Photoshop CS6 for Photographers
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Reducing exaggerated distortion


Photoshop CS6 for Photographers

with Chris Orwig

Video: Reducing exaggerated distortion

Here I want to build upon what we already know about the Lens Correction Filter and take a look at now how we can use the automatic and custom adjustments together and also how we can add some of our own adjustments after the fact inside of Photoshop. We'll be working with this photograph here which I captured of one of my neighbors' house. It was all decked out for the holidays and there is some fisheye distortion because I was using a fisheye lens. Let's see if we can remove some of that or perhaps take some of that out. First, let's copy our Background layer.
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  1. 1m 43s
    1. Welcome
    2. Using the exercise files
  2. 11m 49s
    1. Ideas for how to learn Photoshop more effectively
      4m 25s
    2. Isolating what you've learned and taking quality notes
      3m 53s
    3. Getting creative and being ready to be surprised
      3m 31s
  3. 38m 58s
    1. Customizing the Bridge workspace
      4m 46s
    2. Reviewing and evaluating your photos
      4m 22s
    3. Rating, ranking, and filtering photographs
      5m 42s
    4. Organizing photos with stacks
      3m 56s
    5. Grouping pictures together with collections
      3m 56s
    6. Adding metadata and keywords
      4m 47s
    7. Renaming images
      1m 45s
    8. Accessing the Photoshop tools from within Bridge
      2m 28s
    9. Working with Bridge and Photoshop
      2m 40s
    10. Working with Mini Bridge
      4m 36s
  4. 45m 29s
    1. Setting up your color settings
      3m 31s
    2. Choosing preferences for the HUD color picker
      3m 50s
    3. Setting image interpolation preferences
      3m 3s
    4. Modifying zoom preferences
      4m 20s
    5. Changing HUD brush options
      3m 41s
    6. Customizing interface preferences
      3m 30s
    7. Opening up documents in tabs
      4m 11s
    8. Reviewing file-handling preferences
      5m 4s
    9. Setting performance preferences
      4m 23s
    10. Choosing cursor preferences
      5m 14s
    11. Reviewing guides and type preview preferences
      4m 42s
  5. 21m 5s
    1. Exploring two simple steps for more accurate color
      2m 58s
    2. Introducing color profiles
      5m 17s
    3. Opening and saving files with embedded profiles
      7m 33s
    4. Setting up your studio
      1m 59s
    5. A demonstration of monitor calibration
      1m 46s
    6. Finding color management resources
      1m 32s
  6. 28m 35s
    1. Introducing the Tools panel
      4m 53s
    2. Changing the view mode and working with panels
      5m 33s
    3. Opening and arranging multiple documents
      6m 31s
    4. Combining, saving, and closing multiple documents
      5m 17s
    5. Creating custom keyboard shortcuts
      5m 12s
    6. Working with a Wacom tablet
      1m 9s
  7. 18m 24s
    1. The foundation of digital imaging: pixels and bit depth
      6m 12s
    2. Introducing image resizing
      3m 42s
    3. Resizing images effectively
      3m 48s
    4. Resizing and straightening with the Crop tool
      2m 28s
    5. Creative tip: sizing images correctly
      2m 14s
  8. 41m 56s
    1. What is Camera Raw?
      2m 47s
    2. Accessing the Camera Raw preferences
      3m 16s
    3. Improving your images with the basic controls
      7m 0s
    4. Correcting color and white balance
      4m 44s
    5. Processing multiple images at once
      5m 56s
    6. Utilizing the Crop tool to recompose your pictures
      5m 28s
