Who needs tilt-shift?
This entry was posted on 1/31/2007 9:34 AM and is filed under Techinicalities.
Snow is a little scarce around New England this winter, but at least
we've had some cold weather recently. Last weekend I made a quick
trip out to the Brattleboro, Vermont area to do a little scouting for
our Connecticut River project as well as a photo workshop I'm teaching
in Swanzey, New Hampshire in a couple of weeks. I found a little
snow (very little) and a lot of ice, but it was good to get back to the river and to
start seeing images again.
One place I've wanted to shoot since I first saw it about four years ago is the town green in Newfane, Vermont. It's as classic a New England scene as you can find. When I drove by it on Sunday morning, I just couldn't resist making a few images even though I would have prefered some deeper, untrammeled snow. The centerpiece of the green is the Windham County Courthouse, which dates from the mid-19th century. The challenge in shooting it is that to get a straight-on perspectice without distortion you need to use a longer focal length from across the street - a view that is obstructed by telephone wires. An unobstructed shot requires being closer with a wide angle lens, which makes the buildings look like they are leaning backwards. See below.
Before Photoshop, architectural photographers solved this distortion by using the tilt-shift mechanism on a view camera or by buying a special tilt-shift lens for a 35mm camera. Today, you can straighten out buildings after the fact using the Transform Selection function in Photoshop, and it is surprisingly easy to use. It only took me a couple of minutes to change the above to look like the image below.
For an image like this one, you should perform the Transform on the entire image, so step one is to select the entire image using the select all command (or using the CMD-A/CTLR-A shortcut.) Once your image is selected, you can get the free transform handles to appear by using the Select Transform Selection menu option (or using the CMD-T/CTRL-T shortcut.) Before you start dragging handles, click and drag the center point down to the bottom-center point. Now you can straighten out the image by clicking and dragging the corners of the image (while holding down the control (or command) key. As your image straightens out it might get squished shorter. Fix this by clicking and dragging on the bottom center point or top center point. Just hit your enter key to apply the tranformation. As you can see in this example, some of the image will get cropped away, so plan for this in the field by leaving some extra room around your edges.
By the way, I happened to run into the judge for the courthouse who showed me the inside of the building (thanks Jack!), which has that classic "12 Angry Men" look to it (except for the high-speed internet modems and flat panels.) It's worth a visit if you're in the area. I couldn't shoot inside because my camera gear was too cold and it would have fogged up if I had taken inside, but I plan to get in there and make some pictures next month.
Until next time...
One place I've wanted to shoot since I first saw it about four years ago is the town green in Newfane, Vermont. It's as classic a New England scene as you can find. When I drove by it on Sunday morning, I just couldn't resist making a few images even though I would have prefered some deeper, untrammeled snow. The centerpiece of the green is the Windham County Courthouse, which dates from the mid-19th century. The challenge in shooting it is that to get a straight-on perspectice without distortion you need to use a longer focal length from across the street - a view that is obstructed by telephone wires. An unobstructed shot requires being closer with a wide angle lens, which makes the buildings look like they are leaning backwards. See below.
Before Photoshop, architectural photographers solved this distortion by using the tilt-shift mechanism on a view camera or by buying a special tilt-shift lens for a 35mm camera. Today, you can straighten out buildings after the fact using the Transform Selection function in Photoshop, and it is surprisingly easy to use. It only took me a couple of minutes to change the above to look like the image below.
For an image like this one, you should perform the Transform on the entire image, so step one is to select the entire image using the select all command (or using the CMD-A/CTLR-A shortcut.) Once your image is selected, you can get the free transform handles to appear by using the Select Transform Selection menu option (or using the CMD-T/CTRL-T shortcut.) Before you start dragging handles, click and drag the center point down to the bottom-center point. Now you can straighten out the image by clicking and dragging the corners of the image (while holding down the control (or command) key. As your image straightens out it might get squished shorter. Fix this by clicking and dragging on the bottom center point or top center point. Just hit your enter key to apply the tranformation. As you can see in this example, some of the image will get cropped away, so plan for this in the field by leaving some extra room around your edges.
By the way, I happened to run into the judge for the courthouse who showed me the inside of the building (thanks Jack!), which has that classic "12 Angry Men" look to it (except for the high-speed internet modems and flat panels.) It's worth a visit if you're in the area. I couldn't shoot inside because my camera gear was too cold and it would have fogged up if I had taken inside, but I plan to get in there and make some pictures next month.
Until next time...
