Using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter in Adobe Photoshop

[LukeLewis]

There are many types of images that need to be corrected because of distortion. Photos that were taken with wide angle lenses, fisheye lenses and those images that were merged together to create panoramic photos. In each of these cases, either the lens itself caused the distortion or the merging together did. No matter the cause, there’s a very handy tool inside of Adobe Photoshop that can help correct the distortion. The best part of this tool is that it’s extremely easy to use. You mostly just need to learn some definitions.

In today’s post, I’d like to work through correcting the distortion of a photograph by taking advantage of the Adaptive Wide Angle filter in Adobe Photoshop. As I’m correcting the image, I’ll explain the process as well as some of the settings involved. By the time I’m finished with this post, you should know how to complete the process yourself. It’s super fast and easy and I think you’ll love it.

The Demo Photo​

I’ll be using a photo of the inside of a church for this post. While it isn’t immediately apparent that there’s some distortion in this photo, it’s there and it can benefit from some correction. Here’s the image.



As you may have noticed, it looks like the center is somewhat bulging.

Converting to a Smart Object​

I know I’ve said this a million times already, but when working with filters, you need to first convert the layer into a Smart Object. To do this, I’ll select the layer in the Layers panel and right-click on it. Then, I’ll select Convert to Smart Object from the menu that appears. That’s all there is to it.

Accessing the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter​

At this point, I can go ahead and access the Adaptive Wide Angle filter workspace. To do so, I’ll head up to the Filter > Adaptive Wide Angle menu item and click.

Working in the Workspace​

The way this filter generally works is that it uses the meta data from the photograph to correct it. So, if the camera information, lens model and lens characteristics are available, the filter works fairly effortlessly. If that information isn’t available though, things are a bit trickier and the image will need to be corrected manually. Let’s take a look at the right side of the workspace now.



If you’ll notice, right below the OK and Cancel buttons is a drop-down menu. Inside of this menu are a few different options. It’s important to choose the option that coincides with the type of correction you need. I’ll explain these options below.

Fisheye: If you have a photo that’s very distorted because it was captured with a fisheye lens, this is the option to choose. This filter will “uncurve” any curvature that was caused by the lens.

Perspective: Picture taking a photo of a table that has long, individual legs. If you take the photo straight on, there won’t be much need for correction, but if you change your perspective by placing the camera on the ground and shooting upward, those legs will now be tilted and will require some correction, unless the distorted look is what you’re going for. If not, choose this option to correct objects that have been affected by extreme camera angles.

Panorama: If you’ve merged multiple images via the Photomerge feature in Photoshop, this is the option you should choose. The filter will read the meta data contained in the photograph and will know how to correct any distortion created by the merge.

Full Spherical: If you have taken a complete 360 degree panorama photograph and your image has a 2:1 aspect ratio and you’d like to correct the distortion found in the image, choose this option.

Auto: If Photoshop can detect the proper lens information (the meta data is available) and you choose this option, any distortion will be corrected automatically.

Below this drop-down menu are a few more options. They are:

Scale: Oftentimes, when an image’s distortion is corrected, it leaves transparent areas around the edge. Push this slider to specify a value in which to scale the image in an effort to remove those empty areas.

Focal Length: This value will be set automatically if Photoshop can detect the lens information in the image’s meta data. If that information ins’t available, specify the lens’s focal length here.

Crop Factor: This slider works in conjunction with the Scale slider. Push this slider to set a value for which Photoshop will crop the image.

As Shot: If you aren’t sure if your photo’s lens information is available to Photoshop, you’ll know after you take a look at this check box. If the information is available, this check box will be active and if the information isn’t available, this box will be grayed out.

Using the Constraint Tool​

Once all the values on the right have been selected and set, I’ll move over to the left toolbar and click on the Constraint Tool. This is the only tool I’ll be discussing in this post because it covers most situations.



This tool pretty much draws lines. If your photograph is heavily distorted, you’ll likely see curved lines where straight ones should be. The task now is to draw lines that hug those curved lines in the photograph. As the lines are drawn, you’ll notice that they curve automatically to follow the curve in the image. This is the way things are supposed to go. So, every place you see a curved and distorted edge in your photo, draw a line over it. I did this in the demo image I’m using today, even though I didn’t have many curved lines in it.



Here’s what’s going to happen. As a line is drawn over a curved edge, that curved edge will straighten out. The photo can get kind of funky looking until it’s all finished and you’ll quickly find out why those sliders are in existence over on the right. The good things is, as you’re drawing the lines, you’ll learn very quickly how this tool works and what it’s supposed to do.

Leveling the Photo​

If you’re working on a landscape photo or a photo that needs to be leveled out or straightened, you can enact the solution right in this workspace. To straighten a distorted image, draw a line across the image from point to point, in a way that touches two level points. So if you’re working on a landscape shot, draw a line from one side of the landscape to the other where the land is supposed to be level. Then, right click on the line and select Horizontal from the available options.



Photoshop will treat this line as a horizon line and will rotate the photo to follow its guide. It’s so easy to straighten a photo this way.

When the corrections are all finished, I’ll go ahead and click on the OK button to close this workspace out. After that, I’ll appreciate the corrections and continue work on the photo.



I hope I clearly explained how to use the Adaptive Wide Angle filter found in Adobe Photoshop, as well as what some of the sliders and interior options mean. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section down below. Thanks for reading!

