Perspective correction

[bholliman]

I took this shot this morning and unhappy with how it turned out. I was shooting up a steep hill and no matter how I adjust the alignment it just looks wrong. Either the trees are leaning, the building leaning. Other than buying a TS-E lens, is there any way to make this shot look good?

I'm just learning long exposure photography. Any way to get the moon properly exposed without severely underexposing the rest of the scene? Any other suggestions for improvement are welcomed.

This was shot at 10 seconds, f/7.1, ISO 160, 28mm on 24-70 2.8 II lens on a 6D.

 

[Eldar]

You can do part of the perspective control in Photoshop, but not quite as good as with a tilt&shift lens. The exposure problem is probably best solved with a gradual ND filter. An other alternative is HDR (which I am not very fond of).

 

[privatebydesign]

If by look good you mean correct the verticals, yes, it is very easy and results in remarkably little loss in quality, particularly for web based or small print output, for big prints it is not so good.

In PS, select all, free transform - distort, then pull the top two corners out and up, much better than perspective correction adjustments in LR or PS. This took fifteen seconds.

 

[privatebydesign]

The only way you will get the moon and the foreground correctly exposed is with two exposures, after all one is night, the other day. Shoot the scene with the optimal exposure for it, and the moon optimal for it, then put the moon from that shot into the other shot. If the exposures are much more than 5 stops apart then it can't be done effectively in one shot.

 

[rpt]

If by look good you mean correct the verticals, yes, it is very easy and results in remarkably little loss in quality, particularly for web based or small print output, for big prints it is not so good.

In PS, select all, free transform - distort, then pull the top two corners out and up, much better than perspective correction adjustments in LR or PS. This took fifteen seconds.

+1
The auto correction in LR is great! Try it.

 

[Marsu42]

The auto correction in LR is great!

... unless you compare it to DxO Viewpoint which does a much, much better job and has easy gui tools to select the verticals & horizontals. LR is nice enough for quick & minor adjustments and preserves the raw workflow, but for money shots DxO is definitely "worth it".

 

[rpt]

The auto correction in LR is great!

... unless you compare it to DxO Viewpoint which does a much, much better job and has easy gui tools to select the verticals & horizontals. LR is nice enough for quick & minor adjustments and preserves the raw workflow, but for money shots DxO is definitely "worth it".

Ah! I must look at that. I have one pano that is very hard to straighten. Taken of a love wood carved building that is situated in a arrow lane. I think the lane is all of 12 feet wide!

 

[privatebydesign]

The only correction DxO does much better than anybody else is volume anamorphosis, nobody else I have seen comes close to that feature, though you can do it in PS and on the rare occasions I have wanted to do it that is how I did it.

I'd only recommend DxO if you shoot a lot of UWA shots that you don't wat to look like UWA shots, otherwise everybody else is pretty much as good for regular perspective and distortion corrections.

 

[Marsu42]

I'd only recommend DxO if you shoot a lot of UWA shots that you don't wat to look like UWA shots, otherwise everybody else is pretty much as good for regular perspective and distortion corrections.

With emphasis on the results and with practice that might be true, but at least as LR/ACR is concerned (I don't know about PS) DxO has a very nice and quick visual user interface which makes the correction a breeze.

In LR you can either have Adobe's upright have a go and if this fails have to tune the sliders for ages until you get what you want... at least I'm still struggling to do proper corrections that aren't minor, somehow it always ends up looking a tad wrong unlike with DxO. Having said that, spending the €€€ on DxO might not be necessary if already owning LR, gift horse and so on.

 

[bholliman]

Thanks for the tips. The distortion correction in PS is pretty powerful, I've never used it before. I'll try some additional night shots the next time we have a clear one and try using a grad ND and or multiple exposures to get the moon right.

 

[privatebydesign]

I'd only recommend DxO if you shoot a lot of UWA shots that you don't wat to look like UWA shots, otherwise everybody else is pretty much as good for regular perspective and distortion corrections.

With emphasis on the results and with practice that might be true, but at least as LR/ACR is concerned (I don't know about PS) DxO has a very nice and quick visual user interface which makes the correction a breeze.

In LR you can either have Adobe's upright have a go and if this fails have to tune the sliders for ages until you get what you want... at least I'm still struggling to do proper corrections that aren't minor, somehow it always ends up looking a tad wrong unlike with DxO. Having said that, spending the €€€ on DxO might not be necessary if already owning LR, gift horse and so on.

I much prefer PS, over the Lightroom and ACR adjustments particularly now they have the three auto options, they are trying to be too clever, and, as you say, if you go into manual they can take forever to fiddle this way and that. The actual lens corrections, the profiled auto settings for lens induced distortions, CA, and vignetting are very very good in LR/ACR.

