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LensDoc worth it? Fix Barrel Distortion/Perspective/Rotation

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SFishy said:
Zip... are you talking about the one by Imaging Factory?
http://www.theimagingfactory.com/ (under Lens Correction tools)
It says $39.95 on their website!

Just so you know... they also sell "Perspective" for $39.95.
LensDoc has both features for distortion and perspective
correction, as well as rotation correction and artsy filters (like
fisheye lens).

Amy
Click to expand...
sounds like a nice program but at the time i was looking the 'free' debarrelizer couldnt be beat. And i only had 1 photo that needed the process anyways --cheersZip:P - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -BFS: been there had that...got the t-shirtSticker Status: ON...but on upsidedownPie Chute: UnCorked Lens Cap: No dangle at any angle128mem stick: lostReal Name: Michael C - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
Thanks Kud... looks like a good option for Windows users ;) -- I do all my photography on the Mac though, so not an option for me. Looks pretty nifty though.

Amy
kudbegud said:
this one includes perspective correction, ca correction, rotation,
the best skin smoothing/correction plugin included and a 3-d
red/blue filter that can turn any photo in to 3-d viewable with the
glasses. photobrush from http://www.mediachance.com very reasonable cost
$38.00

--
you pay for what you get, but you don't always get what you paid
for. F707,TCON-14B,ETX-90 http://www.pbase.com/kudbegud/galleries
Click to expand...
--beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
jason said:
yeah, but you can't beat free...
$98 will buy you some nice filters!

i forced myself to read through the tutorial. The plugin is not
very consumer friendly, but i suppose it wasn't meant to be.
However it didn't take me more than three tries of plugging in
different values to get a satisfactory result.
here's a shot that I corrected...unfortunately, i don't have access
to the before picture right now (am at work). It was my first try
at using the plugin.



http://www.pbase.com/image/1618772
Click to expand...
I'm with you, Jason. A fifteen minute investment in reading the tutorial is a lot cheaper than Lensdoc, and Panotools has several other handy tools as well, such as corrections for chromatic aberation and vignetting.

George Deliz
 
I posted a before/after example to my pbase test gallery:

http://www.pbase.com/bob_d/f707_test_shots

The picture of the Jefferson Memorial, taken at full zoom, shows all the faults of the F707 lens at full zoom. Pin cushion distortion and much chormatic aberration.

LensDoc didn't do a perfect job on the image, but it looks a lot better after correction. It was a tough image to correct because the pillars aren't straight lines. Also, LensDoc is probably fooled by the mis-centered CCD on my camera (which causes the DLS syndome).

I posted the FULL SIZE images so you can see how good a job LensDoc does moving around the pixels.
 
But have a look at "Panorama Tools" also.
SFishy said:
Hey All,

I've been playing with the Demo of LensDoc for a while and decided
today (just about 1/2 hour ago) to buy it. I'm still figuring out
how to use it properly, but here is my first official test in
correcting barrel distortion. (The photo is no work of art LOL,
just for testing)

before:



after:



There's a SIGNIFICANT difference, and I couldn't tell if there was
a noticeable loss of quality (though I assume there is at least
some). It's rather user friendly (at least I thought so).

I'd love to see other people's results...
and of course, hear your opinions. So far I think it's really worth
the $98 investment.

Amy
--
beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder
http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
Click to expand...
I did a test with a terrible image I have from stacking 3 close up lenses.

This is the original out of the camera:



And here is a version corrected with "Panorama tools", nothing else:



Not only the distortion is gone also the CA is removed in one step. OK, not completely corrected and removed, it needs more justification. But it is a very good result and best of all, it's completely free.

D.Jenett
 
I'm late to the party (again). But have you considered Debarrelizer, which will fix lens distortion, as well as greatly help out with optical chromatic aberration.
SFishy said:
Hey All,

I've been playing with the Demo of LensDoc for a while and decided
today (just about 1/2 hour ago) to buy it. I'm still figuring out
how to use it properly, but here is my first official test in
correcting barrel distortion. (The photo is no work of art LOL,
just for testing)-- Ulysses
Click to expand...
 
http://www.theimagingfactory.com

Any time you're warping an image to any degree, you're going to get some degree of degradation in the image. That's because you're trying to manufacture pixels where the original image did not place them. You can't get something for nothing, just like sizing up an image leads to a lower quality image overall.
Ulysses said:
I'm late to the party (again). But have you considered
Debarrelizer, which will fix lens distortion, as well as greatly
help out with optical chromatic aberration.
Click to expand...
-- Ulysses
 
Yup... you're right Ulysses. No matter what kind of resizing you do, you lose quality, and resizing up is worse (actually, rule of thumb with bitmap graphics is that you NEVER resize up unless you just HAVE to or are going for a specific effect).