    7. Creating dramatic black-and-white conversions
      5m 34s
    8. Reducing noise and making tack-sharp photos
      7m 11s
  9. 32m 56s
    1. Introducing layers
      2m 23s
    2. Understanding layers and layer transparency
      1m 29s
    3. Working with layer opacity
      3m 29s
    4. Aligning layers
      1m 32s
    5. Creating new layers
      4m 53s
    6. Organizing layers
      2m 31s
    7. Filtering and finding layers
      2m 8s
    8. Adding layer style effects
      5m 28s
    9. Creating a clipping mask
      6m 50s
    10. Targeting and moving layers
      2m 13s
  10. 33m 22s
    1. Making selections with the marquee tools
      4m 50s
    2. Using the three lasso tools
      4m 56s
    3. Selecting with the Magic Wand tool
      5m 43s
    4. Working with the Quick Select tool
      7m 21s
    5. Selecting based on color with the Color Range controls
      7m 13s
    6. Correcting skin tones with Color Range
      3m 19s
  11. 23m 2s
    1. Introducing masking
      1m 14s
    2. Painting away the contents of a layer with a mask
      3m 59s
    3. Using a selection to build a mask
      3m 3s
    4. Removing a subject from the background with a mask
      6m 37s
    5. Using a mask to selectively sharpen an image
      3m 58s
    6. Making selections with Quick Mask
      4m 11s
  12. 13m 42s
    1. Creating a custom border using selections and masks
      5m 4s
    2. Painting custom border effects
      3m 34s
    3. Using prebuilt borders
      4m 13s
    4. Exploring the PhotoFrame plug-in
  13. 11m 49s
    1. Adding brightness and contrast
      3m 3s
    2. Using hue and saturation and the Target Adjustment tool
      5m 34s
    3. Working with vibrancy and saturation
      3m 12s
  14. 14m 36s
    1. Working with auto levels
      3m 36s
    2. Enhancing color and tone with levels
      4m 12s
    3. Painting in adjustments with levels and masking
      4m 10s
    4. Creative tip: checking in
      2m 38s
  15. 29m 50s
    1. Introducing the Curves dialog box
      3m 12s
    2. Using auto curves and adjustments to enhance an image
      4m 17s
    3. Changing brightness with curves and masks
      3m 59s
    4. Using curves and masks to improve tone and color
      4m 56s
    5. Making advanced selections and masks
      3m 53s
    6. Enhancing a portrait with hand-painted masks
      5m 53s
    7. Using, modifying, and saving curves presets
      3m 40s
  16. 20m 13s
    1. Introducing the magic of blend modes
      6m 33s
    2. Blending multiple images together
      3m 51s
    3. Using blending modes to remove white or black
      2m 8s
    4. Improving exposure, contrast, and color with blending
      5m 37s
    5. Using blending shortcuts
      2m 4s
  17. 10m 26s
    1. Working with color correction in Camera Raw
      1m 21s
    2. Correcting color with the eyedroppers
      3m 11s
    3. Correcting color and tone with the eyedroppers
      5m 54s
  18. 36m 1s
    1. Using a Replace Color adjustment
      4m 14s
    2. Using Replace Color, Hue/Saturation, and masks
      5m 32s
    3. Replacing color with advanced masking
      7m 14s
    4. Selecting and modifying color with the Hue/Saturation eyedroppers
      2m 30s
    5. Using Color Balance to create vivid color
      4m 3s
    6. Modifying color with Selective Color
      5m 3s
    7. Changing color with Photo Filter
      4m 4s
    8. Making creative color changes with Color Lookup
      1m 44s
    9. Creative tip: shoot more
      1m 37s
  19. 35m 13s
    1. The modern equivalent of a traditional technique
      1m 40s
    2. Introducing two burn and dodge techniques
      7m 22s
