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Correct distorted perspective in photos using Upright

Last updated on Jul 29, 2024

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Note:

This page is relevant to the Creative Cloud releases of Lightroom Classic. If you use Lightroom 6.x or an earlier version, see Upright automatic perspective correction.

About Upright perspective correction

Using an incorrect lens or holding a shaky camera can cause the perspective of photographs to be tilted or skewed. These types of distortion are particularly evident in photographs that contain vertical lines or geometric shapes. With Upright feature in the Transform panel, you can easily correct those photos that have a distorted vertical or horizontal perspective.

The Upright feature provides four options of automatic perspective correction ─ Auto, Level, Vertical, Level, Full ─ and a Guided option. After applying an Upright option, you can refine the adjustment by manually modifying the slider-based transform options.

Note:

Apply lens correction profiles for your camera and lens combination before you correct perspective using the Upright feature. Applying the lens correction profile first results in better image analysis for upright correction.

Using Upright modes to correct lens distortion

(Optional) In the Develop module, navigate to the Lens Corrections panel. In the Basic tab, select the Enable Profile Corrections check box.

Note:

Enabling lens corrections in the Lens Correction panel based on your camera and lens combination is highly recommended, before processing the photo with the Upright modes.
Navigate to the Transform panel. From the five Upright options available, click an option to apply the correction to the photo.

Level: Corrects horizontal distortions.

Vertical: Corrects vertical distortions.

Auto: Corrects both vertical and horizontal distortions while balancing the overall image, and preserving as much of the original image as possible.

Full: Combination of full Level, Vertical, and Auto perspective corrections.

Guided: Allows you to draw two or more guides on your photo to customize perspective correction. To do so:

1. Click the Guided Upright tool icon on the upper-left corner of the Transform panel and then draw the guides directly on your photo.
2. Once you have drawn atleast two guides, the photo transforms interactively.

Guided Upright Tool for customized perspective correction

Note:

Applying an Upright option resets the crop and any Transform settings previously applied. To preserve those settings, press and hold the Option (Mac)/Alt key (Win) when selecting an Upright mode.

Note:

While trying out the five Upright modes, if you select or clear the Enable Profile Corrections check box, click Update (on the upper-right corner of the Transform panel).
Cycle through the Upright modes until you find the most preferable setting.

Note:

The five Upright modes correct and manage distortion and perspective errors. The best setting varies from one photo to another. Experiment with the five settings before deciding on the best possible Upright mode for your photo.

When correcting the perspective of a photo, you may get white areas near the image boundaries. To prevent this, select the Constrain Crop option to automatically crop the photo according to the original dimensions.
In addition to the auto correction options, you can also manually adjust the perspective of a photo. Use the sliders to fine-tune the perspective corrections ─ Vertical, Horizontal, Rotate, Aspect, Scale, X Offset, Y Offset.

Copy or sync Transform settings

Upright can be copied (Copy Settings) or synchronized (Sync Settings), for use on one or more photographs. Three options have been provided in the Copy Settings and Synchronize Settings dialogs. The options are:

Lightroom Classic CC Copy Settings and Synchronize Settings dialogs

Upright Mode

When you select Upright Mode, the mode that was selected is copied. However, the image that the settings were copied to, is corrected based on the content of the specific image.

Upright Transforms

When you select Upright Transforms, the exact Upright transformation is copied/synced. Selecting the Upright Transforms check box automatically selects the Upright Mode check box.

Upright Adjustments

When you select Upright Adjustments, the current values of the Vertical, Horizontal, Rotate, Aspect, Scale, X Offset, and Y Offset adjustment sliders are copied.

Choosing when to use the Upright Mode or Upright Transforms options:

When you use Upright modes, each image is analyzed and transformed according to the data it contains. Therefore, an image that is analyzed in a particular way may be analyzed slightly differently under different lighting conditions or camera angle.

Upright Mode. Use when most images that you are processing are different, and must be analyzed individually, to transform them according to their own information. For example, you took shots of multiple scenes across a city, but many images are slightly tilted. You can use the Level Upright mode to one image, and then copy the setting to all other images.
Upright Transforms: Use when you want each image to be transformed in precisely the same way. For example, you took multiple images of the same scene for an HDR workflow, but the images are slightly tilted. You can use the Level Upright mode on image, and copy the exact same transformation to each of the images being used for the HDR image.