Have you ever photographed architecture in a city only to discover your photographs looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa? If so, don’t despair. Lightroom’s Transform Tool can help straight those leaning buildings along with other leaning subjects as I am about to show you.
In this post, you will learn how and when to use Lightroom’s Transform panel as well as understand how the Transform Panel differs from the Lens Correction Panel and the Crop Tool. I even throw in tips for in field composing to improve the Transform results.
For purposes of this article I am using Lightroom Classic but similar adjustments can be found in Lightroom CC.
Lightrooms Tranform Panel
Lightroom’s transform panel is located directly below the len’s correction panel and offers 6 different tools each with 7 possible adjustments.
What Does Lightroom’s Transform Panel Do?
The Transform Tool in Lightroom corrects Perspective Distortion in images containing horizontal and vertical lines that appear as diagonal and converging parallel lines. Another way to think about Perspective Distortion is photographing a square only to have it show up as a trapezoid.
By the way, the Transform Tool is also referred to as the Upright Tool.
The Transform Panel is frequently thought of as a workflow step for resolving architectural photography issues and therefore overlooked by many landscape photographers. Trust me when I tell you that skipping this panel would be a mistake. Images shot while photographing upwards at trees, waterfalls and other tall objects can all benefit from Transform adjustments.
Below is a photo where aspen trees were photographed by aiming the camera upward to capture a hillside path between the aspens. To accurately illustrate the Transform adjustment, no other adjustments were performed.
The shot to the left is as photographed while the shot on the right has Auto Transform applied. Notice in the photo on the left that the aspen tree in the far left corner tilts backwards as do many of the other trees. After Auto Transform has been applied, the tree in the right photo is now upright as are the other trees.
What Causes Perspective Distortion?
Perspective distortion is caused by the angle of the camera to a subject and mostly associated with the use of wide angle lens but can also occur with other lens. If the camera is pointed down or up at a subject and not parallel to the subject some degree of perspective distortion will be present in the image.
Perhaps you are not familiar with the term perspective distortion but know a form of perspective distortion called Keystoning that is commonly associated with architectural photography.
Transform Panel Tools
As mentioned above, Lightroom Transform Panel has 6 different selections all with 7 possible refinement adjustments.
Off
When off is selected, you can chose to make all adjustments shown above manually.
Auto
Auto- This adjustment attempts to straighten both strong vertical and horizontal lines while working to retain as much of the image as possible. Next to Guided, I find Auto does one of the better jobs correcting issues in images but is not perfect. However, when combined with a few manual adjustments from the slides I find the results to be satisfactory.
Level
Level – This adjustment straightens horizontal lines in an image and works well for images that only need to be leveled. For images containing strong vertical or diagonal line, the level adjust will not produce acceptable results. Since I can level an image with the Crop tool, I see no need to apply a Transform Adjustment solely to level an image and rarely use it.
Vertical
Vertical – This adjustment straightens vertical lines in an image. However, similar to the level adjustment, quality issues can arise when horizontal and diagonal lines are present in an image. Also I have found with some images composed of mostly vertical lines, the Vertical adjustment will tend to over elongate a subject. Therefore, this is a hit or miss adjustment worth trying but be aware of its limitations.
Below is an example of a Vertical adjustment that worked OK however, the top of the temple became too elongated.
Guided
Guided- This adjustment allows you to click on the crosshairs by the upright label. Once clicked, head into an image and draw lines on the areas in the image you want to straighten vertically, horizontally or both. Since four different lines can be drawn in an image, you decide what lines should be straight instead of Lightroom’s software.
For example in the image below, the software would have a difficult time leveling the photo due to the fence. With Guided, I was able to decide that I wanted to straighten the roof lines and chimneys.
Full
Full- This adjustment attempts to correct all horizontal, vertical and other perspective issues. I am rarely satisfied with the results of Full adjustments as the following series of photos will show.
What Does the Transform Constrain Crop Do?
Checking this option ensures all cropping occurs inside of an image, therefore I keep this box checked.
