Straightening Vertical Lines in Photographs: I was told by a photographer and teacher that I should straighten my vertical (as well as horizontal) lines in my photos. She said the...

Tikva Loc: Waukesha, WI

I was told by a photographer and teacher that I should straighten my vertical (as well as horizontal) lines in my photos. She said the walls should be straightened and not left leaning. I see many photos with leaning walls that look like they are trying to touch each other at the top. Is this a matter of personal choice, or should the walls, and all vertical lines, be straightened in most photos (not with fisheyes)? Appreciate any comments on this subject.

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

I have experienced this when shooting landscapes at night (Aurora images) when I use an interesting cabin/shed as part of the close foreground. The building shows as being out of square, it has to be corrected. In Photoshop, I use the perspective warp facility to straighten things up. There are good online videos demonstrating the procedure.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

In most cases it is best to straighten the lines. But in some cases where you are purposely shooting at a steep upward angle of tall buildings the perspective can be appealing. It's a matter of taste.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

Lightroom's cropping tool includes an adjustment to straighten vertical or horizontal lines (LR v5.7). The adjustment screen is overlaid by a simple grid so the correction is easy to observe and implement.

Tikva Loc: Waukesha, WI

I usually straighten my buildings and other lines in Photoshop. However I see many photos on UHH where this isn't done and buildings look very strange to me. I was just wondering what others thought of the advice I was given.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Tikva wrote:

I was told by a photographer and teacher that I should straighten my vertical (as well as horizontal) lines in my photos. She said the walls should be straightened and not left leaning. I see many photos with leaning walls that look like they are trying to touch each other at the top. Is this a matter of personal choice, or should the walls, and all vertical lines, be straightened in most photos (not with fisheyes)? Appreciate any comments on this subject.

The only line you need is a vertical line as visual cue (reference) that should be located within your main subject, whatever that maybe. The other object will fall onto place EVEN if not vertical or horizontal. An horizontal line is not to be used.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

What kind of photo was the teacher critiquing? A shot of a building, a bird in flight, ...?

Tikva Loc: Waukesha, WI

dsmeltz wrote:

What kind of photo was the teacher critiquing? A shot of a building, a bird in flight, ...?

This was an architectural reference.

Tikva Loc: Waukesha, WI

Rongnongno wrote:

The only line you need is a vertical line as visual cue (reference) that should be located within your main subject, whatever that maybe. The other object will fall onto place EVEN if not vertical or horizontal. An horizontal line is not to be used.

The vertical lines I am referring to are sides of buildings. I was told that in most cases these should be corrected in PP to be parallel so the buildings walls look even. This was also true of horizons and most, but not all, roof lines depending ion angles.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Tikva wrote:

The vertical lines I am referring to are sides of buildings. I was told that in most cases these should be corrected in PP to be parallel so the buildings walls look even. This was also true of horizons and most, but not all, roof lines depending ion angles.

Or you can purchase a tilt shift lens. A popular option among architectural photographers.

Oh, and they are not cheep.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

As you have noticed....rules are there to be broken BUT only when you can justify doing so...

as was said. even in a perspective you will have a central 'vertical'.
The difficulty is in deciding 'what in the view' should be vertical rather than attempting to make 'every' upward line vertical. As in everything look at contemporary architectural shots and see 'how often' your tutor is correct in his/her statements and when lassitude (eg. artistic vision)is allowed/desirable.

Post processing has several options - lens correction facility, tilt and crop and anti aliasing. Equally, if you have gridlines available as a menu option on your camera.....might be an idea to start using them (if only to please your tutor).

Learning is always fun....so go and enjoy!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Tikva wrote:

I was told by a photographer and teacher that I should straighten my vertical (as well as horizontal) lines in my photos. She said the walls should be straightened and not left leaning. I see many photos with leaning walls that look like they are trying to touch each other at the top. Is this a matter of personal choice, or should the walls, and all vertical lines, be straightened in most photos (not with fisheyes)? Appreciate any comments on this subject.

Yes, you can straighten, but it isn't essential. Be aware that if you do correct for tilting, you will lose some of the edge, so compose the shot to allow for some edge loss.

jimbo70 Loc: Orange Park, FL.

DXO Viewpoint does an amazing job of straightening verticals, horizontals alone or together plus much moore.

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

Some perspective with buildings can be adjusted using the perspective tool in your editing software.
Remember that perspective is as the eye naturally sees it when looking at building etc especially when viewing from ground level,
If possible try to take your photograph of a church or building etc. from higher up or farther back, this will reduce the perspective effect.
If you need to resort to altering the perspective using PP try not to overdo it, when I use my perspective tool I try not to use it at the extreme edges of the frame as the result may look acceptable but a lot of the image is cropped out and the resolution is greatly reduced. I personally keep the alignment lines about 25% - 33% in from the edges, so not so much of the image gets cropped out and the photograph look very acceptable.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

rjaywallace wrote:

Lightroom's cropping tool includes an adjustment to straighten vertical or horizontal lines (LR v5.7). The adjustment screen is overlaid by a simple grid so the correction is easy to observe and implement.

Almost trivial to correct in LR with some exceptions. A parallel, pun intended, question might be why are they not straight. Typically you are using a wide angle lens close up. Can you backup or use a different lens.

While not every shot has to be perfect hor/vet, but most look better. Having a crooked horizon on a scene, unless extreme for effect, gives the photo an amateurish look. Same as always having the horizon/sun in the center and or subject bulls eyed.