Fixing That Pesky Perspective Problem

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From the Manual - Photoshop Elements

Open and Crop an Image

In Expert Mode of Photoshop Elements, open a photo (File > Open) that can use a perspective fix.
Get the Rectangular Marquee tool.
In the Tool Options, click on the New Selection icon, set the Feather to 0 pixels, and the Aspect to Normal.
On the image, click and drag a selection outline that completely encompasses the parts of the sign you want to keep. To reposition while dragging, press and hold the Space bar.
In the Menu bar choose Image > Crop.
Press Ctrl D (Mac: Cmd D) to Deselect.
To turn on the grid, in the Menu Bar choose View > Grid.

Fix the Perspective

Press Ctrl T (Mac: Cmd T) to get the Transform options.
Holding down the Ctrl key (Mac: Cmd key) click and drag on corner handles of the bounding box until the corner of the sign is in the corner of the image.
Repeat on all four corners.
If you need to zoom in, press Ctrl + (Mac: Cmd +).
To reposition the zoom, hold down the Space bar and click and drag on the document.
When all four corners of the sign are in place, click the checkmark to commit.

Zoom Out and Crop

Press Ctrl - (Mac: Cmd -) to zoom out.
Press Ctrl A (Mac: Cmd A) to select all.
In the Menu bar choose Image > Crop.
Press Ctrl D (Mac: Cmd D) to deselect.

Use the Liquify Filter to Straighten the Edge of the Sign

In the Menu bar, choose Filer > Distort > Liquify.
In the dialog box, get the Nudge tool. Set the Size to 826 and the Pressure to 50.
Position the + sign at the bottom of the image and slightly click and drag downward.
Repeat as necessary.
Click OK.

From the Manual - Adobe Photoshop

Open and Crop an Image

In Adobe Photoshop open a photo (File > Open) that contains a subject that needs a prospective fix.
Get the Rectangular Marquee tool.
In the Tool Options click on the New Selection icon. Set the Feather to 0 pixels and the Style to Normal.
On the document click and drag a selection outline that completely encompasses the part of the sign that you want to keep. To reposition while dragging, press and hold the Space bar. In the Menu Bar choose Image > Crop.
Press Ctrl D (Mac: Cmd D) to deselect.
To turn on the Grid, in the Menu Bar and choose View > Show > Grid.

Fix the Perspective

Press Ctrl J (Mac: Cmd J) to duplicate the background layer.
Press Ctrl T (Mac: Cmd T) to get the Transform options.
Holding down Shift Ctrl (Mac: Shift Cmd), click and drag on corner handles of the bounding box until the corner of the sign is in the corner of the image.
Repeat on all four corners.
If you need to zoom in, press Ctrl + (Mac: Cmd +).
To reposition the zoom, hold down the Space bar and click and drag on the document.
When all four corners of the sign are in place, click the checkmark to commit.

Use the Warp Option to Straighten the Edge of the Sign

Press Ctrl T (Mac: Cmd T) to get the Transform options.
In the Tool Options click on the Warp icon.
On the document, use the pivot points in the warp box to slightly adjust the edges of the sign.
When finished with the checkmark to commit.

From the Transcript - Photoshop Elements

In this next series of videos I’ll focus on the most common repairs needed for travel photos. But as you are watching this series, keep in mind that they are in no way meant to be a complete collection. So, if you are interested or in need of digging deeper into the world of photo editing, I strongly recommend Fix Photos Fast by Linda Sattgast. You’ll find a link to this class in the manual. Along with an exclusive coupon code to save big money.

Whenever on vacation, I try to remind myself to photograph the signs. They make awesome additions to phonebooks and scrapbook pages. But a lot of travel photos are taking with the camera pointing up or down on the subject of the photo—which will always throw off the perspective of what you trying to see.

My daughter came home from Germany with a lot of photo of the signs at a zoo they visited. The zoo was important to her and I know that she wanted to preserve those memories. Unfortunately however, the signs were not very readable do to a perspective problem. But after fixing the perspective problem, the sign becomes very readable and much better suited for a photo book.

But don’t limit this perspective video to just signs. It can also be a huge help for fixing the perspective of buildings and other things you might capture on your travels. Here’s how I did it.

In Expert Mode of Photoshop Elements, open a photo that can use a perspective fix. For practice you can find this photo in the class downloads. Begin by getting the Rectangular Marquee tool. In the Tool Options, click on the New Selection icon, set the Feather to 0 pixels, and the Aspect to Normal. Then on the image, click and drag a selection outline that completely encompasses the parts of the sign you want to keep. To reposition while dragging, press and hold the Space bar. Position and let go of the Space bar and continue dragging. Then in the Menu bar choose Image > Crop. Then press Ctrl D, Cmd D on a Mac, to Deselect.

Next we'll need the Transform options. So press Ctrl T, that’s Cmd T on a Mac. Holding down the Ctrl key, or Cmd key on a Mac, click and drag on corner handles of the bounding box until the corner of the sign is in the corner of the image. You'll want to do that on all four corners of this image and you may need to go back and adjust the others as you make adjustments on these.

It will make a difference how zoomed into the image you are. So if you get to a point where it keeps wanting to snap into place, simply zoom in by pressing the Ctrl or Cmd and the + key. The Space bar, when you press and hold it down, will turn into the Hand tool and you can move your image around. Again we'll hold down the Ctrl or Cmd key and click and drag on those bounding box handles and that way we can fine tune the adjustments.

