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Hacking Full-size Camera Panoramas to Work in Facebook: Page 5 of 5

PhotoJoseph's picture
July 16, 2016 - 6:00pm

Are These the Final Results?

Here are the criteria we have:

  • EXIF “Camera: Make” must = “Apple”
  • EXIF “Camera: Camera Model Name” must = “iPhone 6 Plus” (or any other supported model name)
  • Aspect ratio must be 5.75:1 or less
  • Height (at the above aspect ratio at least) must be 3,082 or less

I probably should test this with some other files. 

17 Testing with a new file

Here's another Lightroom created panoramic… the original is 15,576 × 4,232. Here you see the required 5.75:1 crop:

Another panoramic photo, cropping in Photoshop and to be scaled as required

The resulting crop is 15,576 × 2,708 — so already below the 3,082 theoretical max. So I won't scale it anymore, but of course will change the EXIF Camera data.

RESULT: It worked! So far my process works. Yay!

One more test. This file started at 26,910 × 4,472. Cropped to 5.75:1 it looks like this:

Another file test

The resulting file is 25,714 × 4,472 so will need to be downscaled to 3,082 vertically. Metadata changed, and…

RESULT: And again it worked! OK, we're done here.

I'm Calling It—it's a Success!

For those who skipped to the end, here's what you need to do to get your non-smartphone generated panoramic photo (i.e. one you shot on your dSLR/dSLM and stitched in Photoshop or Lightroom) to display as that super-cool tilt-and-pan-to-explore image on your smartphone in the Facebook app.

  • Crop the image to an aspect ratio of 5.75:1 or less
  • The height of the image must be 3,082 or less (at least at the max aspect ratio — you may be able to do higher and lesser ratios)
  • Change the EXIF “Camera: Make” to “Apple” (presumably other phone manufacturer names will work too) [Exif Editor is a great app for that]
  • Change the EXIF “Camera: Camera Model Name” to “iPhone 6 Plus” (or any other supported model name)
  • Transfer to your smartphone, and upload to Facebook! You'll know if it's loading as an explorable pano if you see a globe icon in the lower left corner (scroll to the top to see an example).

Check out some samples

To see samples, head to my personal facebook page — very little is public there, but these are. Unfortunately you can't add panoramic photos to your business pages, although I imagine that will eventually change. 

I'm not sure about the desktop

Oddly this shows that it will work on the desktop, but then doesn't. If anyone knows what's up there, I'd love to hear it. When uploading the photo it shows as a “360 photo”, but once published it just shows as a super-wide image.

Facebook says it’ll be a 360 photo, but then once posted it isn’t

 

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Level:
Advanced
App:
Adobe Lightroom Classic (pre-CC) Adobe Photoshop Exif Editor Facebook PhotoSync
Platform:
macOS iOS Android Windows
Author:
PhotoJoseph

Thanks for getting to the bottom of this. I recently uploaded a LR Panorama to Facebook and wondered why it didn’t display as a Panorama. Now I have the answer.

Incidentally, I read all the way through. On page 4 of 5 I thought I found a typo (“(it won’t; I tired)”. But maybe you really were “tired” at that point.

Thomas

haha, I probably was tired! But thanks; fixed now.

@PhotoJoseph
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Very thorough explanation. I did try your tip but seems cant to get it to panorama view in FB. I resize and image to 19205 x 3340 (5.75:1 ration right ?) . Edit the exif, add the Maker & model to Apple and iPhone 6 Plus. Is there anything else that i miss ? But what can is when I resize it to 6000x3000 (2:1 ratio). Maybe you can comment on this

Thanks.

You missed a step… file must have a height of 3,082 or less. Scale your file down and it'll probably work!

@PhotoJoseph
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Does this still work?

I have some panoramic photos taken in Antarctica that aren’t showing to their potential in Facebook. I’ve changed the metadata, changed the aspect ratio and height, uploaded to my iPhone 6. They show in photos under panoramas with the wide angle icon in the bottom right but they don’t all the tilting view that ones taken on the phone allow.

Anything I’m doing wrong?

I don't know… haven't tried in a while. I don't have a pano on my system to test with. Sounds like you hit all the major points, and if it's showing the icon in Facebook it sounds more like an app thing. Can you try another device? Or paste the link in here (be sure to make it a public post) and I'll try it.

@PhotoJoseph
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Here you go try this one, not adjusted yet but if you get it to work let me know and I can adjust the others

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10158191072375500&set=a.10158190…

That's just showing up as a super wide photo. I'll try on myself and see what happens.

@PhotoJoseph
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Yep, mine worked. You can see it here. This one was so wide that Facebook thinks it's a full 360˚ panorama, funny!

If you want to send me the photo you're uploading via Dropbox or something, paste the link here and I'll look at the source to see if I can figure out what's missing.

@PhotoJoseph
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Heres one of the photo files via a dropbox link. Totally unedited, let me know how you get on.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f41dhlylce8y3wn/Landscape%2002.JPG?dl=0

 

Well, the EXIF data hasn't been edited. It still shows Sony ILCA-77M2

Your ratio should be fine; it's 8192 × 1856 which is a 4.41:1 aspect ratio.

Change the EXIF and it'll probably work. Go through the final checklist again; it explains how and what to change it to.

@PhotoJoseph
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Yeah it’s unedited but when I change the EXIF file with apple and iPhone 6 Plus or iPhone 6 it doesn’t work.

if you edit it does it work? 

This is amazing! Do you think it can be done even for other types of pictures, like illustrations or paintings, and not photos?  

I don't see why not… pixels are pixels!

@PhotoJoseph
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The Exif Editor app linked in the article doesn’t appear to be in the Mac App Store anymore. But I found one called Photos Exif Editor for $0.99 that did the job. 

Thomas

Im hoping it can be done to any 360 camera available in the market. Comparability is important.

Thanks for this work! I uploaded a pano photo from desktop (15525*2700  5,75:1), and works. Interesting, if I make a resized picture from it (6210*1080,  5,75:1), this isn’t recognized as pano.

And I have a problem. Quality my picture is very-very terrible on FB. Here are the exif data:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=197EKHn0lZ3LcJ8nJuQFL3GYfS60WsZMN

What is your opinion?

Gyula

I find the solution! The jpg format setting was Hoffman codes. I changed it progressive, and the quality of uploaded pano is excellent.

(The “JPG(old style)” became suspicious in exif data.)

Gyula

That is awesome! How did you change this?

@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?

I use ACDSee, the details of conversion are optional.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sfau2vw3J_s30kZ9hUse6rI_hw1SpBcK

 

Gyula

Joseph, I have another problem. My photo 360 degree exactly, but not allowed the hole rotation on FB

I try change the aspect ratio, but did not succeed.  I show this problem on the attached photo:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XCCsYZdAKES16FYZQsI5YqavV0QntTCC

What’s your opinion?

 

Gyula

thanks for figuring this out. I have found a free EXIF fixing website that did the job

https://www.thexifer.net/#exif-general

Thank you so much for sharing this! I’ve been frustrated and trying to find a way to make this work for a while!

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