    3. Burning and dodging with the Brush and Gradient tools
      4m 18s
    4. Dodging and reducing shadows in a portrait
      6m 0s
    5. Using selections, masks, and curves to change tonality
      7m 21s
    6. Improving a black-and-white landscape
      8m 32s
  20. 16m 9s
    1. The power of black and white
      4m 14s
    2. Converting a portrait to black and white
      4m 6s
    3. Converting a landscape to black and white
      4m 23s
      3m 26s
  21. 31m 58s
    1. Introducing Smart Filters
      3m 36s
    2. Applying Smart Filters
      6m 20s
    3. Creating a soft contrast effect
      6m 38s
    4. Changing focus with the Blur Gallery
      3m 40s
    5. Working with Tilt-Shift Blur
      3m 53s
    6. Creating a realistic lens flare
      2m 45s
    7. Adding light with the Lighting Effects filter
      5m 6s
  22. 12m 33s
    1. Using the Noise Reduction filter
      3m 46s
    2. Exploring advanced noise reduction using channels
      2m 49s
    3. Masking in noise reduction to a specific area
      2m 1s
    4. Reducing noise with Surface Blur
      3m 57s
  23. 48m 31s
    1. Cleaning before you enhance
      1m 2s
    2. Introducing the healing and cloning tools
      7m 22s
    3. Cleaning up the background of an image
      6m 21s
    4. Basic portrait retouching
      3m 15s
    5. Brightening shadows under the eyes
      4m 54s
    6. Brightening the eyes
      2m 30s
    7. Retouching selected areas
      5m 27s
    8. Using Content-Aware Fill to remove distractions
      5m 34s
    9. Moving a subject with the Content-Aware Move tool
      7m 54s
    10. Changing shape and dimension with Liquify
      4m 12s
  24. 24m 2s
    1. Using the Lens Correction filter
      6m 52s
    2. Reducing exaggerated distortion
      5m 16s
    3. Applying Free Transform to correct perspective
      3m 49s
    4. Correcting distortion with the Perspective Crop tool
      3m 45s
    5. Using Puppet Warp to correct perspective
      4m 20s
  25. 26m 48s
    1. Combining two photos with movement
      4m 12s
    2. Using two frames for a group photo
      4m 57s
    3. Creating a panoramic photo from multiple frames
      3m 37s
    4. Correcting distortion with the Adaptive Wide Angle correction
      7m 34s
      6m 28s
  26. 27m 25s
    1. Working with Smart Sharpen
      6m 17s
    2. Using Unsharpen Mask
      4m 50s
    3. High Pass sharpening an image
      4m 47s
    4. Selectively sharpening the in-focus areas of an image
      3m 35s
    5. Selective sharpening with hand-drawn masks
      7m 56s
  27. 22m 44s
    1. Preparing images for the web and email
      4m 38s
    2. Sharpening for the web
      3m 5s
    3. Using Save for Web to create an optimized JPEG
      4m 26s
    4. Exporting images to Facebook or Flickr
      4m 46s
    5. Creating a web gallery
      5m 49s
  28. 26m 6s
    1. Desktop printing recommendations
      2m 46s
    2. Creating a PDF layout and contact sheets
      5m 56s
    3. Using a soft proof to visualize the print
      8m 0s
    4. Adjusting printer settings
      3m 43s
    5. Customizing the Print dialog box options
      5m 41s
  29. 32m 4s
    1. Opening up a video file in Photoshop
      7m 7s
    2. Editing a video clip and adding text
      5m 15s
    3. Using adjustment layers and adding an audio track
      4m 47s
    4. Creating a project with multiple clips
      4m 55s
    5. Adding a cross-dissolve fade and creating custom shortcuts
      4m 43s
    6. Customizing the workspace to review your project
      3m 2s
    7. Exporting a project
      2m 15s
  30. 3m 4s
    1. Exploring additional resources and ways to keep in touch
      2m 29s
    2. Goodbye


