Help... Horrible lens distortion problem...

[theRBK]

relax people

the liquify method is just a quick and dirty way to do things...

the perspective tool does straighten the buildings, though on the other hand, when everything becomes perfectly vertical, the sense of depth inherent in the skewed perspective is reduced, which may actually make the image look a bit weird... so, to get a more "natural looking" image, we might not want to totally reduce the perspective skewing...

but one thing about the perspective tool: by just tigtening the top, one would also make the contents of the image narrower (not just the image as a whole narrower but the contents of the image like the buildings, etc. become narrower than originally it was captured)... so it would be good to also widen the image slightly to maintain the aspect ratio of the contents, or to make corrections half via the top skewing inwards and half via the bottom skewing outwards to get the same effect of maintaining the aspect ratio of the contents... (a lot of yakking to think about... which was why I introed the quick and dirty method in the first place )

of course, we can do a little of both... reduce the overall skew, and definitively straighten the tower with liquify... YMMV

 

[sinned79]

consider getting yourself a better lens

 

[theRBK]

consider getting yourself a better lens

it's not that the lens is bad... the distortion comes most probably from shooting downwards with a wide angle lens... when you point a wide angle lens downwards, you get convergence downwards, and when you point upwards, you get convergence upwards... it's a result of the angle of coverage, not of the quality of the lens, and no matter how good the lens one would still get this effect... the wider the lens, the more pronounced the effect will be... one way to minimize the effect is to shoot as straight on as possible and then crop to the selected view, rather than trying to frame the shot by angling the camera upwards or downwards... YMMV

 

[Peano]

the perspective tool does straighten the buildings, though on the other hand, when everything becomes perfectly vertical, the sense of depth inherent in the skewed perspective is reduced, ...

That comes from using the perspective tool incorrectly. Whenever an image is squeezed or
stretched horizontally at the top to correct leaning buildings, it must also be stretched or
compressed vertically (depending on which way the leaning was corrected). If that second
step is skipped, the proportions get messed up, and the sense of depth that you mentioned
can be reduced.

 

[hazmee]

Hi FrozenRiver,

That is quite a view of Paris you got there. Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I did some 'photoshopping' to it. Just wanted to flex my photoshop muscles early in the morning before I go do the boring stuff. Haha.

Basically, I used the following tools:

1. Transform, Perspective.
2. Content Aware fill.
3. Adjustment layers - Saturation, Color Balance.
4. A little bit of gradient to give the ND Filter look.
5. I googled for clouds pics to give the image a bit more 'texture'.
6. Did a few experiment with layer mode and finally settled for Overlay mode with 33% opacity.
7. Sharpen to taste.

Total time taken: 20-25mins.


Final image

In Photoshop:

Let me know if you don't like your image posted here and I'll take it down. Hope that helps. Cheers!

 

[FrozenRiver]

Hi FrozenRiver,

That is quite a view of Paris you got there. Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I did some 'photoshopping' to it. Just wanted to flex my photoshop muscles early in the morning before I go do the boring stuff. Haha.

Basically, I used the following tools:

1. Transform, Perspective.
2. Content Aware fill.
3. Adjustment layers - Saturation, Color Balance.
4. A little bit of gradient to give the ND Filter look.
5. I googled for clouds pics to give the image a bit more 'texture'.
6. Did a few experiment with layer mode and finally settled for Overlay mode with 33% opacity.
7. Sharpen to taste.

Total time taken: 20-25mins.


Final image

In Photoshop:

Let me know if you don't like your image posted here and I'll take it down. Hope that helps. Cheers!

Man you have done some real nice work there... No, I don't mind. Please keep it, so that this thread looks better, and is more informative for a newbie like me.

In fact I am going to retake this picture. I used the correct aperture for my lens, but I focused at too close a point (don't ask me why, I don't remember what I was thinking...), and wasted a huge part of the dof. That's why the details of the buildings a bit farther away are all lost in this picture. Glad that I am still in Paris, and have the chance to make it up right. Then I'll spend some time on all the tricks that you guys have taught me. I learned a lot from this thread alone, thanks to you guys.

BTW... Gifted/knowledgeable/professional photographers, in my eyes, are all artists to be respected. They should possess the corresponding qualities of an artist... Don't be mean to each other. I appreciate the help from each one of you. :heart: