James Stephens

I use a multi-pronged approach to correct for various lens effects, comprising distortions and other anomalies.

To correct for pincushion distortion and its opposite, barrel distortion, I use PTlens. PTlens is better for correcting these anomalies than Adobe Photoshop CS2 as it uses three coefficients (vs Photoshop’s one) and these are carefully computed for individual lenses so the plugin is able to operate automatically vs adjusting it via eye in the Photoshop case. On 1/1/06 I sent the author Thomas Niemann 17 calibration shots for a Tamron 17-35 f/2.8-4 Di LD on a Canon 5D and received the calibration back that very evening. I loaded up some test images shot with Tamron lens, fixed them wit hthe plugin and was very impressed. All Canon lenses are profiled currently as well as many third party ones. PTlens is worth checking out.

The Birch Garden
Institute For Advanced Study
Canon 300D with Tamron 17-35 f/2.8-4 XR Di lens @ ISO 100
(click image to enlarge)

To correct for chromatic aberration and vignetting I prefer to use Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) than PTlens or other apps as ACR does such an excellent job and it has the added benefit that it operates on the RAW file as opposed to the image data in Photoshop. Used in this way, chromatic aberration and vignetting can be removed completely. Thinking about it, I see no reason why an automatic approach such as PTlens uses couldn’t be applied to vignetting and if such a tool existed I would probably use it in favor of Camera RAW. If only someone would write one …..

To correct for perspective distortion I use Image Align Pro. Although Photoshop CS2’s Filter –> Distort –> Lens Correction is a capable tool I find the Image Align Pro plugin easier to use.

I haven’t tried DxO Optics Pro but would be interested to hear opinions.