Photo goofs and stumbles

[Tom]

Between performances at our recent concert seemed a good time to grab an updated photo of our ukulele band for our web site ( The Delta Strummers ). Several folks are traveling, but I planned to leave sufficient space at the extremes of the shot to be able to Photoshop these folks in later.

I was having some issues with my trusty Panasonic Lumix G7 camera and, thanks to prior cataract surgery, was having issues with near vision (didn't take my readers with me). Exposure was all wrong but, for the first time, I'd consciously set the G7 to record in both RAW and jpg, and I figured I'd use Photoshop to correct things later. Came to find out that my copy of PS Elements is no longer compatible with Windows, and it was too old to qualify for an upgrade. Before buying the latest PSE, I opted to download a trial version of On1Raw which claimed to do the same things as PSE.

After some quick learning (stumbling through it) I had a "usable" picture as a placeholder.

Meanwhile, someone with an iPhone took a couple of shots standing on a chair off to my right. Composition and the end result were quite different. I'd have used their picture but, when I cropped it and popped it on the web site, there was a significant "optical illusion" that caused me (far left) to appear noticeably shorter than the guy far right in the same row, although in reality he's not. Someone suggested this is "parallax", a term I haven't used/seen since working with and adjusting Oscilloscope screens in the 70's. Someone also suggested that parallax can be corrected in Photoshop. Anyone have experience with/fixing this?

BTW in another thread I mentioned that I failed to notice the potential for flash reflection, and failed to bounce the flash off the ceiling. So, not my best photography day

First pic: screenshot of the raw image; Second pic: corrected and cropped from raw; Third pic: iPhone pic showing parallax.

 

[Matt_C]

I have never had a Mac or been rich enough to afford real Photoshop, so I have been running Corel Paint Shop Pro (thirty years ago, this was not a picture processor), and I find I can do just about anything PS can do (within the limits of my creativity). It does have a parallax correction capability. I often use this to correct documents that I have photographed.
Matt

 

[Tom]

I have never had a Mac or been rich enough to afford real Photoshop, so I have been running Corel Paint Shop Pro (thirty years ago, this was not a picture processor), and I find I can do just about anything PS can do (within the limits of my creativity). It does have a parallax correction capability. I often use this to correct documents that I have photographed.
Matt

Thanks Matt.

 

[jymbee]

First pic: screenshot of the raw image;

I'm not seeing any image in that first file. (?)

 

[Tom]

I'm not seeing any image in that first file. (?)

That's one reason for this thread; It's a screenshot of the raw image from a pic that I erroneously shot with incorrect exposure settings. The image is there, it's just too dark to see anything. The second image was recovered from the " black image" thanks to it having been saved in raw format; It would have not been recoverable if it had been saved as a jpg.

 

[Tom]

Before buying the latest PSE, I opted to download a trial version of On1Raw which claimed to do the same things as PSE.

Today I downloaded a trial version of the latest Photoshop Elements, and was glad to be back to familiar software. For me, PSE is also more intuitive than On1Raw, and I was quickly able to make a few enhancements I couldn't figure out in On1Raw.

 

[Larry N.]

Tom, I'm not sure that's all parallax. The second picture here is rotated (in The Gimp) by 2.1º so I think that, in addition to the pic being taken from a different location/angle the camera was possibly tilted, also. However, I can certainly see everyone affected by the difference, and parallax seems to be the major part of it.

The Gimp has a perspective tool, but I haven't yet figured out how to use it, and I don't see a parallax tool, as such.

 

[Tom]

The Gimp has a perspective tool, but I haven't yet figured out how to use it, and I don't see a parallax tool, as such.

Thanks Larry. Research I've done suggests that "perspective" is the preferred name for it; A Google search & YouTube videos turned up fixes in various software packages with the subject line "correct perspective".

As an aside, we subscribe to a streaming service so Chris can watch a grandson's weekly hockey games in the MidWest. Various arenas have different camera setups, a common one being a single camera half way along; The camera responds to movement on the ice and rotates to follow the action. We see some loss of perspective, but acceptable.

A small number of rinks have multiple cameras around the rink, and the viewer can switch between them. But one that freaks us out has a single camera at one end of the rink, behind the goal net; The viewer loses all perspective on relative positions of players and speed.

 

[Larry N.]

...a single camera at one end of the rink, behind the goal net; The viewer loses all perspective on relative positions of players and speed.

I've seen the networks do that in football games, and you certainly lose all sense of what's happening (even worse is when they zoom in on bobbing heads, etc.- get seasick). I think whoever chooses camera angles tends to forget that there are viewers trying to understand what's happening on the field in the "search" for new (non-boring?) ways of looking at things.

 

[Tom]

I've seen the networks do that in football games, and you certainly lose all sense of what's happening (even worse is when they zoom in on bobbing heads, etc.- get seasick). I think whoever chooses camera angles tends to forget that there are viewers trying to understand what's happening on the field in the "search" for new (non-boring?) ways of looking at things.

Aye Larry. Added to this, we some hockey rink cameras located behind the safety net, which makes it tough to see.

 

[Great Horned Owl]

Instead of buying a 2022 version of Photoshop Elements, go to ebay and get one that is 3 or 4 years old. It will be a lot less expensive, not all that different.

What ruined the photo from the phone was not parallax, but perspective distortion. Parallax a a method for measuring the distance to far off objects.
Perspective Distortion
Perspective Control
Parallax

Joel

 

[Tom]

Instead of buying a 2022 version of Photoshop Elements, go to ebay and get one that is 3 or 4 years old. It will be a lot less expensive, not all that different.

What ruined the photo from the phone was not parallax, but perspective distortion. Parallax a a method for measuring the distance to far off objects.
Perspective Distortion
Perspective Control
Parallax

Joel

Thanks Joel. Adobe currently has a good discount off PS Elements, so I'll probably spring for that.