Compress Image to Circular Format

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Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby JARHTMD » Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:20 am

Yesterday I saw a local camera club's presentation of some fabulous PSG/PSP shows. One show particularly caught my attention, because it contained all circular images. They were not cropped to circular; they were "compressed". Obviously, details from the corners had been brought down into the distorted images. Some looked almost like pictures of earth taken from space.

Someone other than the maker, must have prepared the images for the show, because she really had no idea how they were manipulated. She was pretty sure it wasn't Photoshop.

Does anyone know about this? I'm looking for a plug-in (CS3), stand-alone, or whatever to play with. At this time it's not something that I'm willing to invest much in. First I want to play around to explore the possibilities. Google hasn't served me well on this one . . . I can't think of the correct termination for Googling.
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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby heckydog » Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:53 am

Some type of fisheye distortion maybe?

Edit/Transform/Warp in CS3 will also give some semblance of a circular shape

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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby Rizze » Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:54 pm

This one is done in Photoshop CS2.

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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby nannybear » Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:38 pm

That looks like the spherize filter. Gavin Hoey has a tut on You Tube, can't open that page at work but check there. Cheers Jan
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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby Rizze » Mon Mar 23, 2009 2:19 pm

Yes nannybear, it is done with the the spherize filter.

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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby mikemullett » Mon Mar 23, 2009 2:43 pm

I have an "Action" in CS3 which I think came from PanosFX as a freebee. It will "globularise" (great word!) any picture.

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edited 24 March
not PanosFX but TheDom
here is the link to the Action

http://www.thedom.fr/share/dload.php?action=category&cat_id=15

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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby mikemullett » Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:48 am

Hi JARHMTD

Have edited my previous reply giving a link to the Action Plug in for Photoshop. Several other useful Actions here as well

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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby Barbara_K » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:33 am

Although this is probably not the effect you're looking for "amazing circles" are a fun and addictive circular effect. A Google search will turn up lots of examples.

Barbara

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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby JARHTMD » Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:46 pm

Thanks for all the replies & suggestions. I haven't yet tried them, but I will.

I did a little more playing around & came up with one way. I guess maybe I should have tried a few more things before my original post, but then we wouldn’t have had this sharing of ideas & links to actions, etc. Of course, the final results will largely depend on the original image.

I would have posted my before/after images, but I couldn't figure out how.

In CS3:
• Image Size to distort the image to square. I found that this made the task easier (for me).
• Select All
• Edit | Transform | Warp to create a rough circle
• Shift & Marquee Tool to select a “perfect” circle
• Select | Inverse
• Delete
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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby heckydog » Tue Mar 24, 2009 3:12 pm

JARHTMD wrote:
In CS3:
• Image Size to distort the image to square. I found that this made the task easier (for me).
• Select All
• Edit | Transform | Warp to create a rough circle
• Shift & Marquee Tool to select a “perfect” circle
• Select | Inverse
• Delete


:D pretty much the essence of my suggestion. As you get adept at doing it, you'll find that you don't have to make it square first, or do a "Select All". One thing that I do to make it easier is to make a new blank layer on top of the picture. Then use the elliptical marquee tool while holding the SHIFT and ALT keys to make a circle centered on the photo. Then use Edit/Stroke (set to 1px) to make a guide circle. Deselect the marquee and you now have a reference circle you can use to warp your picture close to the circle you need.

To add a picture to your post you need to upload the picture(s) to an off-site location. I use Photobucket, but you could also use personal storage space if you have any, or another site that offers storage space, free or otherwise. Once you do that just use the "Img" option available when you're writing your post. Add "[img]"_before_the_link_and_"[/img]" after the link. (without the quotes). What's nice about Photobucket is they automatically create the different codes for you. All you have to do is click on the one you need and it's copied to your clipboard so you can just paste it right into your post.

Joe
Last edited by heckydog on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Compress Image to Circular Format

Postby JARHTMD » Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:56 pm

heckydog wrote:As you get adept at doing it, you'll find that you don't have to make it square first, or do a "Select All". One thing that I do to make it easier is to make a new blank layer on top of the picture. Then use the elliptical marquee tool while holding the SHIFT and ALT keys to make a circle centered on the photo. Then use Edit/Stroke (set to 1px) to make a guide circle. Deselect the marquee and you now have a reference circle you can use to warp your picture close to the circle you need.


Actually, I also played around with the blank top layer, edit/stroke, etc. What I didn't know was that the ALT key would center the marquee tool selection. So I was using the square to make positioning of the circle selection easier.

Now, I guess I need to look for "just the right images".

Thanks also for the image posting help.

Jim

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Image

Here's a "Amazing Circle" version . . . thanks for that info, Barbara.
Image
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