Best of all, once you’ve selected an image to work with, the process takes only 5 minutes. (Launching your new planet into solar orbit may take a bit longer.)

To make a long story short: The “Polar Panorama Effect” is one of my favorite ways to process photos into unique pieces of art. It takes a panoramic (or landscape) photo and uses the Polar Coordinates filter of Photoshop CS or The Gimp to create a circular image that seems to wrap the panorama around a planet.

Selecting a Source Photo for Your Planet

Starting Simple: Planet San Francisco

Step 1: Resize and Rotate

Step 2: Apply the Polar Filter

(If you’re using The Gimp the command is Filters > Distorts > Polar Coords.)

As you can see we’re 90% of the way there!:

Easy cheesy, right? Now for some finishing touches…

Step 3: Rotate and clean up

More Advanced: Planet Venice

Crop and Straighten