Oh sorry.
Didn't see you there!
I was too busy reading the most amazing book ever written..
It's called A Beginner's Guide
to Tiny Planet Photography, Third Edition
by Ben Claremont, and it was released today.
Yay!!!
And to celebrate, I thought we could play a little game.
Over on Instagram Stories this week,
I asked you guys to send me your 360 photos
that you weren't happy with and you wanted me to edit.
And I got a whole bunch of great photos sent to me
that just need a few little tweaks.
I chose five of them, and I'm going to edit them right here
right now before your very eyes.
So, you can play along at home and learn stuff
that will make your 360 photos exponentially better.
(laughs)
By the way, these are my edits.
I'm not saying they're any better or worse
than the original, but I thought it'd interesting
for you guys to see the thought process behind editing
a tiny planet photo from beginning to end
and all the little micro decisions
that go behind getting the final image.
The first shot here is from Balvinder Singh,
and I think he's already done a really good job
with his composition, his colors.
This is a good photo already.
But I think it can be a little bit better.
So, I'm gonna start right now with editing
his equirectangular shot.
Opening it up in the Theta+ app
and I always like to try few different perspectives
before I save the photo.
So, I'll try as a normal tiny planet
and then as an inverted tiny planet.
To me, straight away, I can see he's got this right
in making it an inverted planet.
But how exactly should it be composed?
I'm gonna move it around a bit
and find the right level of zoom
as well as which angle it should be on.
If you zoom out too far on this shot,
the detail isn't that great to look at.
So, I'd zoom in to cover up
as much of that green and brown grass as we can
without zooming in too far at the same time,
so we can still see
as many of those great pink flowers as possible.
I think his legs work well
going diagonally from left to right.
So, I'm going to save this perspective here.
Next, let's open it up in Snapseed.
And I usually like doing an initial color correction
just to even out the shows and the highlights to begin with.
Next, I'm gonna zoom in
and, with the selective tool, make his face brighter,
so it's more visible when zoomed out.
Yeah, that's better.
I kinda like the blue of the sky
because this is such a cheerful photo.
I think the colors really enhance that.
When desaturating the blue,
I just feel like it makes the image too cold.
It needs that third color aside from the pink and the green
to really make it pop.
And while I want to be careful not to oversaturate it,
I do want to enhance it a little bit.
So, using the selective tool, I'm isolating the blue
and bringing out that sky color just a little bit.
Next, let's fix the perspective.
And I know it seems pretty good already,
but I can tell that it's not perfectly symmetrical.
So, I'm going to tilt it down a bit and across a bit.
And looking at the grid line, this is a good indicator
of when you've reached perfect symmetry.
I want to enhance the pink colors as much as I can
without losing detail.
If you move the saturation slider too far,
what it's going to do is turn all of these flowers
to pure pink, and there's not going to be any depth there.
So, do be careful with oversaturating.
I'm only going to add just a little bit.
Then I'm going to copy and paste my edits
all the way around this image.
Likewise I'll do it to the green areas of this image
as well as upping the brightness in those dark areas.
So, I can tell this photo needs a bit of a vignette
because it's a big flowery tunnel.
So, I'm gonna select the vignette option
and add a light one in there
just to bring out the brightness in the middle,
bring the viewers' attention through the tunnel
and into the middle.
Yeah, that's good.
Finally, I'm gonna do some last-minute cropping
just to make sure we have 1,000% symmetry.
And looking at that before and after,
it looks so much better.
The symmetry is better, the colors are better,
the overall depth and vibrance is much better.
Here's his.
Here's mine.
So, overall, I commend you for the awesome jumping shot
and those were the few tweaks I think your photo needed
to take it from a nine out of 10 to a 10 out of 10.
That was a good one. I think I had too much fun.
The next shot is from Keith Olsen of these two dinosaurs.
And good job, I love dinosaurs.
So, that's a really cool subject matter you found.
Overall, I like it, but the exposure is not great.
I can see those overhead lights.
They're kind of getting in the way of your shot,
and they're ruining the overall exposure.
There just seem to be too many annoying hotspots
competing with the two dinosaurs.
So, commence operation save the dinosaurs.
Firstly, I'll edit the equirectangular shot.
And the dinosaurs don't seem to be symmetrical
when I edit it the normal way.
Therefore, I'm going to turn on the side.
I'm gonna flip my phone 90 degrees.
So, I can now manipulate this shot on the side
and even out the two dinosaurs.
So, to help me with the symmetry of this shot,
I'm going to add this square guideline.
And yeah, that's looks about right.
So, I'm going to save that to my camera roll.
Now commence the editing.
And I'll start with the perspective.
I feel like the right dinosaur
needs to shift over a bit more,
so it's a little bit more dominant in frame.
And there we go.
They're starting to look a bit more even.
Always edit like Stanley Kubrick
is standing right behind you looking over your shoulder
demanding perfect symmetry.
That's what I do.
Call me crazy.
I don't care.
Now after covering up the shadow of the nadir,
we're going to focus on darkening the dark areas
because I can tell already that not one single pixel
in this photo is pure black.
