How to straighten a 360/VR/Spherical Panorama in Photoshop?

[davidtocc]

Is it possible to straighten a spherical panorama in Photoshop?  For example, an equirectangular 360 photo taken with a Ricoh Theta S where the tripod wasn't leveled properly.  Right now, the only thing I can figure out is to open the photo in Premiere, which DOES have the ability to straighten spherical panorama (via the VR Rotate Sphere effect) and then export as a JPEG or TIFF, which seems pretty ridiculous to me.

I have opened the crooked photo in Photoshop, then 3D > Spherical Panorama > New Panorama From Selected Layers but can't figure out how to straighten it.  When I drag in the main image, it rotates the sphere, but doesn't let me straighten the horizon line.  There are 3 icons in the lower left corner that say orbit, pan, and dolly when I mouse over them, but they don't seem to do anything, or at least I can't figure out how to use them.

I've searched the forums and the open web, but the little bit that's out there suggests using plugins and other applications.  I need to be able to show other Photoshop users how to do this who only have Photoshop on their machine.

I'm using Photoshop CC 2018 (19.1.0) on a PC laptop running Windows 10.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Hi David

I'm sorry, I can't answer your question, but if there is an answer, I suspect you'll find it on this page.

Behance

Russell Brown is the master of this sort of content, and often comes up with solutions right out of left field that us lesser folk might never stumble across without a helping hand.  Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

[davescm]

I think you will need a plug in to do this. The transformations required to straighten a 360 panorama are quite complex.  You may want to take a look at Flaming Pears Flexify2 which is available as a trial and would appear to meet your need.

Dave