Example of Transform Adjustments On One Image
Below are a series of transform adjustments on one image so that you can compare the different results.
In the above church photo, I found guided did the best job of correcting perspective distortion. The full option cut off the top of the cross, while vertical left the church tilting backwards, and level resulted in the church tilting to the right a bit. Auto did an OK job but did not fix all the issues as well as guided.
Transform Tool Adjustment Controls
The Transform Panel also contains control specific sliders that allow you to make your own adjustments or refine the 5 above adjustments. (I don’t count OFF as an adjustment)
What Do The Transform Sliders Do?
Comparison of Lightroom’s Transform Panel to Lens Correction
I know it may be confusing when looking at Lightroom’s Develop Module and seeing Lens Correction and Transform Panels. Especially for beginners, it is hard to know what adjustment to make and where. Therefore, I have created the following visuals and brief summaries that I hope clarify these two Lightroom Panels.
The first panel is called Lens Correction and addresses optical distortions caused by the design of a lens. To learn about the Lens Correction Tool, I encourage you to take a minute to read my Understanding Lens Correction post.
Without getting into too much detail here, Lens Correction has “Enable Profile Correction” designed to resolve optical distortion in images. Optical distortion results when straight lines become curved, either bowing outward, and compressed inward as shown below.
Lens Correction Distortions
The second Lightroom Panel, the Transform Panel, corrects perspective distortion related to the angle from which the photo was taken and results in vertical and horizontal lines appearing as diagonal lines.
Transform Distortions
It is important to know that Transform adjustments will not correct the curved lines caused by optical distortions and Lens Correction will not correct converging parallels causes by perspective distortion. It is up to you to access your images and decide what to correct.
As part of my workflow, I always perform Lens Corrections first on images then evaluate if a Transform adjustment is required.
Tips for Photographing Upward at Tall Subjects.
Transform adjustments do a good job correcting perspective issues, however, the amount of corrections needed can result in extreme cropping including portions of the main subject. Thankfully a bit of preshoot planning can ensure you do not have to crop your main subject by including extra space in your composition. I can’t tell you how many images I had to delete before I finally added this step.
Here is an example where I photographed a steeple much wider than was needed to ensure I did not lose parts of the steeple when I made my transform adjustments.
Lightroom Transform Panel -Things to Consider
Always make Transform adjustments after Lens Correction adjustments to avoid having to make additional Transform adjustments.
Do not overlook the need to perform Transform Panel adjustments on images where there are no buildings.
The Transform Panel works best on raw files where there is the largest amount of information.
Depending on the level of perspective distortion in an image, adjustments can result in extreme crops. For this reason, I prefer to perform Transform adjustments on images prior to using the Crop Tool. In fact in many cases, it may not be necessary to use the Crop Tool unless aspect ratio or compositional guides are needed for cropping.
To learn more about the Crop Tool and my entire Lens Correction, Transform and Crop Workflow, please read: Lightroom’s Crop Tool.
Also, I recommend performing Lightroom’s Basic Panel exposure adjustments after making Transform Panel adjustments since the Transform cropping may eliminate very bright or dark areas in an image.
Summary of Lightroom’s Transform Correction Panel
To recap, Lightroom’s Transform Panel is used to straighten perspective distort of lines in an image regardless if it is trees or buildings. In fact, it is a wonderful tool that can rescue many images shot at significant angles that would otherwise have to be photographed with a tilt shift lens or deleted.
When adjusting images with Transform, I find my best results come from Auto or Guided. I hardly ever use the full adjustment.
For images that do not need any perspective adjustments, I will level and crop using the Crop Tool.
Performing Transform adjustments in the right order helps ensure subsequent Lightroom adjustments are performed only on the portions of an image that will be kept. For this reason I moved Lens Correction and Transform to the top of my Lightroom Develop Panels and encourage you to do the same. By the way, yes the order of the panels can be changed.
If you have any tips, questions or thoughts about this Transform Panel post, I welcome hearing from you.
As always thanks for joining me on another Learn Photography and I hope to see you back soon.
