Planetize your world – Create tiny planets [without photoshop]

Dundas Square, Planetized

To skip right to the tutorial for little planets with Planetizer, click here.

In 2008 I wrote a blog entry, later transformed into a flickr entry, on how to do HDR Panoramas. Next I wished to write a tutorial about how to make tiny planets from these panoramas. I found some tutorials, and started doing it, but I found that many times, when the panoramas were big and nice, the methods were slow or unresponsive (programs froze, etc) on a pretty solid computer. Also, most methods involved Photoshop and/or Flexify, which are expensive, although some involved GIMP (free) :).  To avoid most of these problems, I started writing a script, now called Planetizer, that will, with just a couple of clicks, take a panorama and transform it to a little planet 🙂 You can find the link, with the download and tutorial, here. Its completely free :).

Enjoy 🙂

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Creating your first HDR Panorama

Toronto City Hall (HDR Panorama)

Update 1: I created a (hopefully better) version of this Tutorial on flickr, here! The previous tutorial has been erased in favour of this one.

Update 2: I have recently written a program to transform your HDR panoramas (and other images) into small planets: Planetizer

 

Dundas Square Tiny Planet: with Planetizer

 

Stumble It!

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First High Dynamic Range Experiments

Soon after exams finished, we took our faithful Canon Rebel XSi for a night walk through the University of Toronto Campus, and took several pictures for creation of some High Dynamic Range (HDR) images. (For an Introduction to the HDR concept, you could see, for example, the wikipedia description.) We wanted to do some HDR photography before we read and learn more about it, so that we could see how our HDR compositions will evolve as we learn. So this is sort of the ‘before’ experiments.

We knew, pretty much, only the basics

• We need several exposures, so that we may capture information in both the really light and really dark areas of the subject, which will then be layered together.
• We need (most of the time) a semi-static subject (and hence camera), so that it is the fixed, or at least align-able, in the (different exposure) pictures. Thus, a good tripod is useful. Any vibrations in the camera or subject are problematic.

Some things we noticed while taking the photos

• Outdoor HDR can be problematic when wind or other vibration sources are present and the subject/camera is susceptible. For example, the trees will shake in the wind, creating a difference in between the various exposure pictures, or blurriness in large exposure pictures. Sometimes, this is fixable with various algorithms (provided with various HDR packages), however sometimes they are not. A large aperture lens would also help, requiring less time for a large exposure.
• A remote release can be helpful in sensitive conditions to avoid even the smallest vibrations when taking the shot. A way to get around this is to use the 2-second delay (or 10-second, if you have no 2-sec).

Combining the Photos

To combine the images of a certain scene into one HDR picture, we experimented with Photoshop CS3 and Photomatix 3.0. To create a visually pleasing image, both will undergo HDR algorithms and then allow you to perform post-processing steps, with more or less flexibility. As expected by the nature of the software, Photoshop will be more powerful and flexible, but harder to understand and some reading or play-hours will need to be invested. The potential, we suspect, is to get better HDR pictures than Photomatix, however that is by no means confirmed anywhere. Photomatix is simple and straight-forward, and provides a ton of clear tonemapping setting after the HDR process. We used photomatix in the trial version, where although all features are included it is claimed that certain watermarks may appear in the final image, depending on your settings. For some odd reason, we never ran into this issue.

Overall, in the relatively short time we experimented with our pictures, we ended up getting far better results with photomatix, and continues with this process. Until we read/understand more about the roots fo the process of HDR and tonemapping, photomatix seems the simpler choice, with better results

We also noticed, in experiments where a large number of exposures were present (though this might not ever be necessary – it would seem that 3-5 exposures will be enough), photomatix will process the images smoothly, whereas Photoshop CS3 may freeze/slow down severly. (We ran our tests on a dual-core E6550 2.33Ghs, 4GB ram (3.25 detected)).

To give a taste of the results, with the disclaimer that certainly the time we spent on this was limited compared to what can be spent, here is a view of the UofT annex HDR-ed with Photoshop, to the best of our trials:

and here is the best we got with Photomatix:

(click on either for larger views – via flickr)

The next steps in the HDR game is to read, play with the camera and software, and understand the process better. Once we reach some sort of milestone, we’ll take a similar trip and detail our learnings 🙂

For a taste of our results, see our flickr HDR set, among the first images.

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