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Watch the Online Video Course Photoshop CS6 for Photographers
12h 20m Beginner Apr 26, 2012

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Topics include:
  • Getting started with Bridge and Mini Bridge
  • Setting up color and performance preferences
  • Calibrating your monitor
  • Improving images with the basic controls in Camera Raw
  • Creating, aligning, and organizing layers
  • Using masks for removing or blending images and for sharpening
  • Working with vibrancy, hue, and saturation controls
  • Enhancing color and tone with Levels
  • Mastering the art of blending modes
  • Correcting and replacing color
  • Burning and dodging
  • Converting to black and white
Chris Orwig

Reducing exaggerated distortion


We can do this by clicking and dragging to the New layer icon or you can press Command+J on a Mac or Ctrl+J on Windows. Let's name that layer corrections. Next, we'll go to the Filter pulldown menu and here we'll choose Lens Correction. We're going to start off in the Auto Correction tab. If the file that you have has data embedded in its metadata about how it was captured, this can help out Photoshop. Here Photoshop is picking up some options, some profiles. I'll click on the correct profile for my camera and lens combination.

Already, the default or automatic correction is pretty good. Here's before, and then here's after. Yet a lot of times you'll need to customize this or push this a little bit further with the custom settings. That's all we covered those in the previous movie. So here let's go to the Custom tab. In the Custom tab, we can remove more of the distortion by clicking and dragging, yet when it comes to a lot of distortion, if you move these sliders too far, as you've seen, you can start to reintroduce that. So you need to try to find just the right spot where you're removing the distortion but not adding more into the image.

Next, we can control some other distortion by using our Transform controls. If you click-and-drag this to the left, what it will do is it will kind of help the photograph almost lean forward. Look how we can have that lean back or forward by moving these controls. And here I need to make this lean a little bit more forward. Now if we captured this off-axis, we can also control that by clicking and dragging to the left or the right. And sometimes if you are a little off-axis, this can help just kind of level things out a bit. Well after having made those adjustments, you may need to go back and change your Distortion amount as well.

Okay, well here I think we've made some pretty dramatic adjustments with this image. Only thing I want to do is perhaps change my angle here just a little bit and then click OK. Once we click OK, it will apply those adjustments, and we can see here's our before, now here's our after. We have removed so much. What else could we do here? Well after having used the Lens Correction Filter really to the tilt, using those automatic and custom controls, I want to then copy this layer. To do that, press Command+J on a Man, Ctrl+J on Windows.

I'm going to name this new layer free transform. One of the ways that you can make distortion corrections is by accessing Free Transform. You can do that by going to Edit and then choosing Free Transform. If you just use this kind of in-the- generic way, you can move these corner points and change the size of your image. Yet, in order to work with different types of distortion, you can click on this little icon here. This little icon which is often overlooked allows us to access this Warp mode.

By accessing this, we can then click-and-drag these different points. And as I do that, you can see that I'm really changing the overall shape of this area of the image, and primarily, it's like I'm working on that one quadrant. Well these are all connected, so of course as I move one, I may need to move another as well. And as we work with these, we can either click on the lines in order to change this, or we can click on these corner points. Well what might we want to do here say with this photograph is just pull out some of these little points a little bit subtly here in order to try to bring down the edge of the photograph.

And in doing that, I'm just looking in trying to possibly remove a little bit of the distortion over here. Now this won't be perfect but it's definitely something that you want to know how to do because there are situations where this can really help out. I'm just opening up these side points and then I'll go ahead and click-and-drag up to make this a little bit taller as well. Now I need to be careful, because I feel like my bottom right corner is just a little bit too far there; it's not quite good enough for me, so I'm just going to try to tweak those adjustments. This is really subtle, right, because we're making these big adjustments, or I should say, we need to be really subtle, because we want to be careful that we're not swinging things too far.

Well, here we can then press Enter or Return to apply those warp adjustments. Well what did those do? Well if we look at our before and after, here's before and then now here's after. It basically just kind of leveled a few things out and kind of pulled a few elements out. If we look at our overall before and after, we can see that by using these different techniques, well it helped us to correct this amazing or intense amount of distortion. Now the image isn't perfect yet; it's getting a lot closer, and I used this file to illustrate how powerful these different techniques are, so that you can then see how you can use these techniques in order to correct the distortion in your photographs whether you have this much distortion or less.

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