 

[LukeLewis]

Correcting Fisheye Lens Distortion in Adobe Photoshop​

I have an update to yesterday’s post. Because the demo photo I used in that post didn’t do a very good job of describing how the Adaptive Wide Angle filter works, I thought I’d follow up with this one. I have the perfect photo for today’s demonstration so I think everything should be clear from here on out.

If you haven’t read yesterday’s post yet, I encourage you to do so before reading this one. It tells you a good amount of information about the filter in question and you’ll learn a lot from it.

Using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter in Adobe Photoshop

In today’s post, I’d like to simply show you how the Constraint Tool can effect the distorted curved edges in a photo that was taken with a wide angle or fisheye lens. After all, this is what the Adaptive Wide Angle filter is all about; correcting distortion. Without the Constraint Tool, everything else is somewhat useless. I’ll be working entirely in Adobe Photoshop.

Simply put, the Constraint Tool straightens curved edges. Down below, I’ll demonstrate how to draw a line over a curved edge and how that line corrects the curve. Most of the time, if the lens information is available in the photograph’s metadata, the line that’s drawn will automatically bend with the curved edge. There’s nothing more to do than draw the line. Sometimes though, if the lens information isn’t available to Photoshop, you’ll need to draw the line and then manually bend it to follow the curve. I’ll show you both ways to handle this.

Demo Photo​

How’s this for a distorted photo?



As you can see, this photo was taken at a decent angle and with a wide angle lens. This will be perfect to experiment with.

Using the Constraint Tool – Again​

I’m going to jump right into the Adaptive Wide Angle filter without giving any explanation as to how I got there because I did all that already. Basically, I’ll just start using the constraint Tool. I’ve already gone ahead and converted the image layer into a Smart Object, so now all I need to do is click on the proper menu item. Once in the Adaptive Wide Angle workspace, I’ll notice that the Correction is already set to Fisheye and that the slider values below that have been set as well. This image has information in its metadata that Photoshop is using, so I don’t need to do anything beyond make sure that these areas are in position.

At this point, since the Constraint Tool is already active, I’ll click and drag a line over one of the curves in the photo. Since this tool corrects distortion, I’ll need to make sure the curve I’m clicking on is supposed to be straight. Obviously, the walkway in front of the store is supposed to be level, so I’ll click and drag a line from one side of the store to the other.



Do you see what happened there? In order for this tool to correct the distortion, in had to pull the bottom of the photo upwards. That’s fine because some of the other corrections I make will let that area fall down a bit. From here, I’ll continue drawing lines over every curve I see. In total, there will probably be about 15 or so lines. Let’s see the result.



Okay, that looks pretty good. The reason the walkway still looks messed up is because I ran out of content. There’s nothing there to work with.

Manually Adjusting Lines​

I got lucky in that I didn’t need to manually adjust any of the lines I drew. If the photo didn’t include any metadata though, I would have had to do everything manually. Luckily, it’s easy to bend the straight lines that are drawn. All that needs to be done is a click and drag. I’ll show you how to do that now.

Let’s pretend that I drew a straight line and it stayed straight. To bend it, all I would need to do is click on the center anchor point and drag until the line coincides with the curve I’m interested in correcting. In this example below, I went a bit extreme because I wanted you to see where I clicked and where I dragged the line to.



If I continued on and did this for all the distorted edges, I’d have the same result as above.

The Final Image​

When I’m finished with all my line drawing, I’ll click on the OK button in the Adaptive Wide Angle workspace to return to the normal workspace. I’ll then use the Crop Tool to crop out all the empty areas, which will give me the final image that’s much less distorted than the original.



I hope what I just explained helped further clarify how to use the Adaptive Wide Angle filter in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section down below. Thanks for reading!

 

[LukeLewis]

How Can I Fix Wide Angle Distortion in My Photos?​

Question: I’ve been taking a lot of photos lately with my wide angle lens (Sigma 10-20mm). While these pictures are great and I love them a lot, I’d like to remove some of the distortion from them that the lens introduces. I’m even creating a few panoramic shots from individual images that I’ve captured and the panoramas are coming out curved. They look like they were taken with a fisheye lens or something. I’d rather not have these types of photos include the distortion. In my city shots, the horizons are curved and the buildings seems to be leaning inward. Any advice would be welcome. Thanks.

Answer: You’ve come to the right place. Just as luck would have it, Photoshop has a filter to remove lens distortion and it’s incredibly easy to use. Here’s how you use it:

First, open your image into Photoshop. Then, convert that layer into a Smart Object. Finally, go to the Filter > Adaptive Wide Angle menu item and click.

The Adaptive Wide Angle palette should open up. By default, the Constraint Tool should be active. That’s the top tool in the left toolbar. It basically draws lines and then those lines convert whatever they’re drawn on into perfect verticals or horizons. So all you need to do is draw a line across your horizon, if it’s curved or slanted because the camera wasn’t level. After you’re finished drawing the line, right-click on the end handle and choose the Horizontal option.

To make your buildings stand straight up vertically, click and draw a line on one of the vertical edges. Then, right before letting go of your mouse button, hold down the Shift key. This will change the line from blue to purple. Let go of the mouse button and you’ll see the building magically stand up straight. Follow these same steps for every building that’s leaning and you should be good to go. When you’re finished, click on the OK button to exit out of the palette and then crop your image to remove any empty space your correction introduced.

That’s pretty much it. The Adaptive Wide Angle filter was built for exactly what you want to do, so learn it and use it. I think you’ll have some good luck with it. Let me know how it goes.