360 Edit Sessions Overview
An introduction to the 360 Edit Sessions panel: how it tracks perspective edit documents, coordinates multi-view workflows, and preserves your editing history inside Photoshop.
What is a Session?
In PanoView Editor, a session is a managed relationship between three distinct elements: your master equirectangular panorama, a specific framed perspective viewpoint, and the dedicated Photoshop perspective document extracted for retouching.
Whenever you click Edit This View, PanoView Editor does not just open an image: it instantiates an active session. This session freezes the camera coordinates (Heading, Pitch, and FOV), links the newly created PSB document with an embedded Smart Object inside the panorama, and prepares a pathway to return your finished work seamlessly.
The Bridge Between Planar & Spherical Work
Instead of treating each view extraction as a temporary, throw-away export, PanoView Editor tracks the session permanently. This allows you to close Photoshop, reopen your file days later, and return to exact edit perspectives with full layer fidelity intact.
The real 360 Edit Sessions panel containing several representative sessions or views, with the panel structure clearly visible.
Why Sessions Matter
Panoramas are spherical environments that rarely require just one edit. Retouching often involves removing a tripod at the floor, cleaning ceiling light fixtures, and erasing lens flare along a window:
Camera angles remain recorded so you can jump back to any previous perspective without manually guessing orientation degrees.
Each perspective edit is preserved inside its own embedded Smart Object, allowing endless refinement without raster degradation.
The panel continuously validates document layers, alerting you immediately if a layer is accidentally renamed, moved, or rasterized.
Session Lifecycle & Workflow
Sessions progress through clear, predictable lifecycle stages coordinated between Photoshop and PanoView Editor:
Creation & Extraction
Selecting Edit This View initiates a new numbered session. A perspective PSB document opens, and a session card appears in the panel.
Active Editing
While you paint or clone on the 360 Edit layer, the session displays an Editing status. The main panel displays Apply View Edits.
Projection Applied
Executing Apply View Edits commits the warped changes onto a dedicated projection layer in the master panorama. The session transitions to Projection Available.
Re-editing & Maintenance
You can reopen any existing view session at any time to adjust your retouching, re-project modifications, or safely delete sessions you no longer need.
Reading the Sessions Panel
Each session card provides an organized summary of view metadata, status indicators, and actionable controls:
A real session entry or card showing the user-visible information and available actions clearly enough to explain its anatomy.
Multi-View Architecture
The 360 Edit Sessions panel enables true multi-view editing. Rather than limiting you to a single session per panorama, PanoView Editor supports multiple sequential views for the same document.
All view sessions belonging to the active panorama appear together in the list. You can quickly switch between views, verify which areas have completed projections, and track which views are currently being retouched in Photoshop.
Sequential Workflow Best PracticeFor maximum reliability and clean layer management, work sequentially: extract a view, complete your Photoshop retouching, apply the projection, and then proceed to extract the next view.