Forget about expensive fisheye lenses; Photoshop can do the
hard work for you
What you’ll need
Photoshop elements
We used
Photoshop elements 9
You could try
Photoshop CS version
Photoshop elements 10
What you’ll learn
How to bend a photo and add a vignette to imitate a fisheye
lens
‘Photoshop Elements makes it easy to recreate even the
toughest of lens effects’
Buying more dynamic lenses for your camera makes photography
an expensive hobby. Although having a powerful lens is great when t comes to
effects such as fisheye, you may need to simply apply this in the
post-production stages instead.
Photoshop elements makes it easy to recreate even the
toughest of lens effects. The fisheye effect calls upon the unique warping
filters that are specifically designed to bend your image out of shape. The one
that’ been put to use here is Spherize, which can be used either convex or
concave when distorting an image. We also need to employ a thick circular
vignette, which forms the tunnel shape synonymous with classic fisheye-style
photographs.
Your image will need to be cropped to square proportions
too, although the shape doesn’t necessarily need to be a perfect circle for it
to work effectively. Experiment with various vignettes depending on your
subject’s movement or shape, but we’ve shown you how to apply this one to get
you going in the right direction. If you like the way it looks on your images,
you could be in for saving yourself a lot of extra expenditure otherwise put into
buying extra lenses.
Creating the fisheye look – no lens needed!
Step 1 – save then crop
Open your image in Elements. It’s worth saving a copy before
continuing, just in case you need to go back. Select the Crop tool, hold Shift,
and drag a square cropping boundary over the image with the main part of the
subject in the centre. Hit Enter to apply.
Step 1
Step 2 – duplicate the image
Go to Layer>Duplicate Layer in the Layers palette. Pick
the Elliptical Marquee tool and, holding Shift for a perfectly round selection,
drag the tool from one corner to the opposite. Leave a thin gap between the
edge of the image and the circular selection.
Step 2
Step 3 – use the Spherize filter
With the selection active and the top duplicated layer
highlighted in the Layers palette, go to Filter>Distort>Spherize. In the
Spherize menu, set Amount to 100% and keep Mode set to Normal. Hit OK to apply
the bending needed for the fisheye effect.
Step 3
Step 4 – inverse selection
To create a new layer on the top of the composition, go to
Layer>New>Layer. Hit OK in the pop-up window to apply a new blank layer
above everything else. Inverse the selection on the image by going to the
Select menu and choosing Inverse.
Step 4
Step 5 – fill with black
Add a new mask to the blank layer by clicking on the
circle-inside-a-square icon at the base of the Layers palette. Click on the
blank layer’s thumbnail on this layer and not the mask. Go to Edit>Fill
layer. Set black for Use and hit OK for the dark circular border.
Step 5
Step 6 – add softening
Click on the layer mask’s thumbnail on the black fill layer.
Go to Filer>Blur>Gaussian Blur to soften the edges of the mask. Set
Radius to around 33px. This will vary depending on your preference, but tick
Preview to view the results before hitting OK.
Step 6
3 of the best apps for creating a fisheye image
Snappr $1.99
Snappr
Snappr for iOS comes with five high-quality fisheye lens
effects for you to play with and you can share your shots easily.
Fisheye lens $1.99
Fisheye lens
The fisheye app lets you adjust the lens curvature so you
can customise the look. There are also other lenses to choose from.
FXCamera (Free)
FXCamera
A great Android app that lets you add fisheye effects as
well as a toy camera filter, an Andy Warhol effect and more
