Adjust perspective

Use Camera Raw's Geometry tools to correct converging verticals, then fill in the gaps with generative AI

- JAMES PATERSON

If you've ever pointed your camera up at a tall building or interior, you'll no doubt have encountered converging verticals, where vertical lines such as walls or columns appear to lean inwards.

The effect is amplified with a wide-angle lens and, in the worst cases, the building seems to be falling backwards.

You might want to prevent converging verticals to balance out the frame, or to conform the architecture to its natural shape. There are ways to do this when shooting. You could try moving backwards and zooming in to lessen the exaggerated perspective of a wide-angle lens. Alternatively, you can use a tilt-shift lens to correct verticals, although they are expensive.

There are also software tools that let you adjust perspective. Amongst the best are the Geometry controls in Photoshop's Camera Raw and Lightroom. With them, you can either apply auto fixes or use manual 'Guided' lines to tailor the correction to your scene. If you know you'll be correcting verticals later, it helps to leave a little extra room around the edges of the frame when shooting. But if things are tight, you could try generating new pixels to fill transparent corners and edges. Here's how it works...

Uncheck Constrain Crop