Polarising Effect

I'd seen some edited photos I liked that looked like mini planets. I thought that it would be a good challenge to attempt as well as hopefully improving my skills on Photoshop.

To create the effect I needed a photograph that would wrap around and join up. This is the closest one I had (a holiday snap from America.)

All I simply had to do then was flip the image upside down and use the Photoshop polarise effect. This pulls the image into the centre and creates this planet like effect.

This is the final outcome. It took a few re-attempts to line up. I had to completely delete the sky and create my own using a gradient because it wouldn't stitch.