How to Make a Bubble Portrait using Photoshop CS3
Dan McGinty (see his work on Flickr)- one of our wonderful Forum members – submitted this tutorial on how to create a bubble portrait using Photoshop CS3. Got a tip or tutorial to share? Post it in the tutorials section of our forum.
Upon request I am posting a step by step how to on a recent photo I posted in the share section. I wanted to try something different so I thought of fish eye effects, Well I decided to do the opposite. More of a bubble effect and I loved it for this photo.
Program Used: Photoshop CS3
Difficulty: Easy to Average
Things You Need: A photograph!
Ok, Well here it goes. I will post screen shots along with directions.
Step 1: Open your Image in Photoshop:
Step 2: Draw a box around the part that you would like to put in the bubble.(Hold Shift to keep the rectangle tool as a box.) Remember that you will be losing your corners.
Step 3: deselect the part you have cropped (Apple-d). Then go to filter: Distort: Spherize… Keep it at 100%
Step 4: Now you will have your square image with a sphere effect to the whole center. Select the circle tool now. Start in one corner and drag to the other corner while holding shift to get a perfect circle selecting your sphere.
Then, select:inverse. (selecting all the areas that aren’t in the sphere.)
Step 5: Add a layer. You will still have the area from step 4 selected. Then grab the paint bucket and whatever color you’d like to use and pour it into the space selected!
And now you have completed your Portrait in a bubble!!! Easy right?
Final:
24 Responses to “How to Make a Bubble Portrait using Photoshop CS3” - Add Yours
January 5th, 2009 at 12:54 am
A neat technique, but it’s can’t really compare to a portrait taken by fisheye lens: http://neil.creek.name/gallery/v/manimeets/081220manifestkk/creek-081220-0019.jpg.html
If you don’t have a fisheye though, this does a reasonable job of replicating the effect!
January 5th, 2009 at 12:57 am
That’s so cool
January 5th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Nice quick tutorial! Great for people who don’t have a fisheye. Can’t wait to get my hands ona fisheye to have a play with!
January 5th, 2009 at 5:05 am
Thanks for posting this! One of my goals for this year is to learn 52 new techniques. I used this on three photos, and learned a valuable lesson (that it’s not pretty on the hips!) Here is my practice: http://senovia1.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-technique-1.html
January 5th, 2009 at 5:41 am
Nice! This should transfer nicely over to GIMP. I’ll give it a shot when I get a few minutes.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:16 am
This is great fun. I also added some lighting effects to a few of mine to give my sphere a little more “spherical” dimension. I deleted the excess outside the sphere on one photo rather than fill it. I liked this the best (looks cool on the blog anyways). On another I decreased brightness in the excess for a cool effect too. Lots of fun. Thanks!
January 5th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Very nice! I don’t have Photoshop CS3, but I found it can be done with Photoshop Elements 5 (I assume it can be done with Elements 6 and 7). My kids are now having fun seeing their pictures in a bubble!
January 5th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I have a better way….get a fisheye lens.
but I have to say, it is a pretty nice technique for a once or twice, casual use
January 5th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Wow, Cool. I didn’t think this would come about in the blog section. I see it as the opposite of a fish eye, right? it curves the opposite way? I agree it is only good for once or twice. Also has to be the right image.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Just wondering, what is the purpose to first make a rectangle then circle? Why don´t you just make one perfect rectangle, crop, then spherisize, select inverse – voila!
January 5th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
That looks like a great tool! I’m still using CS2 so will have to check whether spherize is available – perhaps another reason to upgrade to CS4
PatB Photography
January 5th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Mark – you have to select the circle because nothing is selected after you spheresized, if you hit select inverse, nothing will be selected in the first place so there for you need to draw the circle around the sphere then select inverse to get the whole outside area. At least thats what I ran into. I’ve never selected inverse on something when it didn’t have anything selected yet but i’ll try it to see what you mean
January 6th, 2009 at 12:52 am
…yep, sorry, of course i meant circle, not rectangle…
So you first choose circle with shift, then crop, then sphere, then choose inverse, then paintbucket…and that´s it…
January 6th, 2009 at 3:24 am
Is there a reason why this effect is considered cool? It is just a distorted picture.
Anyway, there are some articles which might help:
http://www.instructables.com/id/%2411-Super-Wide-Angle-Digital-Camera/
http://photojojo.com/content/diy/make-your-own-fisheye-lens/
January 6th, 2009 at 10:16 am
It’s “cool” because it takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. My family is having a laugh and I am having fun. My pic of an alligator now has extraordinary teeth!
January 6th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Nice image and a creative idea. I have two suggestions:
In step 4, I would feather the selection by 20-80 pixels to taste(depending on the image’s pixel size) to get a soft edged vignette effect.
Also, the lady’s complexion is rough. I’d smooth it out using the spot healing brush and the blur tool
January 7th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
How do we distort-spherize without distorting the main object/focal point but just the background or at least do not distort the main object/focal point too much?
January 8th, 2009 at 7:09 am
For any GIMP users who want to try this, the equivalent seems to be Filters / Light and Shadow / Apply Lens.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Great tip. I tried on my picture. When I select the circle tool the bubble becomes white or opaque and I am unable to proceed further. I am doing something wrong and dont know what it is. Can you help me. I want to try this bubble effect.
January 15th, 2009 at 3:10 am
Thanks, Scott, for the GIMP equivalent! I’ll try that tonight.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Great tip, might try it on some of the wedding photos on our site always looking for new effects and things to try.
Regards
Adrian
http://www.weddingphotoshot.com
January 16th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
fantastic idea for those who are still in high school and can’t buy a fish eye lens yer, thats me
yer i think this would be ia good i dea for a photo book iam making
January 18th, 2009 at 8:56 am
In addition to the Filters / Light and Shadow / Apply Lens option in GIMP, one can use
Filter / Map / Map Object
It’s more work, but there is more flexibility like rotating the image.
February 21st, 2009 at 4:34 am
cool, thank u!!!!!!!!
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