Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to transform panoramic photos into miniature, 360-degree "planets".
Before we begin, if you're not already a subscriber to Blue Lightning TV, click that small "Subscribe"
button at the lower, right corner to let you know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials.
For your convenience, I provided this skyline photo, so you can follow along.
Their links are in my video's description below or project files.
To get the best results, it's important that the horizon be perfectly horizontal, which
we’ll do in a moment and that the sky and water be the same on both sides of our image,
so the edges look seamless when they meet later.
First, we'll make the horizon horizontal.
Open your "Ruler Tool" and go to the left edge at the point where the water and the land meet.
Click and drag the tool to the right at the same location.
At the top, click "Straighten Layer".
Immediately, our skyline rotated to an angle that makes the horizon line horizontal.
To address the empty areas surrounding our image, we can either crop them off or fill
them in with Content Aware.
Let's do the later.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the thumbnail in the Layers panel to make a selection of its shape.
Go to Select, Modify and "Contract".
Contract it by 2 pixels.
Invert the selection by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + I.
Open the Fill window by pressing "Shift" plus the F5 key at the top of your keyboard or
by going to Edit and Fill.
Open the "Contents" list and click "Content Aware".
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D.
Make a copy of the layer by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Go to Edit, Transform and "Flip Horizontal".
On the left side of the photo, we'll make a selection around the buildings.
First, zoom into that area by pressing "z" on your keyboard to open your Zoom Tool and
drag your cursor over that area.
Open your Quick Selection Tool and make its Radius 5 to 10 pixels.
Drag your tool over the inside the buildings to select them.
To check it the selection, press "q" to see it as a quick mask.
Revert the quick mask back into a selection by pressing "q" again.
To remove areas of the selection that are outside the buildings, and press and hold
Alt or option as you drag over those unwanted areas.
To fit the entire photo onto your canvas, press Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
We'll cut and copy the buildings that we selected by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Click Layer 1 to make it active.
Click the Layer Mask icon to make a Layer Mask next to the active layer.
Make sure your foreground and background colors are black and white, respectively.
If they aren't, press "D" on your keyboard.
Open your Gradient Tool and make sure the Linear gradient icon is active.
Click the gradient bar to open the Gradient Editor and click the Black and white thumbnail.
Go to the left of your document and press and hold Shift as you drag across approximately
this far and release.
This reveals the original photo under it through the layer mask making both sides seamless.
We'll make a composite snapshot of our visible image by making the top layer active and pressing
Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E on Windows or Option + Cmd + Shift + E on a Mac.
Open the fly-out list and click "Duplicate Layer".
Open the document list and click "New".
I'll name it "Duplicate skyline".
Immediately, Photoshop created a new, separate document of this layer.
Next, we'll make it into a perfect square.
To do this, go to Image and Image Size.
Click the chain-link icon to unlink the photo's Width and the Height.
In the Width field, type in the same amount as the Height and click OK.
Go to Edit, Transform and "Flip Vertical".
Go to Filter, Distort and "Polar Coordinates".
Tick "Rectangular to Polar" and click OK.
Open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. If you're using version CC 2018 or earlier,
go to a corner and when you see a diagonal, double-arrow, press and hold Alt
or Option + Shift as you drag it out or in.
If you're using CC 2019 or later, just press Alt or Option as you drag it.
If you want to rotate it, go back to a corner and when you see a curved, double-arrow, rotate it.
To raise or lower your image, press the Up or Down arrow on your keyboard.
Adding the Shift key moves it 10 pixels at a time.
When you're happy with its size and position, press Enter or Return.
To fit your document back onto the canvas, press Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
You may see a subtle line on your image.
If you do, open your Spot Healing Brush.
Adjust its size by making sure your CapsLock key is off and pressing the right or left
bracket key on your keyboard.
Make its size slightly bigger than the line you want to remove.
Drag the tool over the line to heal it.
Lastly, we'll punch up some of the colors.
If there are specific colors you'd like to bring out more in an image,
click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Selective Color".
Selective Coloring allows you to cross blend individual color channels.
I generally keep "Relative" ticked, since its far more subtle than "Absolute".
In this particular image, I want to make the darker tones of the blues more intense,
so I'll click "Blues" and slide the "Blacks" all the way to the right making the darker
blue tones deeper and darker.
I generally like to use the Black channel, since it controls the darker tones of each of the colors,
thereby making them deeper and darker or lighter and brighter.
I'd like to brighten the green colors, so I'll click "Greens"
and drag the Black slider all the way to the left to brighten them.
I'd like to bring out the reds more, so I'll click "Reds" and drag the Blacks all the way to the right.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!