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DPChallenge Forums >> Tips, Tricks, and Q&A >> How to fix building perspective / skew?
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AuthorThread
 10/26/2007 11:03:05 PM · #1
I've always wanted to know how to fix a photo like this:

[thumb]605055[/thumb]

I have PS Elements 2.0 and it think there is a tool to fix this, but can't figure it out on my own. I've tried a couple of different things with the "skew" tool, but it doesn't really transform, it just moves a section and leaves the white background showing - if that makes sense.

I would love for someone to write up a tutorial on how to fix this type of shot! You can even use this photo if you want.
 10/26/2007 11:07:23 PM · #2
Not sure how to do it in Elements. With CS@ I just use 'distort'. Such a fix will almost always have to be followed by a crop.
 10/26/2007 11:09:38 PM · #3
No clue about Elements, sorry. CS3 has a very simple lens correction tool, but (as Paul mentioned) you would need to afterwards crop it.
YOUR particular example is too closely cropped, it works much better when you have some room next to the building, something you can afford to crop off.
 10/26/2007 11:24:24 PM · #4
In CS3
Place horizontal guides to mark corners.
Select all. Edit> Transform > distort. Grab a corner handle and pull till vertical line is fixed. do the same with other side.
Don't know if it works in Elements.

[thumb]605059[/thumb]
That gets you this. You might want to pull the corners up as well as out to stop the building from looking squat.
[thumb]605060[/thumb]

The other options in the set do similar things. Not sure which to use in which situation.

Hope that helps.

I really like the "print screen" button. never knew how people did these things.

Enjoy.

Alice

Message edited by author 2007-10-26 23:26:42.
 10/26/2007 11:35:56 PM · #5
Originally posted by jpochard:
I've always wanted to know how to fix a photo like this:

[thumb]605055[/thumb]

I have PS Elements 2.0 and it think there is a tool to fix this, but can't figure it out on my own. I've tried a couple of different things with the "skew" tool, but it doesn't really transform, it just moves a section and leaves the white background showing - if that makes sense.

I would love for someone to write up a tutorial on how to fix this type of shot! You can even use this photo if you want.


My understanding is that PS Elements 2.0 does not have a tool for fixing this. I upgraded about six months ago from Elements 2.0 to 5.0 and I found the upgrade well worth the $49.95. Now there is 6.0. These newer editions have tools to easily fix it.

Fix Your Defects This link explains it clearly...

Good Luck!
 10/27/2007 02:25:29 AM · #6
RE: How to fix building perspective / skew?

I got lots of practice on my last trip to Italy...
10/27/2007 08:40:40 AM · #7
The correct tool here is "skew". Whether you have it in Elements I do not know. This version was skewed several ways:

1. Skewed out from top corners in both directions to square verticals; less from left corner than from right corner.

2. Skewed down and up to square horizontals on facade and steps.

This left a squat-looking building, so next I stretched it up to make it longer again.

The result of all this was, however, a distorted-looking cupola, so I selected with rectangular marquee the entire cupola and sky behind it, pasted that to a new layer, and then used skew on THAT layer, up from top left corner, to clean the cupola geometry up, then nudged the result back into alignment.

This left me with nasty gaps in a bunch of places, lower left and right and up topsides as well. So now i went to work with cloning, to fill those spaces up with sky and, in lower right, steps & bushes.

This all can be done better if the image had more breathing space on all sides, so it could be cropped without the need of BG cloning in blank spaces.



R.
 10/27/2007 01:30:41 PM · #8
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
The correct tool here is "skew". Whether you have it in Elements I do not know. This version was skewed several ways:

1. Skewed out from top corners in both directions to square verticals; less from left corner than from right corner.

2. Skewed down and up to square horizontals on facade and steps.

This left a squat-looking building, so next I stretched it up to make it longer again.

The result of all this was, however, a distorted-looking cupola, so I selected with rectangular marquee the entire cupola and sky behind it, pasted that to a new layer, and then used skew on THAT layer, up from top left corner, to clean the cupola geometry up, then nudged the result back into alignment.

This left me with nasty gaps in a bunch of places, lower left and right and up topsides as well. So now i went to work with cloning, to fill those spaces up with sky and, in lower right, steps & bushes.

This all can be done better if the image had more breathing space on all sides, so it could be cropped without the need of BG cloning in blank spaces.



