Photoshop Puppet Warp - How To Correct Panorama Distortion

[@wakaoh05]

"this is what you have been waiting for" -5:56 So why didn't we start there?

[@davelewin67]

This is the single most helpful video I've seen, on how to straighten horizons. Thank you.

[@matthewfletcher]

Thanks Dave! Struggled to find a 'correction' video that was applicable for my photo, this was great! I was shooting with an 850nm infrared filter so could see NOTHING through the viewfinder or eyepiece. I used live view, and pressed the info button a few times to bring up the level tool

[@svenjakubith2464]

Great tutorial I wasn't even aware of the problem of the non matching reflection. Now I see them everywhere in my fotos Really good tut.

[@MatthewSaville]

BTW, If I had to be my own worst critic I would say that yes, the foreground having out-of-focus rocks does bother me a little bit, but not enough for me to totally give up on the photo. Maybe next time I will be able to recreate this image using the new Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art, with a single composition, and then I can do a tutorial about focus stacking an astro-landscape image at f/2!!! I also usually don't do black and white nightscape images, but again I thought it worked well here. What do you think?

[@21N42Photo]

Awesome pic, liked it a lot

[@OleqsaG]

thanks for the tip about straightening reflections, never thought about it :) All though, i think the new boundary warp in panorama dialog if used tries to maintain the horizon and verticals. Don't know for sure though.

[@tiriaq2607]

How do you get so much color out of your nightshot, did you flash it? Or mix it with a daylight shooting?

[@21N42Photo]

I'm looking for those videos on night landscapes you mentioned... May I get the link plz? By the way, awesome video... Thank you!!!!

[@scarface1961]

Great video on the use of the puppet warp tool, but I question the thought process of taking the image. If you were going to crop to a final 2:3 ratio, why did you do a shoot a pano and not just a landscape single image?

[@vanwheelsontour]

Hallo from Germany. Why did you use f 2 and not f 8 or higher for this landscape photo?

[@BrotherBloat]

+C. Hoffmann at f/8 he would've had to increase the ISO quite a lot, to maintain the

[@MatthewSaville]

+C. Hoffmann Hi there, I had to use f/2 because this image was made in the middle of the night. Going to f/8 would have required a four-minute exposure, and would probably still not have gotten the foreground in focus. This is a technique I do use sometimes, however, even in a panorama once. But it is not very easy!

[@andym.8436]

Hi from Germany aswell ;)Thanks for your great tutorial, i really could learn a couple of tipps out of that.I have another question concerning the merging of multiple shots, no matter if its in LR or in PS. Sometimes, if not shot correctly, while merging multiple pictures, there are some errors in the final result. These Errors you can see in Areas which are not reproduced correctly in the merged result and occur basically in darker areas of one picture. Is there a certain way of maybe correct some of the single shots, so that PS or LR can better merge them together ? Would be great to hear a hint from you for that, or even better a tutorial :DThx so far.GreetingsAndy

[@MatthewSaville]

+Andy M. Hi Andy! Yes, this is usually caused by not enough overlap, or not using the perfect lens profile provided by Adobe. I find that if you overlap your images by at least 50%, and make sure the vignetting and distortion are perfectly removed using the Adobe lens profile, ...your results will look very smooth even if they contain very clear, empty areas of sky. One error however is using a circular polarizer while shooting a panorama. Sometimes this can work okay, but sometimes it can wreak havoc on your final images' tonalities, making them completely un-matchable. Hope this helps!

[@andym.8436]

+Matthew Saville Thank you for your quick reply, any suggestions of correcting Images when you have that issue and cant turn back the time to do new Pictures of the same spot ? :D I thought about maybe crop some of the solo shots just a tiny bit so that the algorythm may works well afterwards ?

[@MatthewSaville]

+Andy M. yes, I use cloning, content-aware fill, or basic warping to try and stretch certain corners or edges of my panoramas to fit a composition and crop that I want. I'll record a video on this subject soon!

[@andym.8436]

+Matthew Saville Thats awesome ! If you need a perfect example just message me ;)

[@vascogoncalves5358]

And use the Boundary Warp in Photoshop???

[@EyeCaptureImages]

So... if I'm shooting at 16mm, I'd use an 8 second exposure? Doesn't really make sense. Shouldn't I get a longer exposure at a wider focal length? Keeping the stars as close to a pin point as possible...

[@MatthewSaville]

+EyeCaptureImages You know what that's a very good point. I was just using those numbers as a general rule for that particular focal length. Actually, the focal length and shutter speed are inversely proportional, and not exactly proportional at all actually. If you were shooting at 16mm on a full-frame camera, you could take a 20-30 second exposure and still see stars as relatively singular dots. Even better at 14mm. Oppositely, if you're shooting at 50mm or 85mm, you'll find yourself needing to shoot faster than 15 sec, say 6-8 sec, before stars begin to "move" in the picture. Good luck out there!

[@GulagExpress1]

keeping the shutterspeed to half of the length of your lens (when youre on a 30mm or so, I know)? I feel like that can be quickly misunderstood by beginners as: by that logic, you could shoot 250s on a 500mm and have no star trails whatsoever, which, eh, I think we both know that's just as unlikely to happen as finding a golden unicorn in Atlantis. The correct rule of thumb is the 500 rule, for full frame, 300 for aps-c and 250 for Micro 4/3, dividing that number by your focal length will give you the number of seconds you can expose without trailing (note, this is a rule of thumb, there's much more precise resources you can use online, even an online page that calculates it based on the camera model and sensor you have, giving you a value of time for DIFFERENT SECTIONS OF YOUR SENSOR (eg, corners cant be exposed as long as the center of the sensor before they draw trails)).

[@MorZarCH]

starts at 6:35

[@oliviermaes4837]

Wouldn't it be easier to use Photoshop's "adaptive wide angle" feature?

[@MatthewSaville]

+Olivier Maes Hi there Olivier, I've tried pretty much all of Photoshop's various warping / distortion correction features over the years; and for this particular situation it was very practical to use puppet warp. However, using "adaptive wide angle" is perfect for when your distortion is consistent throughout the whole image! I'd definitely give that a try if I had the time. However in this case, because it was a panorama and not a single exposure, the "wobble" was not very balanced from left to right, so I opted for Puppet Warp. Hope this helps!

[@gustorvo]

Couldn't this be achieved right in the lightroom without using photoshop? I guess LR has built-in geometry/spherical correction too.

[@MatthewSaville]

+Vladimir T. (Gustorvo) Hi Vladimir, Unfortunately no, this type of distortion could not be corrected in Lightroom. Lightroom's main distortion corrections are simple lens distortion corrections, such as minor barrel distortion, or minor perspective distortion. Since the panorama here has a rather significant "bow" right through the middle of it, Photoshop was definitely necessary. Thanks for asking the question, though, it is a very good point! Many times this type of thing can in fact be corrected in Lightroom. I especially love the distortion profile for the Rokinon 14mm that a third party created. If you use that lens, you should definitely hunt down that profile and use it. :-)

[@gustorvo]

+Matthew Saville thanks for explanation.

[@brodqga]

I would keep the 1st frame no matter the out-of-focus rocks.