Correcting converging verticals in PS7

[Guest flatfour]

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My wife took a picture at wide angle with my Digilux 2 without checking the verticals and I wondered if these can becorrected in Photoshop 7. Is there a kind expert on this forum who can help

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[jacksparrow]

I don't know if there's some more "professional" way of doing it, but here's how I do it with good results.

 

Open the Image

Go to View > Show > Grid, this will help you check that you've got the barrel distorsion removed later on when you apply the filter.

Filter > Distort > Spherize and then in the filter, try a small value. Something like -2% should work.

You should get those lines a lot more straight that way. there might be some weird wavy distortion on the edges, but it's most of the time barely noticeable.

If for any reason -2% is too much, try undoing the filter and then applying it again with less correction.

 

Hope this works.

[rob_x2004]

Ctrl copy, ctrl paste. Dont merge the layers. Grab the handles at the corners and stretch. When you are happy hit the apply which is usually onther tap or enter and merge the layers.

[Guest flatfour]

Hi Rob. Sorry to be so slow, but what do you mean by Cntrl - copy, Cntrl - paste ?

[rob_x2004]

Sorry, it is probably edit copy, edit paste in PS7 in the menu. Everyone else (whether it is your browser, text editor, spreadsheet, other image editors, pretty much anything else you can think of) uses Ctrl A,C,V,R,X,Z etc. for standard commands which saves a lot of mucking round. Photoshop being dense arse mishmash seems to like to keep you in laborious menus and tricky little routines. Maybe that is only in the later versions? I can't remember...Anyway, no wonder people resort to plug ins to get stuff done.

 

At one point in photoshop you could first increase the canvas size, go to edit > transform > distort and then click on the handles to drag one corner or the other out till you had dragged the image into a shape you liked. Then crop the image outline back to rectangular.

 

However if you do an edit copy, then edit paste, you are duplicating your image in a layer above which can be dragged about the same way, except that the surplus which is dragged outside the original paper size is lost. You may have to click the layer once or twice. The first lot of handles probably resize the image, the second lot allow rotation, the third lot let you drag corners independently. Usually you then scroll through the handles again till you get to the resize handles and double click them to make the changes stick. Then merge the layers just buries the layer beneath. You maintian your original paper size.

[albertwang]

My opinion is that postprocessed distortion correction isn't as good as using a tilt shift lens for the purpose.

[jacksparrow]

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Sorry, I think I misunderstood, Is it barrel distortion you're trying to correct?

verticals would be as rob says. It helps having the grid visible when you fix them.

 

Also, try to compress the wider section and not expand the narrower, it helps getting better quality, since it's easier for photoshop to average&remove pixels than creating them when you expand.

[TimF]

My opinion is that postprocessed distortion correction isn't as good as using a tilt shift lens for the purpose.

 

With you there Albert.

 

Not possible sadly with the camera in question though.

[Guest flatfour]

Thanks everyone. I have now manged it. What a helpful site this is to digital recruits..

[wda]

Anthony, sorry I am a bit late with help.

 

There are several ways of doing this. One of the simplest is to select the CROP tool, and tick PERSPECTIVE on the top line. If the buildings are leaning in at the top, drag the top corners of the frame so that the new margins are parallel with the sides of the buildings while avoiding any crop of the top of the picture. (If you do, you might have to resort to cloning to fill the gaps). Click the TICK and see what you think. You can always undo it and start again.

 

David