Automated Lens Correction

Begin with Auto Correction

Retrieve the ‘Cathedral.jpg’ image supplied this issue. Go to Filter>Lens Correction and in the Auto Correction tab ensure that the Lens Profiles box is populated with at least one lens profile. In the Correction area check the Geometric Distortion and Chromatic Abberation checkboxes, but clear the Vignette box. Engage the Auto Scale Image box and set the edge to Transparency. To see the effect of the lens correction compared to the original image toggle the Preview checkbox at the bottom of the screen.

Manual adjustments

Switch to the Custom tab for additional adjustments to set by hand. Begin with the Transform area, setting the Vertical Perspective to -40. This removes the exaggerated vertical perspective in the image. To compensate for some of the other distortions introduced, set the top Remove Distortion slider to -2. Then set the Vignette amount to -45 for a more artistic appearance. These corrections will push the top of the structure out of frame. To recover it, reduce the Scale to 93%.

Corner Treatment

Click OK and Photoshop applies the lens correction to the image. To address the hole at the bottom of the image, first create a selection of the layer by Ctrl/Cmd-clicking on the layer thumbnail. Invert the selection by hitting Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+I, then go to Edit>Fill and set the Use to Content-Aware. Photoshop fills in the hole with resampled pixels from the rest of the image. Press Cmd/Ctrl+D to cancel the selection. If there are further visible lens distortion issues, you can run the Lens Correction filter again to further refine the image.