Wide-Angle Lens Distortion Correction

Ian prefers Adobe Lightroom as his photo processor and image organizer. He explains that this editing program gives you several tools to correct for the inevitable barrel distortion you get in images captured with an ultra wide-angle lens. As an example of lens distortion correction, he imports a photograph of tall trees taken from low level, the trunks curved from distortion. Lightroom’s Lens Correction module picks the make and model of his camera and lens, and automatically straightens the curve of the trees and also corrects for vignetting.

For his next step, he goes to the Transform module to correct for perspective distortion. In the Constrain Crop section, he demonstrates that you can make corrections by employing the various sliders including vertical, horizontal, rotate, aspect, and scale. But Ian reminds you that these types of lens distortion correction are subjective based on the artistic vision of your own image.

He shows you his ultra wide-angle image of a white capped mountain, pine trees in the foreground. However, the trees are leaning out, causing distortion. In Lightroom, he brings up the Enable Profile Corrections module and corrects for edge distortions. Then, he uses the Transform tool and makes adjustments with the Vertical tool, which corrects the distortion in the trees but reduces the resolution. With the Y Offset and X Offset tools, he adjusts for parts of the image that were lost. To shrink or expand the image, he also shows you how to use the Scale tool.

Join pro shooter Ian Plant at his computer for techniques and examples that show you how to use lens distortion correction in Lightroom.

See all of the videos in our Ultra-Wide Landscape Course:

Ultra-Wide Landscape—Course Preview
Introduction to Ultra Wide-Angle Photography
When to Use an Ultra Wide-Angle Lens
Shooting Near and Far with an Ultra Wide-Angle Lens
Focus-Stacking Photography with an Ultra-Wide Lens
How to Prevent Lens Flare
Shooting Interiors with an Ultra-Wide Lens
Retouching Focus-Stacked Images
Setting Up Your Tripod for Use on Ground Level
Blending Exposures Using Photoshop
Wide-Angle Lens Distortion Correction