Hey guys, it’s Gaba VR.
I’m a 360 content creator and photographer, publishing 360 videos and tutorials here, on YouTube.
I’m sharing my own creative editing techniques with you
which you can apply in any cases, doesn’t matter what camera you use during shooting.
In my 360 videos I’m trying to do the highest quality, in terms of storytelling, shooting and editing, too.
And one of the most common questions I’ve got is about my nadir editing,
because as you can see, in most of my 360 videos, I always clean nadirs on the bottom of the scenes,
creating a floating 360 camera look with an invisible tripod.
So I will show you 3 different methods to get rid of the camera stand, shadows and all your stuff on the ground
In this video I show you the basics and the easiest Photoshop method,
which is available in older versions, too.
And in the next episode I cover some advanced options in the latest Photoshop and After Effects.
If you are interested about those tips, too, subscribe to my YouTube channel,
and after that video is released, you will find it in the right top corner.
But now, let’s jump into it.
First, I open my project in Premiere.
I have the whole 360 movie on the timeline, and here you can see my basic editing structure.
I’ve been already talking aboutmy color grading workflow in a 2 tutorials,
so if you’re interested about the functions of these Adjustments layers, click on the right top corner.
But now let me point out something else.
As you can see, I have a lot of Nested sequences down there.
These are the scenes I shot with a tripod.
The reason why I nested them is because, as you can see, they are already nadir-corrected.
It’s very important, that this correction must be one of the last steps during editing,
so you can see all the final footages in your project and the final length of them.
It saves you a lot of unnecessary work.
I double click one of them, and as you can see it’s only the raw footage here with the correction layer.
In this case, it’s a .psd, a Photoshop file.
Turning the layer on and off, you can see the scene with and without the tripod.
And even switching to 360 preview you can see it in the 360 space, with and without correction.
And in a couple of minutes I show you how you can make it with a very basic Photoshop knowledge,
even with an older Photoshop version, too.
But first, let's clear the basics!
As you can see, my shadow never crosses the shadow of the tripod.
That’s because I was conscious during shooting,
and not only because I knew that it would make post-production easier.
I just followed the basic rules of shooting in 360.
The first one is that the main light source, which is Sun in this case, must be at the stitch line,
hitting both camera sides equally.
The second one is I making sure that there are no close objects at the stitch line
or moving objects crossing stitch line.
Of course, it’s not always easy to follow this rule, but we have to try our best.
You know, it doesn’t matter which camera we use, and how good the stithing quality is,
these rules can improve our video quality in every case.
Following these rules, when the Sun is on the stitch line and nobody is crossing the stitch line,
the shadows will be parallel on the scene and nothing will cross the shadow of the tripod.
It’s that simple. And that’s how conscious recording leads to an easier editing process, too.
And after all, knowing that nothing will disturb us in the scene, we’re ready to edit.
I just pick up a screen and create a screenshot.
And then I open an older version of Photoshop.
I have to fix the bottom of the image so I need a better look at it.
I create a copy of the image and start editing.
I select the new layer, press Ctrl T and rotate the image in 180 degrees.
It’s very important, otherwise I will see the sky instead of the ground later.
Then I click on Filter, Distort, Polar coordinates, and select Rectangular to polar.
It will be a slightly distorted little planet view, but I don’t mind. I can work with it well.
I zoom in a little bit and start editing.
I pick up Clone stamp and start drawing.
Usually I use a really small stamp with wide feather.
It needs a little practice to know how to take samples to get the best result.
I like to take samples quite often, so the result will look more natural without visible repeating patterns.
This time I erase my camera bag, too. And I’m done.
I like it. So I go to the Filter menu and open Polar coordinates again.
This time I select Polar to rectangular and here is the original photo.
Or, of course, I need to rotate it again.
Here is the image before and after in two separate layers,
and now I can decide how to go on.
In most of my projects I prefer to drop my correction layer over the original video
without any further modifications in Premiere,
so I create the final mask here in Photoshop.
Anyway, Photoshop has more advanced masking tool then Premiere.
So, first I select the new layer, and holding down the Alt button I click on the mask icon
This way I create an inverted mask to I hide this layer.
Then I switch to the Brush tool, set the main color to white and select the mask layer.
Looking at the panoramic image I start painting on the mask to reveal the correction layer,
hiding the tripod, the bag and the shadow.
I paint the bottom completely and go a little bit further when I see any other disturbing objects.
And here I can see it before and after editing, again.
And when I like the result, I just turn off the original layer.
Now I can only see the corrections.
Maybe I refine it a little a bit and double check whether it’s okay
and finally I save the transparent Photoshop file.
It will be a .psd file with two layers, while the original image is transparent now.
So, I just import the psd file and drag it over the footage, and that’s all.
When I need further corrections and I can go back to the psd file and modify the mask. It’s that simple.
In the upcoming video I will show you another editing method with the latest Photoshop version
and I show you how you can make it in After Affects, too.
And of course, I’m coming up with brand new 360 contents and creative shooting and editing ideas,
so please subscribe, if you haven’t subscribed yet, and see you next time!