PHOTOSHOP / OPTIMIZING
Cleaning an image and correcting the perspective

When shooting any architectural subject it is only fair to honour the architects handiwork by keeping all lines in perspective. They did not design their buildings with a lean, only our cameras do this in order to fit it into the small captured rectangle. Our eyes don’t even allow us to see the curvature, even though it is there. So part of my workflow is to rectify this, then clean the image up. But, you should do this as soon as you can otherwise it is easy to forget what the colours exactly were at the time, especially with artificial lights like the garish tints made by tungsten or sodium vapour lights in most public places. You can certainly see the changes in perspective and tonality in these two comparisons.

You may wonder why some of my original files are so dark? This is because I generally expose for the highlights, letting the shadows take care of themselves. It means I have more control of the image. If I exposed for the shadows my highlights would be ‘burnt out’ and lost. Though, I did not always use this approach, with a camera like my D800 with 36 Megapixels there is a lot of leeway now with more information in the shadows.

Portail Peint is one of six original town gates in the medieval hill top village of Cordes-sur-Ciel in southern France.

METHOD ONE - Adobe Bridge / Photoshop

The work here is to firstly rebalance the tonality and colour, then correct the perspective lean that the whole image has.
1 - 4. Open the file in Adobe Bridge, this will bring up the RAW attributes. Then just apply the same settings as in the screen grab images below.
5. This is to make sure that the work you are doing is in line with the camera and lens you used, so as to correct any ‘Chromatic Aberration’
that may have occurred in the capture.
6. Next we correct the vertical perspective shift that the lens has created. It’s pretty much just the top one ‘Vertical’. You can see the change and it is much more pleasing to the eye. Then ‘Open image’
7 - 12. This opens the adjusted raw file in Photoshop, so we can adjust the individual colours. Other shots may need more adjustment than this one, but it gives an idea as to what you can do when you compare the two frames above.

METHOD TWO
The other option if you are using Photoshop but not Bridge, is to change the perspective manually.
13 - 14. In Photoshop, unlock the Layer to apply changes, by double clicking the padlock icon and click okay. The layer will now be ‘adjustable’
15. Here is where you can change the entire orientation of the image. From the top menu ‘EDIT - TRANSFORM - WARP’.
I have turned on my guides here so I can see the true vertical and horizontal axis. Co - R to turn on your rulers, then Co - ; to
make them visible or not. Then with your Move Tool ‘V’, drag the edge of your rulers onto your image, like this.
15. With your finger on the Co key, drag the handles until you get the degree of change you need. Then hit ‘Return’ and that’s it. Then save.
Note the difference in this method compared to ‘12’, how the roof of the porte has been corrected to the horizontal.
It’s unlimited as to what you can do Really.

All photography and text © Jon Davison 2021

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