Lens Correction and the Pixel Warping Dilemma!
I recently received a request from a YouTube subscriber asking me if I could show him a tutorial on the Ruler Tool. While I do not use the Ruler tool too much in my routine Workflow I still covered it, but then went into a practical use for the Rulers and Guides in Photoshop and how they can be used to make insanely straight images!
What does this have to do with Pixel Warping? Have you ever used the Lens Correction filter in Photoshop to fix the distortion in a Wide Angle image just to see the straight lines were not straight when you were done? That is a huge pet peeve of mine in interior photography.
In this tutorial, I will discuss how you can use Rulers and Guides in conjunction with the Warp Tool to create extremely straight images without losing too much of your image or warping it in the silly ways the Lens Correction Filter does.
Like the style of this tutorial? You will LOVE HDR Insider! Full Length HDR Workflows, Critiques & More!
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For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
This is a an extremely useful lesson and I know I will use it often.
Sweet! Glad it was helpful. I know in my interior work this is a huge benefit to opening up the image while not losing too much from the Lens Correction conversion.
This is a comment regarding your lens review. I’m wanting a new lens
and when checking prices, I stumbled across Amazon’s used camera and lens buy program. Amazon buys certain used cameras and lenses by issuing you gift cards. Amazon values your used, Canon 17-40mm lens at $361.60. Shipping your equipment to them is Free.
I found Amazon will not only buy my old lens but my Nikon camera, as well. I’ll probably upgrade my camera and lens through Amazon. Of course, you may want to buy through a company that doesn’t sell on Amazon and a gift credit would not work in that case.
That is very true, they do value the equipment at $360. However, another avenue is to setup a seller profile on Amazon and sell your equipment to another buyer used. You get a significant amount more back. When I upgraded from Olympus to Canon I sold all of my Oly gear on Amazon.
Amazon will give you a gift card for your equipment but they under value you so they can resell it for a profit. If you are okay with that I would do it, however, I would rather chance it on the market for a week or so to see if you could sell it for its true value.
Ah ha! did not think about selling through Amazon. I’ve done that on Ebay. I suppose it works the same way. Amazon collects and distributes the money?
As usual, nice webinar. There’s so many things PS does, I forget about some of the tools or learn new tips on how to use them. Excellent reminder and tips on Transform. The Perspective Wrap is, also, a fun and useful tool to use on architecture.
Thanks, Blake for your consistency in providing very helpful info.
Thanks so much for a very informative lesson. A big help for correcting and straightening photos.
Awesome! Glad you like it Lois!
Excellent tip, Blake! I was not aware of this method. many thanks!
No problem. Glad I could teach you a new trick!
That was great Blake, thanks for sharing with us!
No problem! Anytime!
Blake, was up at 6 AM for a construction meeting in NJ. After a 6 hour round trip drive from CT, I sat down in my office workstation and saw your email. Blake, these tutorials are a refreshing addition to the day as these they are very welcome to those of us who love photography but also value the insightful and useful tips to better our work. Believe it or not, this will come in very handy when I’m given a cocktail napkin drawing in pdf and go to convert it into a tif or bitmap OLE object to import into AutoCAD. So, your tutorials are being used for my weekend avocation and also weekday work! As usual many thanks and hope that you have a great 2015!
That is awesome! So glad to hear it. I hadn’t the slightest idea this would help in that department! It really is my pleasure, sometimes it is difficult to keep making good and relevant content, but hearing this just makes it all worthwhile!
Blake, what a really simple way to straighten vertical lines. Most of us would not have even thought to use the warp tool. Great tip.
Thanks so much. You make my editing get easier and quicker every time I watch one of your tutorials. Love them
Thanks for taking the time to explain how to actually grab the vertical line. I have watched numerous tutorials and seen them drag it in without knowing how they did it. Sometimes it is difficult to determine in a tutorial what the tutor is actually clicking on when they are demonstrating something.
You do a great job of explaining “how to” in your tutorials. Thanks!
Thanks, Tom! I try to only teach on what I really know and if I don’t know, I study it well before hand. I wasnt always like this, in fact there are probably a lot of tutorials out there I’ve done that are bad!
Its all a learning process! Thank you for the feedback, I do appreciate it!
It was great to know about the capability of the warp tool in serving this type of function. I primarily use the “perspective” tool. Edit – Transform – Perspective. I was able to do a very precise job of straightening all the lines on a screen shot I took of the image you used in this tutorial, and it only took about 10 seconds. I can see where the technique you presented here would be superior in other more difficult images, but for simpler ones the Perspective tool really is very quick and very good but it took me a bit of time to understand how to work it correctly. You can expect to end up with corners left unfilled, but the lasso and content fill will usually take care of that. Super tutorial — Thanks
Wow. There are so many tools hidden in Photoshop. Their names aren’t always descriptive (shock!), e.g. ‘warp’. Never would’ve occurred to me to use that to straighten lines. A gentleman above mentioned the Transform/Perspective tool to straighten lines as well. So my question, finally: when I have a very wide horizon, like the ocean, that goes all the way across the photo, it often has a slight convex curve reflecting either lens distortion or the curvature of the earth. Would you use one of these tools to straighten the horizon? If not, what would you use? Thanks.
There are a lot of hidden tools! For that I would probably stick with Lens Correction as that is a typical Barrel Distortion example that is easily fixed without losing too much of the frame. However, there is another tool! If you go to Filter > Distort > Pinch, this will pinch the center of the photo either inward or pull it outward. It isn’t always perfect, however, it can help fix that line without losing a lot of the frame that the Lens Correction tool might cutoff.