The Importance of Straightening The Horizon and Aligning Lines

B

Blacktop

Senior Member
I use the tool in LR to straighten shots, but sometimes I look at it and it just doesn't look right.
If that happens I just straighten it with the crop tool.
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
BackdoorHippie said:
This is my biggest pet peeve when looking at others' photographs. Crooked lines are like nails on a chalkboard.

Great article on what to look for even when there are no real lines. It can truly make the difference between a good and great photo.

The Importance of Straightening The Horizon and Aligning Lines
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Jake, looking at the photos I posted yesterday, I should have done a better job of straightening them. This particular one posed a problem for me. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix it? The tower leans to the right while the red building leans towards the left. I believe I even used the lens profile feature in LR5, but it didn't alleviate the problem.

I was at the lens' widest--24mm--and had to aim up a little to fit everything in since I couldn't back up any further (I had steps right behind me). Granted I should have switched to my 18-35mm lens which would have allowed me to fit everything into the frame without aiming upwards. If I had done that, I could have cropped. Hindsight is always 20/20. :hopelessness:

Jake, please ALWAYS feel free to critique my photos. I appreciate your knowledge as it's helped me grow. ;)


Bowman's Tower 9 by *Hark*, on Flickr
 
4

480sparky

Senior Member
hark said:
Jake, looking at the photos I posted yesterday, I should have done a better job of straightening them. This particular one posed a problem for me. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix it? The tower leans to the right while the red building leans towards the left. I believe I even used the lens profile feature in LR5, but it didn't alleviate the problem.

I was at the lens' widest--24mm--and had to aim up a little to fit everything in since I couldn't back up any further (I had steps right behind me). Granted I should have switched to my 18-35mm lens which would have allowed me to fit everything into the frame without aiming upwards. If I had done that, I could have cropped. Hindsight is always 20/20. :hopelessness:

Jake, please ALWAYS feel free to critique my photos. I appreciate your knowledge as it's helped me grow. ;)
Click to expand...

It's called keystoning, and it's easy to correct in post.

keystoningcorrectin.jpg
 
F

Felisek

Senior Member
This is why I use virtual horizon in my D7100. I assigned it to one of the programmable buttons and use it all the time. My previous camera didi not have such a feature and I struggled a lot. Most of my hand-held pictures were crooked. And if you cannot see the horizon clearly (in the city, in the mountains), correcting in post is rather difficult.
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
Felisek said:
This is why I use virtual horizon in my D7100.......
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I typically will 'overshoot' everything to allow for a slight rotation in post without having to crop too much out. For instance, if 28mm is what will give me for a desired framing in the viewfinder, I will zoom to 24mm or step back to 'pad' the perimeter of the shot.
 
J

J-see

Senior Member
I have an amazing hard time finding the straight line when shooting the wide. I often spend way too long going some degrees here, then there and then back again until I say screw it and settle for whatever it is.

I don't know if there's a trick to rotate the 1:1 image in LR but the fitted image sure is often too small for me to find the line I can use.
 
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BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
hark said:
Jake, looking at the photos I posted yesterday, I should have done a better job of straightening them. This particular one posed a problem for me. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix it? The tower leans to the right while the red building leans towards the left. I believe I even used the lens profile feature in LR5, but it didn't alleviate the problem.

I was at the lens' widest--24mm--and had to aim up a little to fit everything in since I couldn't back up any further (I had steps right behind me). Granted I should have switched to my 18-35mm lens which would have allowed me to fit everything into the frame without aiming upwards. If I had done that, I could have cropped. Hindsight is always 20/20. :hopelessness:

Jake, please ALWAYS feel free to critique my photos. I appreciate your knowledge as it's helped me grow. ;)

Bowman's Tower 9 by *Hark*, on Flickr
Click to expand...