And when all four corners of the sign are in place, you can go ahead and click the checkmark to commit. I will zoom out a little bit by pressing Ctrl or Cmd -, and now that the image is zoomed out, I can see the bottom edge of that side is a slightly warped. If that is enough to cause a problem we can fix that with the Liquify Filter. But first press Ctrl A, Cmd A on a Mac, to select all and then in the Menu bar choose Image > Crop. Then press Ctrl D, Cmd D on a Mac, to deselect.

Now go back into the Menu bar and choose Filer > Distort > Liquify. In the Liquify dialog box you should have the Nudge tool and a nice big brush. Mine is set to 826 for this image and my Pressure is set to 50. What you want to do is the center of this brush has a little + sign inside of it. That is the place that will have the most push when you click and drag. So I'm going to set that little + sign at the bottom of the image and just very slightly click and drag downward until you see the edge of the frame set right into the edge of the image.

Go around and very slightly just nudge, or push or pull, whatever you want to call it, the edge of that image into place. And if it is done very slightly, you won’t even be able to tell that it was distorted with this filter. Now everything is nice and straight so I'm going to go ahead and click OK.

Like I said before this tutorial is not just good for signs images it is also great for buildings that are leaning in or out due to the perspective of the photo. Again I'll begin by cropping the image to just include just the part of the image i plan to keep.I don’t want this car down here just the nice sky and these buildings.

But when fixing the perspective of images like this it would be super helpful to have the grid turned on. To do that go into the Menu Bar and choose View > Grid. Now when you press Ctrl T, Cmd T on a Mac, to get the Transform options, and then again holding down the Ctrl or Cmd key and clicking on the corner handle of the bounding box. As you click and drag you can see the edges of those buildings line-up with the lines on the grid.

Going back to the image I showed you earlier, you can really see how a quick perspective adjustment really enhanced the beauty of his photo. So that’s how you adjust the perspective of images in Photoshop elements.

From the Transcript - Adobe Photoshop

In this next series of videos I’ll focus on some of the common repairs needed for travel photos. But as you are watching this series, keep in mind that they are no way meant to be a complete collection. So, if you are interested or in need of digging deeper into the world of photo editing, I strongly recommend Fix Photos Fast by Linda Sattgast. You’ll find a link to this class in the manual. Along with an exclusive coupon code to save big money.

Whenever on vacation, I try to remind myself to photograph the signs. They make awesome additions to phonebooks and scrapbook pages. But a lot of travel photos are taking with the camera pointing up or down on the subject of the photo—which is always going to throw off the perspective of what you are trying to see.

My daughter came home from Germany with a lot of photo of the signs at the zoo they were visiting. The zoo was important to her and I know that she wanted to preserve those memories. Unfortunately however, the signs were not very readable do to a perspective problem. But after fixing the perspective problem, the sign becomes very readable and much better suited for a photo book.

But don’t limit this perspective video to just signs. It can also be a huge help for fixing the perspective of buildings or other things you might capture on your travels. Here’s how I did it.

In Adobe Photoshop open a photo that contains a subject that needs a prospective fix, for practice you can find this photo in the class downloads. Begin by getting the Rectangular Marquee tool. In the Tool Options click on the New Selection icon. Set the Feather to 0 pixels and the Style to Normal.

On the document click and drag a selection outline that completely in compasses the part of the sign that you want to keep to reposition while dragging press and hold the Space bar. Then in the Menu Bar choose Image > Crop. Then press Ctrl D, Cmd D on a Mac, to deselect so that we are working with the photo non-destructively.

Press Ctrl J, Cmd J on a Mac, to duplicate the background layer. Next get the Transform options by pressing Ctrl T, Cmd T on a Mac. The Transform options in Photoshop CC 2019 underwent quite a change in the last update. Now when you are wanting to freely transform an image you have to hold down the Shift key and the Ctrl or Cmd key. Then you can click on a corner handle the bounding box and click and drag in any direction.

I'm wanting to set the frame of the subject of this image right up in the corner of the image itself. And then still holding down those two keys, I'll click and drag in the other corners, and the third corner right here, and then the fourth corner. If you're having too much trouble having the image snap into place with the Smart Guides, then you should just simply zoom into the image by pressing Cmd +, or Ctrl + in Windows.

And then you can press and hold the Space bar to move the image around. And again I'll hold down the Shift and the Ctrl or Cmd key and it'll be much simpler to adjust the corners of this image. Once the four corners of the image are in place, then click on the checkmark to commit.

This looks pretty good except for there's a little bit of a warp at the bottom of this sign. To fix that, get the Transform options again by pressing Ctrl or Cmd T. Then in the Tool Options click on the Warp icon. Use the pivot points in the warp box to slightly adjust the edges of that sign, and then when finished with the checkmark to commit.

Like I said before, fixing perspective is not just useful for signs, it's also useful for building images that have a huge perspective problem. Again I would first crop the image to include just the parts of the image that I want to keep. I don’t necessary want this car down here. I'm mostly interested in the pretty sky and the outline and the details of the building.

And then after I crop and deselect, I would go into the Menu Bar and choose View > Show > Grid. The grid is going to be a great visual help as I'm fixing the perspective of this image and that's because after I get the transform options and start clicking and dragging on those corner handles with the Ctrl or Cmd key held down, I can watch the edges of the building and see that they line up with the lines in the grid.

Going back to the image I showed you earlier, you can really see how a quick perspective adjustment really enhance the beauty of this photo. So that's how you adjust the perspective of images in Photoshop.

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