Correcting Converging Verticals

By Ian Lyons

A Computer Darkroom Tutorial

How many occasions over the years have you been photographing some really interesting example of historical or modern architecture, only to find that either you can't get the verticals straight when taking the picture, or worse you only realise a mistake when your get you pictures back from the processing lab? Sound familiar, yes? - Me to.

Professional photographers might use a "tilt-shift" lens or as is more likely, they will use a large format camera complete with "rise and fall" back/front, etc. The rest of us tend to make do in the darkroom by tilting the easel when making our prints.

However, with all this digital stuff we can no longer tilt the easel, and certainly our pockets are probably still as devoid of cash as they ever were, so the "tilt shift" lens and large format camera are out.  Not to worry, Photoshop to the rescue.

 

Download printer friendly version here : -

 

Using Photoshop  it's possible to make some really radical adjustments to images and thus correct for even the most tilted of buildings and objects. The following is one such example from my catalogue of errors.

 

It doesn't take a genius to see what's wrong!

The fix: -

 

Step 1 - Selecting the image and making room on the desktop

• From the Photoshop menu bar choose "Select > All" , the famous "marching ants" will appear around the image.

• Next choose "View > Fit on Screen" from the menu bar.

• Now choose "View > Show > Grid" from the Menu bar.

Your Photoshop desktop and image layout should look similar to the following, with plenty of space around the image to enable the adjustments.

 

© 2001 Ian Lyons. All Rights Reserved