Photoshop Panoramic Planet Technique
I was stumbling along some web sites yesterday and came across a really cool Photoshop tutorial on how to create planets from panoramas. I've seen examples of these before, but never thought they'd be relatively easy to do in Photoshop. This person posted some fun examples that inspired me to give it a try. I suggest clicking on the tutorial above if you want to try it out yourself; it's clear, short and has nice screenshots for us visual learners.
I made a few, most of which came out interesting in the not-so-good use of the term. The problem is that I have very few images on my computer that are well-suited for this technique. It truly works best with panoramic shots because you want a relatively simple foreground (i.e. grass or water) and a relatively simple background (i.e. sky) with a busy center.
This is more along the lines of the type of photo that works best. This is Manhattan from a boat in the Hudson River.
Welcome to Planet New York. This one is my favorite.
This is the original photo, a pic taken in London a few years ago.
This is London Planet. I like this one. It doesn't really look like a planet, but I think it's pretty anyway.
This is a really dark pic that was taken from a boat off of Manhattan during sunset.
I brightened it up a bit. This photo was small, so it looks pixelated. It was accidental, but I kind of like it that way anyway.
The photographer who wrote the tutorial has an awesome Flickr set of his planets. Take a look at them; they're beautiful.