Adjust an equirectangular map for use as a globe?

[Manitou]

I have a high-resolution equirectangular world map, that I'd love to use for a cooperative worldbuilding endeavor. Unfortunately, some of the continents just aren't working when I project this onto a globe. What I'm hoping to do is apply a distortion to the map, so that the ploar regions are stretched in order to make the map look "realistic" on a 3D projection. I'm using Photoshop CS6. The Polar Distortion filter didn't quite work, and the Spherical Mapping Projection, which seemed very promising, had no visible effect on the map. Thanks for your help!

[ThomasR]

You can google Maptoglobe, an online ressource to make globes and GIFs of rotating globes.

[Manitou]

To clarify, I can get my map onto a globe - the problem is that once it gets on a globe it has pretty severe polar stretching, so I'm trying to figure out how to easily distort my 2-d maps poles, so the 3d version looks normal, if that makes sense.

[johnvanvliet]

i use gimp to fix the poles

an example
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...l=1#post350359