I looked at Debarrelizer ($39.95) as mentioned earlier in the thread by ZipperZ... they also have a perspective correction tool for $39.95. That puts the comparison to LensDoc at about $80.00 vs. $98.00 (LD has both barrel correction and perspective correction, and then some additional "fun" filters). Not sure which is better or more user friendly, but the CA correction is a nice addition to Debarrelizer.

Amy
Ulysses said:
Any time you're warping an image to any degree, you're going to get
some degree of degradation in the image. That's because you're
trying to manufacture pixels where the original image did not place
them. You can't get something for nothing, just like sizing up an
image leads to a lower quality image overall.
Ulysses said:
I'm late to the party (again). But have you considered
Debarrelizer, which will fix lens distortion, as well as greatly
help out with optical chromatic aberration.
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
Click to expand...
--beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
Bob...

I think the pillars are a good example of the possibilities. I had a hard time with the Washington Memorial pics myself, just being able to see the difference between the before and after, and some of the lines still look rather curved to me.... but the pillars looks great in the "after" example (vs. the before). Overall, what do you think about LensDoc?

Amy
bob d said:
I posted a before/after example to my pbase test gallery:

http://www.pbase.com/bob_d/f707_test_shots

The picture of the Jefferson Memorial, taken at full zoom, shows
all the faults of the F707 lens at full zoom. Pin cushion
distortion and much chormatic aberration.

LensDoc didn't do a perfect job on the image, but it looks a lot
better after correction. It was a tough image to correct because
the pillars aren't straight lines. Also, LensDoc is probably
fooled by the mis-centered CCD on my camera (which causes the DLS
syndome).

I posted the FULL SIZE images so you can see how good a job LensDoc
does moving around the pixels.
Click to expand...
--beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
I'll be honest with you here.

I have both Debarrelizer as well as the Perspective Correction filter. They are the only plug-ins I have on my copy of PSE at this point. I rarely use the Perspective Correction tool except where I absolutely have to do so. I find in most cases that Debarrelizer is all I want or need.
SFishy said:
I looked at Debarrelizer ($39.95) as mentioned earlier in the
thread by ZipperZ... they also have a perspective correction tool
for $39.95. That puts the comparison to LensDoc at about $80.00 vs.
$98.00 (LD has both barrel correction and perspective correction,
and then some additional "fun" filters). Not sure which is better
or more user friendly, but the CA correction is a nice addition to
Debarrelizer.

Amy
Ulysses said:
Any time you're warping an image to any degree, you're going to get
some degree of degradation in the image. That's because you're
trying to manufacture pixels where the original image did not place
them. You can't get something for nothing, just like sizing up an
image leads to a lower quality image overall.
Ulysses said:
I'm late to the party (again). But have you considered
Debarrelizer, which will fix lens distortion, as well as greatly
help out with optical chromatic aberration.
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
Click to expand...
--
beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder
http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
Click to expand...
-- Ulysses
 
That's great Ulysses... I'm no advocate for LensDoc... whatever works best for each of us. Could ya post some examples of before and afters with Debarrelizer? I'd love to see :)

Amy
Ulysses said:
I have both Debarrelizer as well as the Perspective Correction
filter. They are the only plug-ins I have on my copy of PSE at this
point. I rarely use the Perspective Correction tool except where I
absolutely have to do so. I find in most cases that Debarrelizer is
all I want or need.
SFishy said:
I looked at Debarrelizer ($39.95) as mentioned earlier in the
thread by ZipperZ... they also have a perspective correction tool
for $39.95. That puts the comparison to LensDoc at about $80.00 vs.
$98.00 (LD has both barrel correction and perspective correction,
and then some additional "fun" filters). Not sure which is better
or more user friendly, but the CA correction is a nice addition to
Debarrelizer.

Amy
Ulysses said:
Any time you're warping an image to any degree, you're going to get
some degree of degradation in the image. That's because you're
trying to manufacture pixels where the original image did not place
them. You can't get something for nothing, just like sizing up an
image leads to a lower quality image overall.
Ulysses said:
I'm late to the party (again). But have you considered
Debarrelizer, which will fix lens distortion, as well as greatly
help out with optical chromatic aberration.
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
Click to expand...
--
beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder
http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
Click to expand...
--beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
I don't have anything immediately available, but I can point to an older thread, where I discovered and discussed the benefits of its chromatic aberration adjustment.... shoot. The Search isn't working again. Anyway, it does a great job with CA.

