Photoshop Help

[Ripley]

I'm finally going through heaps of photos at home and sorting them out and this one has me stumped. I also have other shots of buildings with similar.

Can any Photoshop masterminds help me with a lens problem? I know there is a facility in CS2 (which I have) to correct lens distortion and converging verticals but I don't know what this problem is. I've had a play and still can't fix it. Do I use the warp tool or the gridlines? So I know where to locate these things in PS, just dont' know the best way to apply them.

This is with a Sigma 17-70 and the buildings are leaning. I'm told its a lens problem with wider angle lenses.

Any hints on how I can fix it would be great. Don't need it to be very straight buildings, just less like the leaning towers of Pisa. Thanks!

Edited March 11, 2009 by Ripley

[Luke W]

I use the free transform tool to fix this stuff.

Duplicate the background layer, turn on gridlines, then Edit->Free Transform. Start by rotating the whole image to the right a bit. Then, hold down Alt while dragging the top left and right corner to line up the verticals with the gridlines.

You'll lose some of the sides and top of the image.

You've also got some barrel distorion. Under CS2 I use the Distort->Spherize to correct.

A little better?

Try to keep the camera straight (both horzontally and vertically). Don't point the camera up.

Under CS4 there's a whole new Lens Correction filter, which make things a bit easier.

Edited March 11, 2009 by Luke W

[Ripley]

Thanks Luke. I understand what you are saying and will apply that over the weekend. Yes I am guilty of tilting the camera up like that. I guess I look up and camera just follows my eye line. Thanks.