Perspective Crop Tool in Adobe Photoshop

[Cameron]

Have you ever attempted to take a photograph of something, such as a painting or a building, head on and as square as possible, only to discover later on that you were standing too far to the left or to the right? I have. I mean, I have a lot. Oftentimes it’s tough enough to take a high quality photo, but when we have to add “straightness” to the mix, it’s nearly impossible. Luckily, Adobe offers us many tools to deal with unintended lens distortion. Now, we’ve got another tool in our arsenal – perspective crop. If you’re into manipulating the perspective of your photos, this is going to be a fun post.

In this post, I’m going to talk about how we can go about taking a photo that has a subject that’s skewed one way or another. Items with sharp, straight edges are perfect for this type of correction. I’m going to use the “Perspective Crop Tool” in Adobe Photoshop to alter these photos, so if you have that application installed, please feel free to follow along.

My Original Photos​

The first photo I’m going to be working with today is “La Primavera by Botticelli.” This was taken a few years back and as you can see, it’s rather crooked. It’s a nice example photo to play with because I know the frame has straight edges and the painting was level.



The next photo is part of “The Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti.” I’d say this is another good option for experimentation with the Perspective Crop Tool.



Now, I just want to put out a word of warning. As I go through using the Perspective Crop Tool on these photos, my results aren’t going to be perfect. I’m merely trying to show how the tool works. I’m not going to continue on in an attempt to straighten any lens distortion or to clean up any other areas of the photos.

Setting the Perspective​

I’m going to work on the painting first. To set the crop perspective using Photoshop, I need to select the Perspective Crop Tool. This tool can be found “behind” the regular crop tool. If I click the regular crop tool and drag it out, all other tools behind it will be revealed.



Next, I’m going to use the Perspective Crop Tool to outline the area I’d like to work with. Right now, it’s not critical to set this tool in any particular way. I merely want to get it active on my canvas.



After that, I want to drag each corner of the tool to the corners of where I’d like to set my perspective. The space inside the tool doesn’t need to contain what I’d like to crop. All I’m doing is creating a template of a particular shape.



Now that I’ve got my shape correctly represented, I can continue on and drag both sides and the top and bottom of the crop tool out to encapsulate what I’d like to be in my final image.



From here, I can double click inside my crop area to apply the tool. This is what I’ve got as a result.



Like I said, it’s still got some lens distortion in the photo. I’m not going to touch that. As you can see though, the perspective is now repaired and I can move on with editing the photo as I wish. Just imagine if I pulled the warping in a bit and if those heads weren’t in the picture. I think it would look rather good.

My Next Photo​

For my next photo, I’m going to go through the same steps as I did above. First, I’m going to get my crop tool inside the image area.



Next, I’m going to click and drag the corners of the tool to create the shape I’d like to apply.



After that, I’m going to pull the sides, top and bottom out towards the edges, so I can have more of the photo included in my final result.



Finally, I’ve got my final image.



While this is a good beginning, this second photo obviously needs a bit more work. It does, however, look better than it did originally.

 

[Cameron]

How to Use the Perspective Crop Tool in Adobe Photoshop​

Between Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom and Photoshop, there are many tools dedicated to straightening things in images out. While taking photos, tons of variables can throw off the perfect shot. A crooked camera, the wrong position, lens distortion – whatever. What I’m trying to say here is that the field and the lab are two very different things. Out in the field, the goal is to capture the essence of something. Back in the lab, the goal is to fix whatever it is you captured and to make it look its best. Luckily, there are more tools than ever to help out with these goals.

In today’s post, I’m going to share a tool with you that might just save you tons of time. It’s called the Perspective Crop Tool and it’s just about flexible enough to make a very badly composed photo good again. And the best part is, working with this tool is a snap. It’s so easy that I’m not even sure I need to write a post about it. Of course, I will, but I don’t think I need to.

For my demonstration, I’ll take a photo that’s crooked and straighten it out again. Now, I mentioned that there were other tools to handle this and there are. I’ve actually written about a few of them. Think about the Straighten Tool and the Upright Tool in Camera Raw. Photoshop has the Straighten Tool built right into its Crop Tool and also has quite a few Distort Tools and Transform Tools that would help out in situations like these. Today though, I’ll be focusing only on the Perspective Crop Tool because it’s definitely one you want to learn about. It’s probably the most simple to learn of all of them.

By the way, if you would like to learn about the other tools I just mentioned, take a quick look through these posts:

Using the Transform & Free Transform Tools in Adobe Photoshop

How To Straighten a Photo Using Adobe Photoshop

How To Use Guided Upright to Correct Lens Distortion in Adobe Camera Raw

Fixing a Crooked Image in Adobe Camera Raw

The Demo Photo​

I have a perfectly good photo to use for this post. It’s actually straight. Take a look:



To make things interesting and to use the tool I’d like to show you in this post, I’ll need to make this image crooked. I’ll do that now.



This crooked shot is perfect because it’ll work as an excellent demo photo for this post. Now, I want you to be aware of something. This tool isn’t only valuable for fixing crooked photos. It’s primary purpose is to alter the perspective in photos (much like the Upright Tool in Camera Raw). So, if you have a picture of a tall church and it looks like the top of the building is more narrow than the bottom, and it really isn’t, you can follow the instructions I give you down below to make the church appear all the same width. All you need to do is outline the building, stretch the bounding box and hit Enter on your keyboard. You’ll see what I’m referring to below.

Where is the Perspective Crop Tool?​

I already have the crooked window photo open in Photoshop. To access the Perspective Crop Tool, I’ll need to click on the regular Crop Tool in the left vertical toolbar and drag out to the right. From there, I’ll see the tool I’m interested in directly below that.



I’ll click on that tool and I’ll be ready to go.

Using the Perspective Crop Tool​

This tool’s usage is very straightforward. Basically, all you need to do is to click on the corners of the crooked or misshapen item to create a bounding box. I’ll do that as an example now. I’ll begin by clicking on the upper left corner of the window, then down to the lower left, then to the lower right and finally, to the upper right. As I do this, I’ll notice sort of a web being created. It’s extremely easy to understand and conceptualize.



Next, I’ll click on all four center handles and pull outward. Doing this will keep the perspective I initially drew, but will create a larger area to crop.



Finally, I’ll click the Enter key on my keyboard and the crop will take place.



As you can see, the window is now straight. Your mileage will vary with this tool and it’s best used with photos where an object has a perspective that is off. The window I used was just as an example of how the tool functions. You should definitely experiment with other types of photos to get the hang of things. But really, that’s all there is to it. Like I said, this is a fast one.

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I hope I clearly explained how to use the Perspective Crop Tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section down below. Thanks for reading.