Bought a Ricoh Theta Z1 but having so many problems in capturing and editing HDR 360
photos for professional Virtual Tour?
You are not alone.
There are no up-to-date and straight forward tutorials, paid or free, out there about the
Dual Fisheye plugin, unfortunately.
So I am going to share my professional workflow with you, so you can quickly produce lots
of high quality 360 photos to make your clients happy.
Hopefully, this is the LAST tutorial you will ever need in professional photo editing for
Virtual Tour.
Hey, what's up, everybody.
It is your boy Hugh here from CreatorUp - the #1 YouTube channel dedicated to consumer and
professional 360 content creators.
Before I go into my rock-solid virtual tour photo editing workflow, I want to give you
a no BS review of the Ricoh Theta Z1, after almost ONE year.
If you have not already, please check out my comparison video right here, which I compared
the Theta Z1 with Qoocam SuperHDR and Insta360 One R HDR.
If you want a super simple, fully mobile HDR editing workflow, then it is Qoocam SuperHDR.
As I detailed in this tutorial.
After I showed Qoocam 8K SuperHDR and Ricoh Theta Z1 Dual fisheye HDR to all of my clients
in VR headset, they like both.
BUT, they all think Qoocam 8K SuperHDR looks like a beautiful painting, and Z1 HDR looks
more like what the house actually looks like in real life.
AKA, less HDR artifacts.
From a realtors' perspective, they all want to show the potential buyers the actual house
- so to save them times.
So there you have it, Theta Z1 is still better for professional Virtual Tour - simply because
less HDR artifacts, less saturated and closer to reality look.
But Qoocam 8K is still a lot easier in photo editing, as I showed in my last tutorial.
Well, it is not anymore.
Let me show you.
How to Install Dual Fisheye Plugins Before we start, please make sure you are
on the latest firmware, downloading and installing the Dual Fisheye plugins for Ricoh Theta Z1.
I assume you are new to this camera, so let me quickly show you.
... Step one, after connecting your camera to
your computer is to make sure you are on the latest firmware.
Ricoh Theta continually improves their camera firmware.
So it is very important to have the latest firmware before you go on a job.
As you see here, I do need to update my camera.
Now go on to theta360 plugin store and download the latest version of DualFisheye Plugin.
The minimum version to make this work is 2.9 and above.
Go ahead and hit install to install the plugin using the Ricoh Theta basic app.
The app will open and go ahead hit okay.
Now the plugin is successfully installed, click Plugin management, and make sure you
select DualFisheye plugin as your Plugin 1, click OKAY, and you are done!
How to shoot with Dual Fisheye Plugins The easiest way to switch from regular mode
to dual fisheye plugins, after you turn the camera on, is by long-pressing the Mode button.
Then in the plugin menu, press the big shutter button.
Now you are on Dual Fisheye Plugin.
Another way is to use your Theta App in your phone after connecting to the camera.
Go to Settings - Camera Settings - Plugin - Start plugin to start up the DualFisheye
Plugin.
If you want the full control, I will suggest shooting in DNG Bracketed mode with 9 steps
- as I already show you in this video.
Assuming you want to balance between quality and quantity - I will show you the easiest
workflow in this tutorial.
Comment below if you want my 9 bracketed HDR DNG workflow with Photomatix and PTGui 12.
Here, we are not going to use any third party paid plugin.
So we are going to use the powerful Theta Z1 internal motion detection HDR merging feature
to merge the 9 HDR photo internally within your camera.
This is what is missing in all the tutorials out there.
Press FN button once to switch to DNG.
Press Mode button 3 times to turn on HDR-DNG.
And then press the wifi button 3 times to set the EV steps to 9.
Long press the wifi button to turn on the timer to 10s for you to hide somewhere.
Now everything is set.
Keep the camera on, press the shutter button and go hide.
Now repeat it in all the location.
In general, it should take you less than half an hour to do a full tour.
Very fast and very easy.
Photo editing and post-production You know this is my favorite part to talk
about.
80% of the magic happens in photo editing - any Pros can tell you that.
Plug your Z1 into your computer, and you will see 2 folders - the regular RICOH folder and
the Dual fisheye.
Everything you did with the Dual fisheye plugin will be in this folder.
In here, these folders are created when you use manual DNG bracket - which I will not
recommand unless you are hardcore professional and know what you are doing.
