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Correct lens distortion and adjust perspective



The Lens Correction filter fixes common lens flaws such as barrel and pincushion distortion, vignetting, and chromatic aberration. The filter works with 8‑bits and 16‑bits-per-channel images only.

You can also use the filter to rotate an image or fix image perspective caused by vertical or horizontal camera tilt. The filter’s image grid makes these adjustments easier and more accurate than using the Transform command.

Correct image perspective and lens flaws

  1. Choose Filter > Distort > Lens Correction.
  2. Set the grid and image zoom. As you work you may want to adjust the grid lines to help you judge the amount of correction to make. See Adjust the Lens Correction preview and grid, below.
  3. (Optional) Choose a preset list of settings from the Settings menu. Lens Default uses settings that you previously saved for the camera, lens, focal length, and f‑stop combination used to make the image. Previous Conversion uses the settings used in your last lens correction. Any group of custom settings you saved are listed at the bottom of the menu. See Set camera and lens defaults, below.
  4. Set any of the following options to correct your image.
    Remove Distortion
    Corrects lens barrel or pincushion distortion. Move the slider to straighten horizontal and vertical lines that bend either away from or toward the center of the image. You can also use the Remove Distortion tool  to make this correction. Drag toward the center of the image to correct for barrel distortion and toward the edge of the image to correct for pincushion distortion. Adjust the Edge option to specify how you want to handle any resulting blank image edges.

    Chromatic Aberration
    Corrects color fringing. Zoom in on the image preview to get a closer view of the fringing as you make the correction.

    Fix Red/Cyan Fringe
    Compensates for red/cyan color fringing by adjusting the size of the red channel relative to the green channel.

    Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe
    Compensates for blue/yellow color fringing by adjusting the size of the blue channel relative to the green channel.

    Vignette
    Corrects images that have darkened edges caused by lens faults or improper lens shading.

    Amount
    Sets the amount of lightening or darkening along the edges of an image.

    Midpoint
    Specifies the width of area affected by the Amount slider. Specify a lower number to affect more of the image. Specify a higher number to restrict the effect to the edges of the image.

    Vertical Perspective
    Corrects image perspective caused by tilting the camera up or down. Makes vertical lines in an image parallel.

    Horizontal Perspective
    Corrects image perspective, making horizontal lines parallel.

    Angle
    Rotates the image to correct for camera tilt or to make adjustments after correcting perspective. You can also use the Straighten tool  to make this correction. Drag along a line in the image that you want to make vertical or horizontal.

    Edge
    Specifies how to handle the blank areas that result from pincushion, rotation, or perspective corrections. You can fill blank areas with transparency or a color (background color), or you can extend the edge pixels of the image.

    Scale
    Adjusts the image scale up or down. The image pixel dimensions aren’t changed. The main use is to remove blank areas of the image caused by pincushion, rotation, or perspective corrections. Scaling up effectively results in cropping the image and interpolating up to the original pixel dimensions.

Adjust the Lens Correction preview and grid

  • To change the image preview magnification, use the Zoom tool or the zoom controls in the lower left side of the preview image.
  • To move the image in the preview window, select the Hand tool and drag in the image preview.
  • To use the grid, select Show Grid at the bottom of the dialog box. Use the Size control to adjust the grid spacing and the Color control to change the color of the grid. You can move the grid to line it up with your image using the Move Grid tool .

Set camera and lens defaults

You can save the settings in the Lens Correction dialog box to reuse with other images made with the same camera, lens, and focal length. Photoshop saves settings for distortion, vignetting, and chromatic aberration. Perspective correction settings are not saved. You can save and reuse settings in two ways:

  • Manually save and load settings. Set options in the dialog box, and then choose Save Settings from the Settings menu . To use the saved settings, choose them from the Settings menu. You can also load saved settings that don’t appear in the menu using the Load Settings command in the Settings menu.

  • Set a lens default. If your image has EXIF metadata for the camera, lens, focal length, and f‑stop, you can save the current settings as a lens default. To save the settings, click the Set Lens Default button. When you correct an image that matches the camera, lens, focal length, and f‑stop, the Lens Default option becomes available in the Settings menu. This option is not available if your image doesn’t have EXIF metadata.