Is there a tool/plugin to correct lens distortion?

[NZ'er]

Hi gang,

I have a lens that distorts vertical lines in the edge of the frame when zoomed wide (17mm). The 3 spindly trees in left of frame are supposed to be straight up and down...(I'm hoping my attached file shows up here somewhere).
Is there a plugin that for PSE 4 that will correct these lens distortions?

Thanks
Steve

[Wendy]

Hi ...

If you are a Windows user then this is good:

http://www.epaperpress.com/ptlens/

I tend to do it manually .. :)

Open up the image
Get the Elliptical marquee and make a large oval selection on the image
Then do Filter>Distort>Spherize ... use a small minus number and experiment
I used -5 on this one ..

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1dJk7QMfSSnjE6JgS80F8vU3PMwrcO_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1dJk7QMfSSnjE6JgS80F8vU3PMwrcO)

Wendy

[TonyW]

Steve: Was that a piece of a larger picture? Reason I ask is that it doesn't look like normal lens distortion which would give a bowed horizon. I was wondering if it was more a perspective effect. If you get those spindly trees vertical the ones behind them are going to finish up leaning in.

Tony

[Daviskw]

Hi Steve

Like Tony it does seem out of the ordinary. If it is important to you then maybe try using free transform to straighten the trees. Make a marquee selection with some feather. Copy the selection to the clipboard then revert your picture to its original state.

Paste the tree selection back into and over the leaning trees and position as needed.

Then attach a mask, if you need instruction on how to use a mask in this situation let us know.

Then on the mask blend as needed.

Butch

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1mpRXsCoCIQj9BH6XNhtY4h6d0iJgC1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1mpRXsCoCIQj9BH6XNhtY4h6d0iJgC1)

[NZ'er]

Thanks for everyone's input - thats great! Given me something to go on. I'm still learning with the new lens (Tamron 17-50 2.8), and that was my first outing with it. I do recall when I took that shot that I was 'looking down' a fair bit with the camera i.e. quite an angle between lens front and trees if that makes sense, and also lens wide at 17mm obviously.
Will be doing a lot more testing with it in coming weeks.
I just seem to recall there being a specific plugin to correct this sort of thing on wide angle lenses.

Thanks again;)
Steve

[NZ'er]

I just went and had a look at that link of yours Wendy and thats pretty much exactly what I was looking for except I'm a Mac user...

I'm sure there's one out there, I'll keep looking.

Cheers

*Edit*I should slow down a bit this morning...there's a link to some mac stuff on that site...

[Wendy]

Hi Steve ...

I haven't found one like that for the Mac ... have to admit that even though I have CS2 I still use the ellipse method :) :)

Wendy

[TonyW]

Steve: If you had the camera pointing down - that's where the lean comes from. I doubt that there is very much lens distortion with that lens at wide angle. When you point up things lean in and when you point down things lean out and the effect is exaggerated with a wider angle lens. Like Butch cleverly demonstrated you have to use a transform to change perspective, a lens distortion plug-in won't do it.

I did run it through PTLens (the one that Wendy mentioned). It has that lens in its database and I assumed that you were using a Canon Rebel XT or equivalent (it depends on the sensor size). It makes a small difference - takes a little bit of bow out of those leaning trees but it doesn't stop them leaning.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1zaGTK4kDqA7ws3fjQAPJUmn6meB8_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1zaGTK4kDqA7ws3fjQAPJUmn6meB8)

Tony

[mswnow]

Um... just a question, but when all the other trees in the forest are crooked, I think it looked better when the three were crooked too. Now the three thin trees are straight but the big one behind it is crooked. In the grand scheme of things does it matter that those three are straight?

[NZ'er]

Steve: If you had the camera pointing down - that's where the lean comes from. I doubt that there is very much lens distortion with that lens at wide angle. When you point up things lean in and when you point down things lean out and the effect is exaggerated with a wider angle lens. Like Butch cleverly demonstrated you have to use a transform to change perspective, a lens distortion plug-in won't do it.

Tony
Yes, I think this is the case - thanks Tony:)

Also "mswnow" - I agree - I wasn't really too worried about the 'leans' in this picture but was just asking in general for photos of buildings etc in the future. It's just that was the only photo I had at the time to describe it.

Here's a couple more pics from this lens (on a 30D by the way Tony;) )
http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i189/stevefmnz/Two/