Photography isn’t just about going out and snapping photographs and posting them on a blog… photography has to be about fun… enjoyment and experimentation. Now experimentation doesn’t just to have to be achieved with holding a camera in your hand.  It can be about using Photoshop to have some fun.

Take this image for instance…

How can I make an orb…

Firstly I open up the image in Photoshop.  Using the crop tool and selecting the 1:1 (Square) ratio, I select the part of the image I want…

Then I click on Filter, select Distort and then Polar Coordinates, which will then bring up another window.  I then select Polar to Rectangular and OK and that gives me this image.

Then I Select Image and Image Rotation and Select Flip Canvas Vertical, which gives me this.

Then I go back to Filter, select Distort again and Polar Coordinates which brings up another window where I change the setting to Rectangular to Polar and select OK.

And that gives me the final orb….

Here are the instructions.

• Crop image to 1:1 (square) Ratio
• Filter ► Distort ► Polar Coordinates…. ► Polar to Rectangular ► OK
• Image ► Image Rotation ► Flip Canvas Vertical
• Filter ► Distort ► Polar Coordinates…. ► Rectangular to Polar ► OK

Here are a few Orbs I have just created using the above instructions.

From this

To this…

From this

To this

From this

Vase of Flowers

To this

From this

To this

And what would happen if you didn’t keep the 1:1 ratio and used a portrait ratio? I tried it with the yellow flower and got this effect.

And for a landscape ratio I got this effect..