What Sparky said, Hark. Keystoning is one of thost things that's acceptable in a lot of cases and I tend to worry about it in situations like yours where there's stuff leaning in from both directions. That said, there are two ways to attempt to correct for it. The first is using the vertical perspective correction in Lightroom/ACR or in the Lens Correction Filter in Photoshop. The problem is that when you have a shot as tall as yours it becomes necessary to lose things elsewhere, which is (as someone else mentioned) why I always shoot with lots of crop room on things that I know I'm going to need to perspective correct. The other option, which is likely better in this case, is to use Free Transform in Photoshop with the Perspective setting, and pulling directly out from an upper corner. I suspect this is what Sparky used, but I could be wrong.

I use the perspective correction presets in LR a lot, but where there are multiple axis of skewing they can offer up rather odd looking solutions, so it's always good to learn new ways to do it.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
For those with Photoshop, Camera RAW is my go-to application for straightening horizons and correcting lens distortion.

Find the "Lens Corrections" tab first and check "on" the box for, "Enable Lens Profile Correction". Then, under the "Manual" tab, I use the little grid-lines icon. If you hover on it, the pop-up reads, "Full: Apply Level, Horizontal and Vertical Perspective Corrections". There are separate icons/sliders for each control, if you prefer to correct individually and other stuff here as well:

Screenshot.jpg

....
 
F

Felisek

Senior Member
Yes, the automatic horizontal/vertical and level correction in ACR is a great tool. But it works only when you have strong horizontal/vertical lines in your picture. For example, it usually works nicely for architecture. However, with a landscape without a clean horizon line it is not going to work.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Felisek said:
Yes, the automatic horizontal/vertical and level correction in ACR is a great tool. But it works only when you have strong horizontal/vertical lines in your picture. For example, it usually works nicely for architecture. However, with a landscape without a clean horizon line it is not going to work.
Click to expand...

This is when the Straighten Tool in ACR (found in the Crop tool in LR) comes in handy. Click between two points in the photo that you want to be level and it will straighten it for you. Granted, you won't get full perspective correction, but when there are no obvious points then this is likely enough.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Felisek said:
Yes, the automatic horizontal/vertical and level correction in ACR is a great tool. But it works only when you have strong horizontal/vertical lines in your picture. For example, it usually works nicely for architecture. However, with a landscape without a clean horizon line it is not going to work.
Click to expand...
Even then, ACR is my go-to solution with its "Straighten" tool.

Edit: I see Jake beat me to the punch...

....
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
480sparky said:
I typically will 'overshoot' everything to allow for a slight rotation in post without having to crop too much out. For instance, if 28mm is what will give me for a desired framing in the viewfinder, I will zoom to 24mm or step back to 'pad' the perimeter of the shot.
Click to expand...

I understand that would be the best thing to do; however, I had no wiggle room to allow for cropping with the lens I used. As I said earlier, I should have used my 18-35mm lens instead of my 24-70mm. Thanks for the info on keystoning. I will check into it further. :)

BackdoorHippie said:
What Sparky said, Hark. Keystoning is one of thost things that's acceptable in a lot of cases and I tend to worry about it in situations like yours where there's stuff leaning in from both directions. That said, there are two ways to attempt to correct for it. The first is using the vertical perspective correction in Lightroom/ACR or in the Lens Correction Filter in Photoshop. The problem is that when you have a shot as tall as yours it becomes necessary to lose things elsewhere, which is (as someone else mentioned) why I always shoot with lots of crop room on things that I know I'm going to need to perspective correct. The other option, which is likely better in this case, is to use Free Transform in Photoshop with the Perspective setting, and pulling directly out from an upper corner. I suspect this is what Sparky used, but I could be wrong.

I use the perspective correction presets in LR a lot, but where there are multiple axis of skewing they can offer up rather odd looking solutions, so it's always good to learn new ways to do it.
Click to expand...

Initially I played around with the vertical and horizontal perspective sliders but couldn't figure out how to correct this. I need to take another look and play some more. ;) Should be fun especially if I intentionally distort the image. :biggrin-new:
 
D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
I downloaded the free version of DxO Optics Pro v8 yesterday and it had the best tool for fixing the perspective of a shot when I shoot my Tokina 11-16. A close up of a building can be really strange but it fixed it and a couple of clicks. The only thing is that you had better have plenty of room for it to crop or you will lose the edges of the building.
 
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