R.


Thanks Robert....for some reason to me this looks even more tilted than the original. I look at the vertical lines and it seems okay, so I'm not sure what is giving me that perspective. It appears to be leaning quite a bit to the right to me.

I guess there is no easy fix. The real challenge for me on this one was all the verticals PLUS the horizontal steps in the front, which I'd really like to keep.
 10/27/2007 01:32:21 PM · #9
Originally posted by BlueZamia:
In CS3
Place horizontal guides to mark corners.
Select all. Edit> Transform > distort. Grab a corner handle and pull till vertical line is fixed. do the same with other side.
Don't know if it works in Elements.

[thumb]605059[/thumb]
That gets you this. You might want to pull the corners up as well as out to stop the building from looking squat.
[thumb]605060[/thumb]

The other options in the set do similar things. Not sure which to use in which situation.

Hope that helps.

I will see if I can do this in elements. I think the building looks great here, but the steps are still out of line. Thanks for showing me how you did this.

I really like the "print screen" button. never knew how people did these things.

Enjoy.

Alice
10/27/2007 01:32:57 PM · #10
Thanks to all who replied. I am always grateful to those who take the time to teach others how they do something!

Judy
 10/27/2007 01:39:36 PM · #11
Originally posted by jpochard:

Thanks Robert....for some reason to me this looks even more tilted than the original. I look at the vertical lines and it seems okay, so I'm not sure what is giving me that perspective. It appears to be leaning quite a bit to the right to me.

I guess there is no easy fix. The real challenge for me on this one was all the verticals PLUS the horizontal steps in the front, which I'd really like to keep.


Yah, I look at it today and it seems a little "rotated" or something. It's tricky to do this well. Part of the problem is the building is just too close to the edges: it has a distorting effect on the forced perspective. And bear in mind that no amount of skew, rotation, whatever is going to eliminate the almost subliminal "interior cues" within the structure itself that let us know it has been warped in some odd way.

For example, you can use skew tool to square up the horizontals, as I did here, but that doesn't deal with the fact that it's not a true elevation you have shot. So when I square up the horizontals, the eye still recognizes that the picture is made from a slightly off-center angle, and this makes it look a little awkward.

R.
 10/27/2007 01:44:10 PM · #12
Well, for this particular shot it might be more of a challenge. However, what I've learned will be useful with other applications and photos. Thanks!
 10/27/2007 01:57:11 PM · #13
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by jpochard:

Thanks Robert....for some reason to me this looks even more tilted than the original. I look at the vertical lines and it seems okay, so I'm not sure what is giving me that perspective. It appears to be leaning quite a bit to the right to me.

I guess there is no easy fix. The real challenge for me on this one was all the verticals PLUS the horizontal steps in the front, which I'd really like to keep.


Yah, I look at it today and it seems a little "rotated" or something. It's tricky to do this well. Part of the problem is the building is just too close to the edges: it has a distorting effect on the forced perspective. And bear in mind that no amount of skew, rotation, whatever is going to eliminate the almost subliminal "interior cues" within the structure itself that let us know it has been warped in some odd way.

For example, you can use skew tool to square up the horizontals, as I did here, but that doesn't deal with the fact that it's not a true elevation you have shot. So when I square up the horizontals, the eye still recognizes that the picture is made from a slightly off-center angle, and this makes it look a little awkward.

R.


I think I've recognised that problem a few times. If you're standing in front of a tall building and looking up at it, you have some pretty fierce perspective making the top thinner than the bottom. Your brain cancels out the worst of this and gives you an image that corresponds more accurately to the real shape of the thing. When you look at a photograph though, the camera hasn't done the editing and reality shocks. So you use Ctrl - T and the perspective adjustment option, or the skew tool as Robert recommends, or both as I recommend :) Two problems arise. One is that if you use perspective correction to widen the top, the building usually looks a bit squat as a result. This can be tempered by judicious use of the same transform tool, simply stretching the whole caboodle a bit upwards. The second one is, as named above, that perfectly parallel sides is not what you see when you're looking up at a building. In fact, annoyingly (but very cleverly), you do something that amounts to seeing both the edited and the unedited versions of the picture at the same time. I've found that leaving just a little bit of the perspective in usually helps a bit.
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