Today, I have some great news for 360° Panoramic Photographers.
With the new Adobe Camera RAW update, we have a new 360 photo editing workflow using Adobe
Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom.
This new workflow does not create any stitch line in your 360 photos - even adjusting HDR
effects like highlights and shadows, Clarity and dehaze.
This saves us hours of using healing brush and clone stamp tool.
We can now capture 360 photos using RAW DNG with cameras like Insta360 Titan, Insta360
Pro 2 or even the Insta360 ONE X, Evo, Qoocam and GoPro Fusion - and color grade that DNG
to look professional.
Let me show you how in this in-depth tutorial.
Hey, what's up everybody, it's your boy Hugh here from CreatorUp - the #1 YouTube channel
dedicated to 360 Photo editing for everyone.
Adobe Camera RAW just has a major update that allows Photoshop and Lightroom to do 360-aware
photo editing.
So I decided to show you my new complete workflow so you can be up-to-date on 360 photo editing.
If you follow my Facebook page, I have been posting very impressive aerial 360 photos
that get me hundreds of likes.
Just to clear, not gimmicky Tiny Planet photos - but 360 immersive photography in professional-level
quality.
Some of them are even in gigapixel created with hundreds of individual photo captured
with the DJI Inspire 2 with a professional lens.
Don't worry.
How to capture gigapixel aerial 360 photos will be the next tutorial.
And today, I want to focus on the photo editing workflow.
No matter what camera you use, if your camera can generate DNG, or better, bracketed HDR
DNG - like the Insta360 Titan, Pro 2 or the ONE X, you need to master this NEW workflow.
Your photos will stand out from those who use a mobile phone to edit.
Before I show you my workflow, let's take a look at the old problem - the stitch line
in 360.
Take a look at this 360 photo captured with Insta360 ONE X in Hard Summer music festival.
We throw in a Camera Raw filter, hit Auto adjustment, reduce the highlights and increase
the shadows to bring back lost detail during capture.
We also add a good amount of clarity, dehaze and vibrance to make the image pop.
Hit okay.
Very normal 2D photo workflow.
If you drop in an offset plugin, you see this ugly stitch line.
So you roto brush this out with healing brush and clone stamp tool.
With the new workflow, this part is gone.
BTW, you can always avoid stitch line with PTGui and HDR software like Photomatix.
This has been my workflow if the stitching is involved.
But for cameras like the Insta360 Titan, which can do HDR photo with auto stitch, there is
no need to buy and use PTGui or any third party plugin.
You end up with a stitched equirectangular picture.
So your only job left is to color grade this stitched DNG RAW photos.
Here is my workflow.
I drop the DNG file into Photoshop.
It will open up Adobe Camera RAW.
Please make sure you update to the latest Adobe Camera RAW to make this work.
And you can also use Lightroom for this.
Exact same workflow.
But 360 photo will end up in Photoshop for meta injection, so it is better just to avoid
Lightroom all together.
In Adobe Camera RAW, I have this beautiful HDR photo captured with the Insta360 Titan
in 11K DNG.
It is extremely underexposed.
So again, I use Auto setting, push the exposure even higher.
Pull down the highlights and raise the shadows for a more dramatic HDR effect - for demonstration
purpose.
If you are familiar with my style of 360 photography, I use pretty high Texture, Clarity, Dehaze
and Vibrance but not Saturation.
So my photos always have that hyper-reality look.
It pops more in VR headset and grabs people attention.
This is just me.
You should dail down and adjust based on your style of photography.
One thing it is a must and the advantage of using DNG RAW, is under Lens Corrections,
check Remove Chromatic Aberration.
This removes purple edges commonly found in fisheye lenses.
So def remember to check that.
You can also do some Noise reduction under Detail tap.
I will suggest zoom the image into 100% or more, look at the noise reduction result to
decide how much noise reduction and sharpening you need to do to your image.
And that is.
One important thing you need to take note here before you close Adobe Camera RAW, is
to hold down Shift on your keyboard, and click Open Object instead of Open Image.
Then your image in photoshop will become a smart object.
The reason why we work with Smart Object is that the 360-aware workflow does not work
on Camera RAW as a filter right here.
It has to be connected directly with Adobe Camera RAW.
So if you change your mind, you can always just open the smart object and edit the setting
in Adobe Camera RAW.
The true power of using this workflow is the ability to use Profile or Preset in Lightroom.
Any Profile or Preset you purchased or build will be available within Adobe Camera RAW.
Let me show you.
Double click and open up Camera RAW again, This time on top of your color correction,
you click browse profile here.
You see under my favorites, I have my signature orange and teal look, and a washout look.
I can pick the profile and bang!
The whole photo now has this new Instagram travel vlogger look, but in 360 immersive.
We can click OKAY to apply.
This is just like LUT workflow in Adobe Premiere color grading.
Save you hours of works.
Bonus Tip.
Level your 360 photos.
As you see, this Insta360 Titan photo is not level.
Usually, the only way to fix that is using PTGui.
But you can also use this plugin called Flexify 2.
In order to use any plugin, you do need to flatten your smart object first.
Then just apply flexify.
Make sure your Input and Output is equirectangular.
Then you can adjust the Latitude and Spin to level your photo.
And change Longitude for the new point of interest.
Without going back to PTGui and stay within Photoshop, it saves you time.
And time is money.
You are welcome.
Hit the like button if you enjoy this extra tip.
Bonus Tips #2, my advanced 360 photo editing workflow.
If you take your 360 photos with a consumer camera like the Insta360 ONE X or Richo Theta
z1 here, you want to do extra works to clear up your RAW photo.
If you are a long-time subscriber here, you know that I like to reward my viewers who
stick to the end of a long tutorial.
And today, I will reward you with my techniques that will turn your 360 photos from okay to
great.
Just take a look at this before and after color grading photo and this what we are gonna do next
Practice and improve your craft.
And I am here to help.
Comment below if you have more questions.
Don't forget to subscribe, and I will see you next time.
360 Creator level up, on CreatorUp.