if the horizon line is completely in horizontal, because that will minimize the failure.

Step 7

Using the Clone Stamp Tool and the Patch Tool you will be able to remove the failures.

Now we will check out how to do that with a Panoramic photo!

Steps 1, 3 and 4

Make the width and height and rotate it 180º.

Step 5

Apply the Polar Coordinates.

Step 7

Remove the failures.

Another Way to use the Polar Coordinates

Try to use the Polar Coordinates without rotating the image in 180º, so skip step 4. Check out the result:

Cropping it and removing the failures we have:

Other Samples

Hope you liked it!

About the author

My name is Tariana Mara. I’m a photographer of Panoramic images from Sao Paulo. You can check out more about my work at my portfolio or following me on twitter @tarianamara.