PHOTOGRAPHY: CORRECTING LENS DISTORTIONS IN PHOTOSHOP

It's time to get picky with it. I think if you want your blog to get noticed for its photography, which, let's face it, we probably all do, you have to be anal about the details. People often register the details without really consciously noticing them, if you catch my drift. They make all the difference. So I think it's important to train yourself to consciously notice little imperfections and to correct them in the editing process. One of those imperfections is lens distortions.

You might notice that the perspective of your photo looks slightly off or that the photo looks bloated (I find it tends to be particularly obvious in flat lay photos). That comes from your lens's focal length being less than ideal. Luckily that can be corrected on Photoshop!

This is the original photo that I'm working with. You can see that it looks tilted to the side and a little bloated.

Step 1

Head to Filter and select Lens Correction from the menu. On the right, click on the Custom tab. In there you will see a variety of options. We only need to focus on the Geometric Distortion and Transform sections.

By adjusting the Horizontal Perspective and the Remove Distortion sliders I am immediately able to improve the look of the photo.

However my photo still looks a bit off. You may find that you actually need to break up your photo to get it looking right.

Step 2

What you can do is to copy and paste the section of your photo that you're unhappy with into another layer and just work on that layer.

With your new layer selected, head back to Lens Correction > Custom. From there you can tweak the geometric distortion, perspectives, angle and scale until everything is looking just right.

Boom! It's like a whole new photo. Plus it's a great technique to use when you take a close up of your face and your lens inflates your nose to twice the size.

Before, Midway & After
 

Handy tip: you might find it easier to get everything aligned if you turn on Show Grid in the lower right hand corner.

Don't have Photoshop? Good news. GIMP is free and it also has a lens correction feature. Head to Filters, then Distorts, then Lens Distortion. It's slightly less intuitive to use, but it'll get the job done.