As for perspective "corrections"/adjustments, I find PS to be very simple, but you do need to understand what you want the image to look like and which direction to move it in to get it there, a couple of keyboard shortcuts don't hurt either. Rather than try to explain the way I do it, I thought a video would better illustrate the method, so I made one, here, forgive the questionable production quality, I only ever did one of these before.

 

[fugu82]

Very cool video, privatebydesign, I never thought of putting a grid on to help line stuff up. Thanx!

 

[JPAZ]

Very nice video. I've used the corrections in LR5 and perspective crop in PS, but not the technique you so wonderfully described in the video (for a new attempt at that genre, I thought it turned out pretty well). I could not quite make out some of the narration, so, could you comment on how this tool might affect the printed image quality at say 8.5 x 11 prints?

And thanks, again.

 

[Marsu42]

I thought a video would better illustrate the method, so I made one, here

Great, thanks for the video! Imho many of the options PS offers are overkill for "just" postprocessing and LR is quicker, easier and more to the point - but just like "smart sharpen" this perspective correction definitely is a worth a trip outside of LR. Adobe wouldn't want to put all the goodies in the inexpensive little brother, would they :-> ?

 

[Quasimodo]

I'd only recommend DxO if you shoot a lot of UWA shots that you don't wat to look like UWA shots, otherwise everybody else is pretty much as good for regular perspective and distortion corrections.

With emphasis on the results and with practice that might be true, but at least as LR/ACR is concerned (I don't know about PS) DxO has a very nice and quick visual user interface which makes the correction a breeze.

In LR you can either have Adobe's upright have a go and if this fails have to tune the sliders for ages until you get what you want... at least I'm still struggling to do proper corrections that aren't minor, somehow it always ends up looking a tad wrong unlike with DxO. Having said that, spending the €€€ on DxO might not be necessary if already owning LR, gift horse and so on.

I much prefer PS, over the Lightroom and ACR adjustments particularly now they have the three auto options, they are trying to be too clever, and, as you say, if you go into manual they can take forever to fiddle this way and that. The actual lens corrections, the profiled auto settings for lens induced distortions, CA, and vignetting are very very good in LR/ACR.

As for perspective "corrections"/adjustments, I find PS to be very simple, but you do need to understand what you want the image to look like and which direction to move it in to get it there, a couple of keyboard shortcuts don't hurt either. Rather than try to explain the way I do it, I thought a video would better illustrate the method, so I made one, here, forgive the questionable production quality, I only ever did one of these before.

I am very impressed that you went and made a video to share on how to perform this operation in PS! This is such an act that makes this a great community. As for the actual distortion correction, I used to make them in Photoshop Elements and I loved that function. However, once my job installed the full PS version, I was not able to keep it, hence I learned to do the transform in PS.

PS. I would not mind if you had some time one day to make a video (in the other thread on group portraits (where you commented on my picture)) on an easy way to whithen out parts of the backdrop that was not strongly enough lit, hence you still see the structure of the backdrop. Up until now I have used the Clone Stamp tool, but it is tedious and easy to miss out on. Also another turorial if you have any good tip...? I have seen the professional graphic designers at work remake a white background to whatever color they want, without altering the subject/person in front..

 

[YuengLinger]

Happily standing in line, privatebydesign, to shake your hand in gratitude for making and sharing your how-to video.

Brilliant!

Thank you.

 

[stefsan]

Rather than try to explain the way I do it, I thought a video would better illustrate the method, so I made one, here, forgive the questionable production quality, I only ever did one of these before.

Super cool! Thanks for the video.

 

[neuroanatomist]

I would not mind if you had some time one day to make a video (in the other thread on group portraits (where you commented on my picture)) on an easy way to whithen out parts of the backdrop that was not strongly enough lit, hence you still see the structure of the backdrop. Up until now I have used the Clone Stamp tool, but it is tedious and easy to miss out on. Also another turorial if you have any good tip...?

You're just looking to brighten up (or darken) parts of the image, like burning and dodging in the darkroom? That's pretty easy. I prefer to use an overlay layer so the edits are non-destructive. Here's a brief tutorial:

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/dodge-burn/

 

[JPAZ]

Thanks for that link, Neuro. It is a useful way to "fix" what sliders and the tone curve can't do in LR. And, the nondestructive nature of the layer is always a good idea. Then, if you save a TIFF of the final, you still have the original RAW.

 

[bholliman]

As for perspective "corrections"/adjustments, I find PS to be very simple, but you do need to understand what you want the image to look like and which direction to move it in to get it there, a couple of keyboard shortcuts don't hurt either. Rather than try to explain the way I do it, I thought a video would better illustrate the method, so I made one, here, forgive the questionable production quality, I only ever did one of these before.

Excellent video, thanks!