And we want the majority of them to be pure black
if we're going to make the dinosaurs stand out.
And the dinosaurs do stand out, kind of,
but they're dinosaurs,
they need to stand out even more.
So, what I'm going to do with the selective tool
is isolate all the dark areas
and make them as dark as I can
while still looking natural within the photo.
Now that that's done,
I'm going to get rid of those pesky spotlights.
Now I'm going to repeat the same exact process as before
where I isolate small areas at a time
and darken them as much as I can
while still looking natural on the scene
until those dinosaurs really do contrast this photo better.
I'm also going to use the exposure brush on the tricky areas
to paint over really light bits.
Then likewise I'm going to use the exposure brush again
to bring out the brightness of the dinosaurs
therefore increasing the overall contrast of this image.
This one took a little while
and it could have been a little bit better,
but I feel like the contrast is so much better now
because the dinosaurs
are such an interesting subject matter
that it's really important that they stand out
on the planet, almost like they're inhabitants
of this little planet in the museum.
So, after lots of painting and isolation work,
here's my final photo.
Next time if I was shooting this photo from scratch,
I'd spend a little bit more time getting the exposure right,
maybe trying HDR mode, trying raw, trying manual exposure
just to minimize the presence
of those overbearing overhead lights.
Otherwise I think this is a really cool idea.
Props for creativity.
The third shot is from Sara Z
and she's taken this shot in Las Vegas.
No, that's not Paris.
That is not the real Eiffel Tower.
I think it's a fake in Vegas.
Could it?
No. I think this would be a good example of what to do
when you overexpose your image and it's too light.
You only realized when you got home.
So, here's the 360 photo she's taken.
It's an interesting location,
but has she edited it the right way?
In her edit, she chose to go with inverted planet.
But the way she shot it conflicts with this.
She clearly shot this on a selfie stick above her head.
And because it's a higher perspective,
it's a lot harder to get a good inverted shot
because it stretches everything below it
just a bit too much.
So, straight away, no question, I would edit this
as a straight tiny planet and not an inverted planet.
Now let's use the square guideline
and get the shot as symmetrical as we can
and hit that export button.
So, about that overexposure, don't worry, this is a mistake
I made a million times before.
So, you're not the only one.
But it is fixable.
As long as you still have the details of your environment
properly exposed, then it's not the end of the world
if the sky is washed out.
So, starting off in Snapseed, it's pretty obvious
what we need to do,
and that's to turn the entire sky to white.
Before we do that, I'm just going to bring down
the brightness on the top of the Eiffel Tower
so that doesn't wash in to this sky later on.
I want this to be darker and more saturated,
so it contrasts the white.
Now one by one, I'm going to do selective edits
in the small areas all the way around the tiny planet.
And I'm gonna copy and paste them,
making small adjustments as I go.
I like to do this the second time
to fix the small areas I missed.
And as you can see, there are a few blue spots still there.
I'll do a really quick perspective shift
to make sure this planet is as symmetrical as it can be.
Now really all that's left to do is work on the color.
And I'm going to adjust the brightness,
saturation, shadows, highlights.
And the exposure of the landscape is actually pretty good.
So, I don't need to do too much fixing here.
What I will fix though is brightening up her face,
so she stands out among the hundreds of people there.
Now I'll make a few selective saturation adjustment
as well as defining the buildings on the bottom right
and right side of it better.
To do that, I'll use the selective tool
and up the contrast and down the brightness.
Now the edges of those buildings are better defined.
Okay, I think I made her look like a ghost.
So, I'm going to bring down the brightness
a little bit on her face.
Sorry about that.
Before, after.
Her photo, my photo.
I think this shot definitely works better as a tiny planet
because it means you can see all the details there
without anything getting cut off
and without the image feeling too crowd.
Also, it totally looks like the white sky I added
as a creative choice.
"Creative choice".
Good job, Sara.
Thanks for being brave enough to send me your photo.
The next shot's from Gerardo,
and he sent me a photo of him on a holiday.
I like this one.
It's cool.
Cool idea to go swimming
with your selfie stick and your camera.
I hope you didn't drop it.
And Gerardo wants to know how to make this shot better.
He's not 100% happy with the composition or the colors.
Gerardo, challenge accepted.
So, I noticed with his shot
that he wasn't in the dead center of the planet.
And you can't always tell when you're shooting.
So, it's not his fault.
But this is something we can change within Theta+.
So, what I'm going to do
is zoom out a little bit further than usual,
and I'm going to move the image,
so he eventually hits the center.
This will take a bit of tinkering,
but I did get him there.
It doesn't matter if he's diagonal at this point
'cause I can easily move him back in Snapseed.
So, I'm happy with that.
Now let's export and color correct.
So, straight away, I'm going to choose the perspective tool
and use rotate to move the planet around.
The reason I choose to do this in the perspective menu
and not the rotate menu is, with perspective,
it fills in the black space that is left there
after you move the image whereas with rotate,
it zooms in and in and in and in and in and in.
And now he's perfectly vertical.
