Wednesday 13 August 2008

Perspective Correction

I've been writing quite a lot on Flickr lately, and it occurred to me I might post some of it here (especially as I'm so rubbish at keeping this blog updated). The following was published on the Olympus E-System Information Links Group I co-admin ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/olympus_e-system_information/ ). This is an offshoot of the Olympus E System Community Group ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/olympusesystem/ ) - the largest and most active Olympus group on Flickr, which I co-moderate.

Lightroom, for all its good points lacks a perspective correction tool. I find my version of Photoshop (CS) excessively clunky, so I tend to use specialist software. The two products I use are:

PT Lens 8.5 and ShiftN

These two utilities are effective ways of correcting perspective distortion ("tilting building syndrome") and similar problems caused by the lack of a Tilt/Shift Lens in the E-system. While the same corrections can be applied in Photoshop, these utilities make it rather easier IMHO.

PT Lens (PC and Mac versions) can be downloaded from:
www.epaperpress.com/ptlens

It corrects lens pincushion/barrel distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and perspective. It will also de-fish an image. There is a free trial version (10 conversions only), and a licence costs $15. The program requires a bit more manual input than ShiftN.

ShiftN (PC only) can be downloaded from:
www.marcus-hebel.de/foto/ShiftN_Setup.exe

"ShiftN permits correction of converging lines; a majority of the correction work is taken over automatically by the program. Using the 'automatic correction' item in the menu is in most cases sufficient to produce a satisfying result. Both the effects of converging lines and poor camera angle are corrected automatically." ( www.marcus-hebel.de/index1.html ). Manual corrections can also be applied. ShiftN is freeware, but donations are welcome. There's a small Flickr Group: www.flickr.com/groups/shiftn/

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