Sponsored by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Learn More

Don’t Use Crop To Fix Barrel Distortion

 

Problem: You’re trying to fix barrel distortion that appears on a photo you’re editing, but using the Crop tool’s Perspective feature is a guessing game. You try the crop and it doesn’t look right; you have to undo it, and guess again. Solution: Don’t use the Crop tool’s Perspective feature (found in the Options Bar), even though it was specifically designed to address barrel distortion. Use the standard Free Transform command instead by pressing Command-T (PC: Control-T) and then pressing-and-holding the Command (PC: Control) key while you drag the corner handles to create your perspective. Doing this gives you a live onscreen preview as you work, so fixing the distortion takes just a few seconds—unlike Crop’s Perspective.

2 Comments

  1. Blake_Gates said on — September 9, 2008 @ 4:46 pm

    Very nice tip. I’ve used the Crop Tool’s perspective option a few times, and it never really looked quite right to me. Thanks for the tip Corey!

    Blake

  2. Richie said on — March 19, 2010 @ 12:08 pm

    There is also a CS3/CS4 filter called “Lens Correction” under the Distort menu.

    CS3
    http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/10.0/help.html?content=WSF65FB40F-00F5-445a-BD9A-38B3737A9A19.html

    CS4
    http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WSF65FB40F-00F5-445a-BD9A-38B3737A9A19a.html

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Photoshop Tutorials

  • The Bourne Effect

    Corey shows you how to re-create the graphic effect from the new Bourne Legacy movie poster. With an extra twist!

  • Flare Effects

    Corey has a cool trick for creating a flare brush and see how one effect can lead to another.

  • Hollywood Touch-Ups

    See how you can add some subtle touches to give that green screen studio shot the Hollywood treatment.

  • 3D Christmas Ornaments

    Corey shows how to create reflective holiday ornaments using 3D in Photoshop.

Premium Video Tutorials From NAPP


 

Create A Composite Layer

If you have a multilayer composition and you
want to apply an effect to all the layers at once, don’t flatten the layers–use a composite layer instead. Hide the layers you want excluded, and press Shift-Command-Option-E (PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E). A new layer will be created at the top containing a merged copy of all the visible layers.

Another option is to create a new layer at the top of the stack and make it active. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) each layer you want to include to make those layers active, as well. Press Option-Command-E (PC: Alt-Ctrl-E).
by Colin Smith

Read More Tips

Tip of the Day
 
 
Kelby Training
 
DVD Special
Online Training
Kelby Training