PTLens

Note the barrel distortion in the following image — there seems to be some strange gravitational effect, perhaps located behind those trees; it looks as if the water is draining toward the center of the image.

This type of distortion tends to occur with telephoto lenses, even good ones, at the widest end of their telephoto range.

In this case, the lens is a Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G DX VR; quite a nice lens within most of its range. This particular shot was taken at 18mm, which isn’t where the lens does its best work. The funhouse mirror effect is quite unpleasant, and without correction, this shot would be garbage.

This type of distortion can be manually corrected in Photoshop, but that’s tedious, and the results are inconsistent, which is annoying, since a given lens will have predictable distortion, so the distortion should be correctable in a systematic and calibrated manner, just as in this corrected image:

This image was corrected by PTLens, which at USD $15 must be the best value in image processing available. Your $15 obtains all of the following:

• Automatic, calibrated correction of pincushion and barrel distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and perspective, with hundreds of lenses supported.
• A standalone Windows application.
• A standalone Mac application.
• A Photoshop plug-in for both Mac and Windows.
• An external editor for Lightroom on both Mac and Windows.
• A plug-in for Aperture 2.1 or later on the Mac.

Note that the Mac support is Intel-only; PowerPC isn’t supported.

Since I’m an Aperture user, the Aperture plug-in is my weapon of choice. The utility is fast, intuitive, and the results are excellent.

A trial download providing 10 corrections prior to requiring a purchase is available.

I don’t think there’s any better value out there in image processing; this thing is a steal at $15.

Tags: Photography