Beyond that, here is a small sample of the debarrelization. :)



These have each been touched with a mild USM, as well. There is some slight loss of detail near the edges of the lower image, but you're really going to get that with any tool of this type. It's like having a turned lens looking at your image. Things are straighter out near the edge, but not ultra-sharp .
SFishy said:
That's great Ulysses... I'm no advocate for LensDoc... whatever
works best for each of us. Could ya post some examples of before
and afters with Debarrelizer? I'd love to see :)-- Ulysses
Click to expand...
 
SFishy said:
I think the pillars are a good example of the possibilities. I had
a hard time with the Washington Memorial pics myself, just being
able to see the difference between the before and after, and some
of the lines still look rather curved to me.... but the pillars
looks great in the "after" example (vs. the before). Overall, what
do you think about LensDoc?
Click to expand...
I think overall that LensDoc is fabulous. Very easy to use. And sophisticated. It's distortion correction algorithm uses two lines as a base and not one, to take into account that some lenses have greater distortion near the edges than others.

Also, I think it did a very good job remapping the pixels. You can't tell that the pixels were moved around.

The only negatives are (1) the price; and (2) for that price it doens't correct CA.
 
I'm pretty satisfied with it... so far at least. :)

Amy
bob d said:
SFishy said:
I think the pillars are a good example of the possibilities. I had
a hard time with the Washington Memorial pics myself, just being
able to see the difference between the before and after, and some
of the lines still look rather curved to me.... but the pillars
looks great in the "after" example (vs. the before). Overall, what
do you think about LensDoc?
Click to expand...
I think overall that LensDoc is fabulous. Very easy to use. And
sophisticated. It's distortion correction algorithm uses two lines
as a base and not one, to take into account that some lenses have
greater distortion near the edges than others.

Also, I think it did a very good job remapping the pixels. You
can't tell that the pixels were moved around.

The only negatives are (1) the price; and (2) for that price it
doens't correct CA.
Click to expand...
--beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
So all...

Just to recap... it seems a few options are available.

- - - - -

LensDoc for about $100 will do barrel distortion, pincushion, perspective correction and rotation -- doesn't not do CA fix though.
http://www.andromeda.com/
Mac & PC compatible -- photoshop plugin
Don't know specifics about other programs.

- - - - -

Debarrelizer for about $40 will do barrel distortion but not pincushion or perspective correction, but it does do CA. For another $40 you can buy an additional plug-in from the company that will do perspective correction.
http://www.theimagingfactory.com
Mac & PC compatible -- photoshop plugin
Don't know specifics about other programs.

- - - - -

PanoTools is a little more complicated, but free, and will do barrel correction, pincushion and CA.
http://www.caldwellphotographic.com/TutorialsDistortionAndColorFringing.html
PC compatible -- not sure about Mac -- photoshop plugin
don't know specifics about other programs.

- - - - -

Any other info anyone wants to add?

Amy

--beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
Correction... LensDoc DOESN'T do CA fix. LOL

Also... I didn't mean to forget Shay's fix as well... he's figured out how to do corrections without any plugin, but a few steps in PSE for full wide, and full telephoto.

Amy
SFishy said:
LensDoc for about $100 will do barrel distortion, pincushion,
perspective correction and rotation -- doesn't not do CA fix though.
http://www.andromeda.com/
Mac & PC compatible -- photoshop plugin
Don't know specifics about other programs.
Click to expand...
--beauty is really in the LCD/EVF of the beholder http://www.something-fishy.com/photography
 
I tried a quick copy of a slide with my new F707 by placing the camera and the slide on a table, the slide was backed by a ground glass and illuminated from behind with a flash light and the camera was set to auto, full wide angle and macro. The result had a large amount of barrel distortion and the slide was not perpendicular to the lens axis adding keystoning. I corrected the barrel distortion with LensDoc and the keystoning with the Perspective tool in PhotoPaint.

http://genji.image.pbase.com/u9/bobbobet/upload/1667940.LensDoc1.jpg--Bobbo
 
SFishy said:
Any other info anyone wants to add?
Click to expand...
Yes. Picture Window Pro fixes CA.

http://www.dl-c.com/

This is a link to a review about using PWP to fix CA:

http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/Chromatic.html

PWP only fixes true optical CA and not the purple fringing which, although related to CA, is different. You can see CA easily on the F707 if you take a shot at full zoom. It shows up as green and red (not purple) casts along edges.

Picture Window Pro fixes this a little. I think that PWP is a lousy program with a very poor user interface, so you would only want to use it for this one useful trick. You can download a demo that works for 30 days.
 
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