Creating high res sphere photos

[SnrDiggan]

Hi,
i love the Panoramic Sphere photos on my MM2. I have now found a that you can save the originals as DNG which is great but i am left with an issue. I have tried using photoshop CC to create high resolution 3D versions (both flat and mini world) but am unable to create the clean and perfect versions that the app creates:



The biggest file size i can get is a 2.3mb png or jpeg which is a real shame as it could be alot better reolutuion. Am i missing something?

 

[slup]

If you use Windows I think you should try Microsoft ICE ... It handles the raw dng files directly if you want that, or you enhance all dng in a raw converter first (all pics with exactly the same adjustments), export to tiff so further editing isn't destructive.

After that take them into Microsoft ICE ... have here done it with 25 dng directly from a spherical pano shot with my Mavic Air 1


After that let the program stitch them to a flat panorama



Chose Stereographic projection ... and by grabbing the pic & drag up/down transform it to a tiny planet



Then crop & export ... to format of choice.



Note the size of the stitched pic above ... lots of detail left to enhance further, the jpg export is 175Mb & a tiff is 703Mb ... below 100% size from the middle of that tiny planet



Microsoft ICE is a discontinued software so it's a bit tricky to find ... Found it here though --> Microsoft Image Composite Editor 2.0.3 - Download for PC Free (In the archive you download you find both a 32 & a 64bit version ... both in .msi instead of .exe, just double click to install)

And here a YT tutorial that shows the steps

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[Kilrah]

I do a merge of the DNGs in Lightroom just so that I can do adjustments that look good on the entire picture, then copy those adjustments to all individual DNGs, export them to full size high quality JPGs, load that in ICE, have it do its thing, export, then load that in Photoshop, expand the canvas top to a 2:1 ratio, do a content-aware fill for the missing sky and done, ~180-200 MPix output.

 

[SnrDiggan]

Thanks for all of the advice. Unfortunately I am a Mac user so the ICE suggestions aren't suitable

 

[Kilrah]

PTGui or Hugin can replace it.

 

[SnrDiggan]

PTGui is over £125 and Hugin does an awful job.

It's frustrating that my iPhone/drone can do it but somehow photoshop is unable to.

 

[Paul B]

Try Kuula. It's free. I use it on a Mac and once I got the hang of how to do it, works a treat.