I have always been fascinated by fish-eye lenses and the whole distorted perspective that can be achieved with certain filters in software like GIMP and Photoshop. A while ago I came across an image that depicts a planet, created from a photo. I have seen several of them around, but this one was done very well and inspired me to try and create my own. Someone gave me a link to a Create your own planets tutorial that explains the process in detailed steps, so yesterday I tried my hand at creating my own “planets”.

All you need are the following:

• A panorama photo (it doesn’t have to be a panorama shot necessarily, but the width must be at least twice the size of the height). For stitching panorama photos, view my post about panoramas where I talk about an excellent program to use.
• A graphics program like GIMP (which is free) or Photoshop

I won’t go through the whole tutorial, as the other tutorial does a wonderful job of explaining the steps. I like my results though and will probably do quite a few in the future.

Category: General Photography
Tags: distortion, panorama, planet