These terrestrial and celestial globes where on display in Belton House. If anyone knows if this style of globe have some special name please leave a comment. Although photography was allowed in Belton House the light was very dim and flash was not allowed. In situations such as this a high ISO value is needed. ISO is the sensitivity of the film or sensor. The trade off is an increase in noise. My old camera had an ISO range from 100-800 but if I wanted to submit something for Stock Photography I could only use the low noise shots taken at ISO 100. This was taken with a Canon 5D mark II at ISO 3200 and had a remarkable lack on noise. I don’t know good enough for stock but its still very impressive.

This is the Arboretum in Nottingham, UK. To create a planet like this you need to capture a 360 degree panorama. For the best results use a wide angle lens and a tripod. To create the planet you will need a little help from Photoshop.

I know this has been done before but I decided it was time for my take on this classic piece of digital art. Like Future World I used an image of the world in the public domain. This time showing the Pacific as I thought it would blend into the blue of my left eye. My aim was to make it look as realistic as possible despite the unrealistic concept.

It took 2 satellites 16 days to create the original image.  Fortunately it is in the public domain so It is fine to use it. Rather than the traditional Blue Marble I wanted to age the earth and give it an apocalyptic look. I used adjustment layers with masks to alter different areas of the planet. I then reduced the opacity of each layer until they looked suitably polluted or deforested.

This planet was made from a panorama of a salt lake in the Bahariya Desert in Egypt. I set up the tripod on the shore line which is why the resultant globe is bisected in the way. There was a lot of banding between the 20 images when stitched together. I used Photoshop CS5′s new feature Content Aware Fill to remove the planet so I could smooth the sky to the horizon without contaminating it with blurred planet. This is an easy way to remove banding from sky but it does not work on the sand as you would lose texture. Read this to find out how to make your own planet.

This world was made from a 360 degree panorama. Read this to find out how to make your own planet. The biggest problem with making planets out of city panoramas is you need to be far enough away from the buildings to get them all in, and at the same time you need do get enough of the ground in to avoid getting heavy distortion in the centre of the image when you convert it into a planet. Fortunately this spot in Nottingham market square was just right. The clouds at the edge of this image had some distortion so I used the dodge tool set to highlights to isolate the image on pure white.

This planet took 22 exposures build up due to a broken lens. The panorama I used to make this planet was taken in the western deserts of Egypt. Although you cannot see it I was stood on a monument to the French explorer René Caillié. Below are the layers used to build up the image. This older post has details on how to make your own world.

Today I got on my bike to capture some of this crazy weather we have been experiencing. Cycling up and down icy hills is not for the fainthearted. This image was taken in a field in Hambleton which is the peninsula in the centre of Rutland Water. How to make your own world.

This planet started life as 12 wide angle shots taken from a point at the top of Burgh Island. I stitched them together in panorama studio. I then loaded the panorama into Photoshop and rotated it 180 degrees. Next I used image size to squeeze it into a square. You will need to Un-tick Constrain Proportions to be able to do this. At this point it looks a little odd but its about to get interesting. Select Menu Filter>Distort>Polar Coordinates>Rectangular to Polar. Voila! a world is created. It sounds a bit long winded but it takes a lot less than 6 days.