Now I'm going to crop in
and frame this the way it should be framed again.
Now for some really basic color adjustments,
and something he pointed out to me in his email
is he didn't like how his face was so saturated.
When he moves up the saturation slider,
it makes him look like he's been in the sun too long.
As, as usual, I'm going to use the selective tool
on his face to bring up the brightness,
and then I'll go down to saturation
and drag that to the left.
So, his red face now returns
to a slightly more normal color.
Now I want to work on the water.
And using the selective tool,
I want to isolate the middle area,
so I can add depth to this planet,
so it looks more like a drop of water
than a flat ocean.
So, there we go.
I just bring down the brightness,
and I'll turn up the saturation a bit,
so we can add a bit more color to this shot.
And already that has more depth.
Now I'll do some quick edits on his body,
so he stands out against the dark water.
I feel like I need to do something to the sky.
Let's make it more colorful and a little bit brighter.
So, I'll selectively edit just the sky.
And again I'll copy and paste my edits all the way around.
Now I want to enhance the reflections of the sky
on the outside of the planet, and I'm going to do that
by increasing the contrast on the edges around it.
Before, after.
Yep, this is coming along.
I feel like it still needs more contrast.
So, I'm going to bring out the sky
just that little bit more.
And yeah, I'm pretty happy with that.
That shot is already looking so much better.
Here's Gerardo's shot.
Here is my shot.
Spending that extra time to fix the symmetry
as well as the contrast in this image
really helped make it the best it can be.
It was a really cool shot to begin with,
but it needed more editing than he gave it.
Never be stingy with your editing.
Always spend as much time as your photo needs
to get it looking as good as it possibly can be.
Fifth and final shot is from David Yateman,
and he's done an awesome job
to find this cool landscape in Canada
that he shot in nighttime.
I think this is the city hall of his town.
And that looks incredible.
The pink lights are amazing.
This is a great scene.
Well done.
But I think there's a few things that need to be fixed.
So, taking David's equirectangular shot into Theta+,
it's such a good landscape, but I'm not totally sure
what the feature should be.
So, let's take a look around.
And it seems like the building that's lit up in purple
should be at the top of the planet
because it's the most interesting feature of this landscape.
So, I'm going to position up the top.
But it needs to be bigger,
and the app won't let me drag it any further up.
So, what I'm going to do is flip it around 180 degrees
and at the same time flip my phone, so I can keep editing
with the building much bigger this time.
So, yeah, that's looking good.
Let's export.
So, let's bring it into Snapseed, flip it back around
and crop it, so it's perfectly symmetrical.
Have I been a good boy, Mister Kubrick?
Yes, you have been.
All right.
Better. Now I'm going to do a quick color correction
and play around with the highlights, the shadows,
the overall brightness of this image.
This won't be my final color correction,
but I always like to do a preliminary one
just to fix the obvious stuff.
Those highlights are a little bright,
but I think they're also cool
because they light up the planet behind.
An area that I feel is too dark
is the direct center of the planet.
You can't really see the cars, you can't see David,
and we're missing so much great detail
by having that area too dark.
So, I'm gonna selectively bring out the brightness,
and that looks way better.
Now again as usual, I'll do a bunch of selective edits
around this image to enhance the colors, the contrast,
just overall make it pop that extra bit more.
Since this is a night shot,
I think a subtle vignette will help enhance the mood.
So, I'm going to fine-tune it,
so the outer sky is just that little bit darker
and the inner circle is just that little bit lighter.
The biggest issue I had with David's edit
was the sky was just too noisy and oversaturated.
So, I'm going to make sure I fix this here.
Yes, it is good to have a saturated sky,
but don't overdo it.
So, through using selective edits,
I'm going to turn up the saturation a bit
and turn down the structure.
Structure either smoothens
or unsmoothens your selected area.
So, even though I know the noise isn't that bad yet,
I'm going to use this anyway to make damn sure
we have a clear blue color with no noise.
All right.
Good.
I'm happy with this.
This is a great image.
I wish I had taken this photo myself.
And there we have it.
David's edit and my edit.
I really like this shot.
There's such a great sense of mood, color, vibrancy.
This has everything a good tiny planet needs.
So, well done.
Just remember with color correction,
sometimes less is more.
And when you have those bright colors to begin with,
you don't need to oversaturate them.
Hey, good job, David.
I'm gonna use that one for the thumbnail.
All right.
That's it.
Thank you so much to our five awesome photographers
for sending your work in and being brave enough
to put it on show in front of the entire planet.
You could even say the tiny planet.
Ha ha ha ha.
Now if you like what you've just seen,
that ain't nothing compared to what you will learn
in A Beginner's Guide to Tiny Planet Photography.
This is the brand new edition I've just finished writing,
and it's out now available as of today.
I've put all of my best tips and tricks
for amazing tiny planet photos and videos into this thing.
And guess what?
It's the price of a cup of coffee!
So, basically you've got no excuse not to get it
and go out and shoot amazing tiny planets of your own.
Link in the description.
All right, guys, peace out, happy shooting.
I'll see you in the next one.