Can Lightroom’s Manual Distortion slider go beyond +100 for a panorama?
Asked 3/27/2016
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In Lightroom CC 2015.4, I’m editing a stitched panorama and the Lens Corrections > Manual > Distortion slider tops out at +100. For some panoramas, that still isn’t enough to make lines look straight.
I found a workaround by exporting and re-importing the image, then applying another +100, but I’m wondering if there’s a better method.
Is it possible to exceed Lightroom’s distortion limit directly, and is the Manual Distortion control even the right tool for correcting stretched-looking panoramas?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
1
The way around the limit is to export the image and apply correction to it again. You can do this any number of times to reach 200 or 1000 or more cummalatively. If you use a lossless format such TIFF or DNG (Not sure how Lightroom stores PSDs, most likely that too is lossless) then there should not be any artifacts due to multiple cycles of processing.
Note that it will not correct your image because you are not removing the right type of distortion. What you have is not barrel or pincushion distortion. What you need to do instead is go back and merge the panorma using a perspective projection which for mathematical reasons has a limit on the potential angle-of-view below 180 degrees. Even free tools like MS ICE can do it but also advanced panorama software like Autopano Giga.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
10y ago
0
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Lightroom doesn’t let that slider go past ±100 directly. If you must stack more correction in Lightroom, export and re-import, but use a lossless or high-bit format such as TIFF, DNG, or possibly PSD rather than JPEG to avoid cumulative quality loss.
That said, the bigger issue is that this usually isn’t the right correction. Lightroom’s Manual Distortion slider is meant for lens distortion like barrel or pincushion distortion from a physical lens. A stitched panorama creates a different kind of geometric distortion from the chosen panorama projection.
So if a panorama still looks wrong at +100, the better fix is to re-stitch it using a different projection—especially perspective projection—or use more advanced panorama software that offers projection choices and perspective/control-point corrections. For very wide fields of view, some bending may be unavoidable because not every wide scene can be mapped flat without distortion.
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