Removing perspective (church photo)

*Syb* · 01-26-2009, 07:49 AM

Hi all,

What is your thought about removing the perspective in architecture/church photography?

More concrete: I found it quite disturbing that the two towers in this photo were pointing to each other instead of to the sky. This is a bit exaggerated, but it was clearly visible that I used a wide angle lens and that the church was pretty close.

So I adjusted perspective (among other things) in the GIMP. The towers are now (more ore less) parallelled. I think it is good this way. Do you agree?

*Syb* · 01-26-2009, 07:54 AM

This was the original pic.

rburgoss · 01-26-2009, 08:09 AM

Perspective correction is something normally done with field (veiw) cameras or with tilt/shift lenses. Sometimes its for good but others, it kills the "feeling" of greatness of some buildings. In Your case, it seems that the apparent perspective was well corrected BUT I feel you had to correct the horizon level first before any other corrections. It seems to me that your picture (both original and corrected) suffer from tilted apparent horizon. Look at the church's baseline. Its tilted clockwise a couple of degrees. Se next post.

rburgoss · 01-26-2009, 08:21 AM

As said before, with a slight horizontal correction, by tilting just 1.5 degrees counterclockwise, your picture fall into perfect horizontal and vertical lines.

Closely look at the first pic (your original correction) at the true horizontal yellow line. It should pass through the church's windows at the same apparent height. Also, the tower should be parallel to the true vertical line, but its tilted.

On the next picture, correction was just tilting counterclockwise be 1.5 degrees. See how the horizontal and vertical true lines now match the church's lines?

Attachment 26680

*Syb* · 01-26-2009, 08:23 AM

Robert, I think you are right. I was concentrating on the towers, and forgot to look at the church base... thanks!

*Syb* · 01-26-2009, 08:27 AM

Does the order matter? I mean, could I just adjust the "original modification"? Or start again in the "before adjustment" ?

*graphicgr8s* · 01-26-2009, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by Syb

Does the order matter? I mean, could I just adjust the "original modification"? Or start again in the "before adjustment" ?

Do the straightening first and you may find you don't really need the perspective adjustment.