The rest are the merged HDR DNG fisheye.
We only need the one with the HDR in the file name.
Open Adobe Lightroom Classic and import those HDR photos.
Now go to Develop tap, and first we are going to color grade ALL the fisheye files.
You never just take 1 HDR photo for a professional virtual tour.
So I am going to teach you the batch processing workflow.
One thing about CreatorUp tutorials is that we are very hands-on.
I am going to use a real client example - one of the oldest houses in Bel Air, California.
Yes, the same Bel Air of Will Smith hit TV show Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
I already explain how to edit 360 photos seamlessly in this tutorial.
So here I am going to go fast.
Use Auto to help you out.
In general, it is safe to max out the Highlights and Shadows like so in Theta Z1 HDR photo.
I will not recommand to do that in any other brand, like the Qoocam 8K.
Now you can raise the Exposure to taste.
This is a 16-bit RAW photo so don't worry about clipping your image.
For Real Estate and commercial housing, I usually don't touch HDR effects like Texture,
Clarity or Dehaze.
The idea here is not to express the artist inside you, but recreate what the location
looks like in real life.
I will add some contrast just to make the photo pop, and that's it.
Turn on remove chromatic aberration, and we are done.
Now do the same thing to all the rest of the photos.
Manually remove Chromatic Aberration.
For Theta Z1, automatic Chromatic Aberration removal is not enough.
Z1 has a very strange characteristic to add blue in high contrast area - like right here.
I will recommand remove them later on with the selection tool with a huge feather, so
you do not damage the full image.
But it is safe to do overall blue suppression if you are in a hurry.
Here is how.
Go to manual, increase Defringe amount to about halfway, and widen the Purple Hue on
the left into the blue area.
Pay attention to the image and stop until you see the blur fringe is completely gone.
I hope this tip safe you some time.
Now select all the HDR DNG, right click and
stitch them all in Theta Z1 stitcher.
Please make sure your plugins is above version 2.1.
The first time, you will not see this option.
Just click the "use external plugin" option and select TIFF, 16-bit, uncompress as the
output format and find the theta stitcher execution file as the external file to run.
In PC, it is under ProgramFile/RICOH THETA Stitcher and pick the exe file.
Next time you open Lightroom, you will see the option here.
Choose Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments and press Edit.
If your camera is on a solid monopod and pretty level surface - Automatic setting is good
enough.
I rarely use Manual settings.
I will also turn on the Camera Visibility Reduction to chip out the tripod leg.
Most of the time, the clients don't even want the tripod legs to be removed to save cost
and time.
So it is nice to have this new option here.
Now just press the batch processing button and let Theta do all the works for you.
The new stitched 360 photos will show up next to the fisheye.
These are still RAW, 16-bit TIFF file.
So you can open in photoshop for further editing.
But, render from my no seamline workflow tutorial right here, we want to edit the photo as a
smart object so we will not get the seamline.
So right-click on the photo, edit in, select open as smart object in photoshop.
As you see here, the photo is a smart object.
Double click will open up Adobe Camera RAW.
For demonstration purpose of showing this non-destructive workflow, I am going to use
all the HDR effect here that we all know will create seamline on any 360 photos.
Click OKAY.
Add the Offset as a smart filter.
In the Undefined Areas, make sure you pick Wrap Around - and this is your QC plugin or
change the beginning point of your 360 photo.
I move the horizontal point to a different location, and as you see - no stitch line.
Great.
And that is how you adjust the photo after stitch in full RAW 16-bit format.
Trust me, your clients always change their mind in the last minute and want to make the
image brighter or darker.
And now, you can easily do that in Adobe Camera RAW.
You know, one of my favorite steps is to use Topaz AI denoise to really improve your image
quality.
So let's do that.
Again use offset to check the seamline to make sure you do not have any seam issue.
3D Spherical Panorama I use Photoshop here.
But you can use other photo editing software - like affinity photo.
In fact, the latest photoshop has bugs on a 16-bit color depth photo in 3D Spherical
Panorama.
There is a workaround, you can convert your photo into even higher color depth - 32-bit.
Do your editing and covert it back to 16-bit.
My suggestion is to make sure to finish all the editing first.
And then just save as a jpg.
Reimport it as 8-bit and remove your tripod.
So.
save as into jpg format like so—import the jpg.
