Correcting camera perspective distortion

[sallybode]

I took this picture at Mission Carmel by the Sea. Corrected the sky in PhotoPaint but fixed the perspective in Xara. As the mission has some parts which naturally have sagged in the structure, I trued the interesting window over the door in a clipview and well as the righthand bell tower. When making an enlargement for the wall, the distortion really shows up badly. Used Xara Picture editor to decrease contrast and bring out more detail in the foliage. The ground level of the mission slopes from the point of the camera shot as well.

Never thought to use Xara for this before, it is a great tool.

FYI, camera used was the Canon Rebel XT 8.2 megapixel.

[Intbel]

Bloody marvellous.
A nicely cleaned photograph - who need P'shop, eh?

Behold the incredible expanding bells.
Two dings and a dong to you!
They did look a little on the small side.

Did you shut the door to keep folks in or to keep folks out?

[gwpriester]

Great tip Sally. I find using Xara's Perspective Envelope a lot easier and more efficient than using Photoshop's Lens Correction dialog.

Not sure about those clouds though

Gary

[Intbel]

Originally Posted by gwpriester

Great tip Sally. I find using Xara's Perspective Envelope a lot easier and more efficient than using Photoshop's Lens Correction dialog.
Not sure about those clouds though
Gary

I may be wrong, but I don't think Sally used P'shop's Lens thingo - think it was all done in Xara.

[WolfMoonHP]

I like the way you closed the door in the second picture. The way you attend to detail is the reason your work is so awesome!

[sallybode]

This is photo editing by committe. And all criticisms are appreciated.
Firstly, Gary, I prefer not to use Photoshop all that much because it is so much more time consuming, and dialogue boxes take longer than just doing someting about it. Ctrl T for transform is more my preference there. But Xara doesn't multiply more file size which is awesome, lots of clipview in this work and no bogging down. That is truly powerful. I hope people can see the value in Xara.

Sometimes I brings something to one stage in one program such as the sky and to where I want it to be in Xara. This is a work in progress for the weekend. So I'll probably work on the sky when I have the building the way I like it. Had a crash in Xara and hadn't saved my work, stupid me. So it gives me a chance to work smarter.

[Intbel]

A better sky than the original. Well done Sally.