Retouching VR Photography with Photoshop and After Effects

The exercise files are included in this lecture

To begin, we’ll launch After Effects. First, we’ll setup our workspace interface to best suite our needs for editing this panoramic image. We’ll be using small screen and rearrange our panels. Now let’s drag our original JPEG into our Project panel. Once the image is there, drag it into the Composition panel. Then open SkyBox Composer and let’s select the options we’ll need for our composition. Then we’ll create our files and save them.

Let’s go to Folder B and open the lakemore_retreat_tripod_export.psd we just saved in Photoshop. Let’s remove the group layers and create new layer. Now we’ll use the Spot Healing brush and remove the table and tripod. Create a new layer called ‘retouched’ so we can update it at  anytime. Be careful not to touch any pixels on the edge. We will come back to that later

Now let’s go back to After Effects. We have not moved our camera position, so we can import the Photoshop file we just saved. We’ll import as footage. We’ll drag the file into the Composition. Since we didn’t touch the pixels on the edge, After Effects will morph that file to the sphere shape and we now have removed the tripod from our image

We now have a new file called lakemore_retreat_modified.psd. We now want to retouch the other sections. Pan around the image find imperfections and miscellaneous things to remove with the healing brush or clone tool. Once you are done, convert your layers to a Smart Object. Then go to Filter > Other > Offset. This will wrap the pixels and reset your center. Save your file

In the file lakemore_retreat_modified.psd, the sky is overcast. We will replace this dreary sky with another panoramic image taken on a different day. In Photoshop, let’s place the new image as a linked file.  Then we’ll adjust the Hue/Saturation, use Blend Modes to composite the images an add a mask to finish the edges

So now we’re ready to create a new After Effects file based on our newly modified spherical panorama. Save your changes from the previous file and create a new project. Import the modified file, create a new composition and save the file. Now we can add our sun. We’ll be using the plugin CC Light Rays

Now that we’ve added the sun to the image, we need to modify the rest of the image to make it believable. Go to the Effects & Presets panel to search for the Hue/Saturation and Color Balance effects. Drag each onto the image and adjust. While we’ll adjust the effects to modify the image, the enhancements are subjective and you can adjust to your liking

We’ll be adding a 2D logo to our spherical image. You have a sample logo to place or use your own logo to see how it would look in a spherical panoramic. The Lakemore logo is not included. Saving this file is a bit different since we applied an effect to an adjustment layer and it won’t translate back to Photoshop layers. So go to Save Frame As > File >  Main Options > JPEG Sequence

After editing and modifying the file through different applications, it has lost its metadata. Some social media platforms and online viewers need the camera information, otherwise it will not recognize the image as a spherical panorama. We can re-save the image from Photoshop to capture the data or there are online tools such as theXifer.net, where you can update the data

In order to preview our newly created image, you’ll need a viewer. Many camera manufacturers have their own viewer and you don’t need to own the camera to view an image. At the time of this recording, many social networks are supporting 360 photos with their own viewers which will allow anyone to explore the image. Now you can edit and modify your own images to enhance your user experience