Find out how to fake a 360-degree photo for Facebook
YOU’LL NEED THIS PHOTOSHOP Subscribe at www.adobe.com. SOME PHOTOS See step one for requirements. A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT Sign up at www.facebook.com.
THOSE 360-DEGREE PHOTOS ON FACEBOOK ARE MAGIC, aren’t they? You spin around, and the input from accelerometers in your cell phone is used to scroll the image, giving the impression of peering through a window into another place entirely.
They’re usually taken with the kind of camera that would set you back a couple hundred bucks— and you’re looking at thousands to get pro-quality gear. Then there’s all sorts of rules to follow if you want to avoid catching yourself in the image, and the vagaries of the stitching software, that can make objects disappear around the stitch lines and generally soften the image—which can be a low-res one stretched round to a 360-degree shape. It’s far easier and less expensive to fake it.
One day, phones will have these cameras built in, and the software will have improved so it needs no manual input to create a natural-looking video. Until then, there’s Photoshop. 1 THE PRELIMINARIES There’s a couple things to know about the way Facebook recognizes a 360-degree image before we start. Your file needs to be in a 2:1 aspect ratio, with maximum pixel dimensions of 6000x3000. Then, to make sure it’s recognized properly, the metadata needs to contain the “ProjectionType=equirectangular” tag (alternatively, you could use a template with the correct data already in place—there’s one here: http://bit.ly/2r4pCRt). More on this later, but for now, choose your source images with care, knowing that you’re going to have to crop them to a narrower rectangle than even the 16:9 output by most cell phones. We’re using several images to get the required width, which is going to mean blending them together by hand.
2 CROP TO SIZE You can use the “Crop” tool [ Image A] to make sure you stay within the prescribed aspect ratio. With the tool selected, choose “Ratio” from the drop-down menu at the top-right, and input a 2 and a 1 in the appropriate fields. If you’re going to stitch multiple images together, you can create a huge canvas, carry out the image merge, then crop the composition to the correct ratio afterward.
3 ALIGN YOUR IMAGES Open your source images, and align some areas of them by eye [ Image B]. We’re using three photos of mountains, and can line up some of the peaks quite nicely. There’s a bit of an issue at the front, though, because we’re left with a chunk of white space where one photo has had to be raised to get the alignment right. Don’t forget that your image will wrap around, so the ends meet—this needs to be aligned, too. Cut a rectangle out with the “Rectangular Marquee” tool, and move it to the other end if it helps you to visualize the alignment, or run a horizontal guide across the image, so the horizon never gets out of control.
4 START BLENDING Once aligned, you need to blend the images together. If you’re lucky, and your photos were taken from the same spot, Photoshop’s automatic panorama system might do the job— go to “File > Automate > Photomerge.” If your pictures weren’t taken with the intention of making a panorama, chances are it won’t work [ Image C]. So, selecting the top-most layer in the “Layers” palette, use the “Eraser” tool to remove parts of the scene to reveal the image below, blending the two by hand, leaving no visible join. You might need to use “Levels” or “Hue/Saturation” on one or more layers to get the colors to match. We did, and we dropped in a new sky by running a path across the top of the ridge with the “Pen” tool, clearing out any bits of rock that didn’t align properly, continuing the path up the sides and around the top of the image to envelop the sky. We then loaded the path as a selection, and cleared the sky by clicking on each layer in turn, and using “Delete” to remove the selected area. The new sky image was placed on a new layer behind the others, and stretched to fit using “Free Transform.”
5 FILL IN THE BLANKS The blank areas at the front are filled in using the “Rectangular Marquee” tool to duplicate (using the “Move” tool and Alt) a large area of scree, and flip it vertically. This blended in nicely, with a bit of “Rubber Stamp” and “Healing Brush” to prevent repetitive features, which always look fake. Once we were happy, out comes the “Crop” tool to fix the 2:1 aspect ratio.
6 ADD EXIF DATA Save your file as a JPEG. To add EXIF data, you can use ExifTool by Phil Harvey ( www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/ exiftool). It’s a command-line tool, so follow the instructions on the website, and open a “Command Prompt (Admin)” by rightclicking the “Start” button. The line you want to input is “exiftool -ProjectionType=“equirectangular” photo.jpg” where “photo.jpg” is the full path of your file [ Image D]. You get a new file, the unmodified original, and an updated version of your image.
7 POST ON FACEBOOK Upload this updated file to Facebook using the desktop browser interface. It should recognize your image as a 360-degree photo—if it doesn’t, try running ExifTool again. Hit “Post,” and your image is available for all your friends to see and scroll around [ Image E].