360 Camera Basics 360 Camera Techniques

How to remove a tripod or shadow from a 360 photo on a smartphone (Snapseed) or desktop (Photoshop or Affinity Photo)

How to remove a tripod or shadow from a 360 photo on smartphone or desktop

Here’s how to remove a tripod or shadow from a 360 photo to make it look like it was shot with an invisible flying camera. I’ll show you 3 ways to do it on a phone (with apps such as Snapseed or Retouch) or desktop (with Photoshop or Affinity Photo, a cheaper alternative to Photoshop)

The other day, I posted a 360 photo where the camera appeared invisible:

I shot and edited the photo all on my phone. Here’s how I did it.

TABLE of CONTENTS

00:34 How to shoot the photo
00:52 How to remove a tripod or shadow with smartphone apps (Snapseed and edit360)
02:43 how to remove tripod or shadow from 360 photo with Photoshop
03:45 how to remove tripod or shadow from 360 photo with Affinity Photo (a cheaper alternative to Photoshop)
04:52 can you solve this puzzle?

The same technique can also be used to add text or watermarks.  On a phone, you would move the target area to the middle, then paste the text or watermark.  In Photoshop or Affinity, you would switch to 360 view, move the view to the area where you want to paste the text or watermark, and after pasting the text or watermark, you would merge down (not merge visible) the text or watermark layer with the 360 photo.  Note: Although editing on a phone is convenient, editing on a desktop with Photoshop or Affinity is more efficient if you want to edit multiple parts of the photo, or if you want to add text in more than one area.

About the author

Mic Ty

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  • You can make all of those with free GIMP and its add-on G’MIC (for nadir and zenith generation and for auto cloning (you just mark area you want to replace using some custom color and the software re-creates that area based on surroundings)).

      • Just open equirectangular image in GIMP (G’MIC addon for GIMP has to be instaled first). Then Menu Filters> G’MIC-GTK… In pop up window select effect from list (Deformations> Equirectangular to nadir-zenith) first we need to generate nadir-zenith so select it from drop-down-box and Apply.

        In layers select generated layer with nadir-zenith.

        Mark area you want to replace (tripod) painting it with some strange color (without antialiasing – as effect replaces pixels with exact “mask” color.)

        Now, we need to apply auto cloning so sam in G’MIC select effect: Repair>Inpaint [multiscale] as “Mask color” set the one you have used to mark area for regeneration. You can experiment with other options there (my values are: 0, 9, 10, 5, yes, ff0000, 3, no). Apply effect.

        Now, you can correct anny issues, on this new generated layer with corrected area.

        And we need to go back to equirectangular form using same G’MIC filter as the first time, but now with option “to equirectangular”.

        After effect will be applied hide all layers (eye icon) except just created, now I suggect to select area that has not bee affected by filter (in my case I use rectangular selection that cover all image except the nadir part (the wave form part of the nadir is also selected) – no I use Delete to remove all selected part – no I have only nadir part in rectangular shape at the bottom of the image, the rest is alfa (transparent).

        Why I suggest to cut off the part of nadir that has form of wave – because after export sometimes it is somehow noticed in final image the white boundary between original image and the one that covers generated nadir.

        Now, unhide (eye icon on layers’ list) the original layer – this makes the top layer to hide that part of nadir in original image where tripod is with this generated.

        Now, you can export the image to JPG from File menu.