Dealing With Lens Distortion and Perspective Issues
At the last Photo Enhancement SIG one of our members brought in a couple of photos she had taken on a recent trip. She had been shooting landscapes with a wide angle lens and when she came to a city she started taking photos of buildings using the same wide angle lens. Her problem was the vertical lines of the building were slanted rather than perpendicular to the street. This is not an uncommon problem. Here is a rather extreme example of her problem. As you can see in the photo the building appears to be slanted with curved features.
If you are using the latest version of Photoshop or Lightroom your photos can be corrected in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). Here is a LINK to a video that explains how to do it. If you are using an older version of Photoshop or Lightroom you may still be able use ACR if it has the Lens Correction feature. If you have Photoshop Elements here is a LINK that shows how it’s done in Elements. Perspective and lens distortion problems are not limited to buildings. They can also occur when taking many types of photos. Here is a LINK to a good article on how to prevent this problem from happening in the first place. As explained in the article the technical term for this phenomenon is “keystoning.” Here is a LINK to another article from one of my favorite websites that discusses the problem. Remember a good search engine can find much more information if you decide you want it.