Go to 3D - Spherical Panorama - New Panorama layer from selected Layers.
Pan down to your tripod leg.
Use the square selection tool to select just that portion of the photo to speed up the
removal.
Go ahead and use the clone stamp or healing brush to paint out the tripod like so.
Merge the layer back down.
Now you are done!
Tripod is removed.
Now go back to 3D - Export Panorama and save it as a jpg for MLS, Facebook, and whatever
Virtual Tour software you use.
Manual Stitching to correct problems There is no auto stitch will come out perfect
every time.
There will be time you need to manual stitch to fix close up problems.
As you see here there is a stitching problem on the workout machine.
You can simply use Distance-specified slider to fix that problem.
Look at that, the stitching problem solved!
It is that easy.
Bonus: Advanced 360 Photo Editing - for High-end Professional Virtual Tour
Okay, if you are still here, you are a true professional who wants to get the best result.
And I won't disappoint you.
I always try to go above and beyond to improve your skill with techniques you won't even
find on paid tutorials.
Honestly, most of the paid tutorials I found on Udemy or Skillshare are pretty bad.
You should not waste your time or money on those.
So back to the problem at hand.
When you try to get a better removal of the tripod legs using the healing brush, sometimes
you just can not get the straight line to connect.
There is a secret menu in the clone stamp tool no one seems to talk about - clone source
menu.
So pick the clone stamp tool, go to Windows, clone source.
The idea here is to gradually use the rotation tool to bend your clone source to connect
to the other end finally.
So we are going to do just that on here to remove the tripod.
Again you can do a better job when you spend on time to work on this.
The second tip I am going to give you is about the bathroom.
There are usually lots of mirrors in the bathroom of high-end property.
So your camera will be seen in all the mirrors like right here.
We are going to remove it.
Lucky, everything you just learned can be applied not only to tripod legs - but to all
the mirror reflection as well.
We are going first to use the healing brush to remove the camera like so roughly.
Then we are going to use the Clone Stamp tool to patch the around pixel to blend everything
in.
Zoom out - it looks great.
One more right here.
Same idea, Healing Brush and then clone stamp with clone source control.
Bang done!
The third tip is a big one.
I did lots of high-end museum virtual tours.
Even tho I used DSLR instead of Theta Z1 - a common problem of all fisheye lens is the
reflections in a lot of the paintings - like right here.
My photographer actually did a good job here by avoiding the sun.
But, you should always use a DSLR to take a flat photo of all the paintings.
If you can, remove the cover glasses.
Then in Photoshop, you recompose the 2D photo into 360.
In here, I am going to replace the photo as I did not have the original photo.
In 3D Pano mode in Photoshop, we are trying to face the photo.
It does not need to be straight on.
Now use the selection tool to select just that area to work faster if you have a slow
computer.
Now use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to trace the edges of the inner of the painting.
Add 1 - 2 pixel feather around the selection.
Duplicate the original layer and create a clipping mask using the selection.
Then hide it.
Bring in a new photo and rough resize it.
Use perspective or Distort under transform to corner pin the new photo around the painting
- again, does not need to be exactly.
Now copy the selection from the hidden layer and paste it onto the new photo.
To make it believable.
We are going to copy the reflection back to the new photo.
So unhide this original layer.
Move it on top and use blend mode to blend it in.
I use multiple but please play around.
Lower the opacity and check it out.
The light fixture reflection is back in on the new painting.
Look like my tiny planet photo was actually there.
Let's add some gaussian blur and noise to the photo - WALA!
Just like magic.
This is how I replace all the photos in the room even the ones on the wall in my recent
Instagram Post which got lots of likes.
This should able to help you to replace anything in any 360 photo - an nifty skill to have
in your arsenal.
Hey, don't forget to like this video if you want more cool tricks in the future tutorial
just like this.
Thank you for watching this complete HDR workflow for Rioch Theta Z1.
I hope by now, you can create more 360 virtual tours with higher quality and higher volume.
If you have any questions, please comment below.
I will do my best to help you out.
As always, your like and share really help me to continue creating high-quality VR education
content absolutely free for you.
I don't believe in profiting from my viewers, and people who want to learn.
But I can't do it without your help.
Tell your other photography friends to check out this crazy Asian guy.
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And I will see you in Virtual Reality.