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CS4: Straightening "specific" elements

travischancetravischance Registered Users Posts: 642 Major grins
edited November 2, 2010 in Finishing School
I recently took an image that has two points of interest: the Washington Monument & the Tidal Basin bridge in Washington DC. When I composed this image, I had to make the choice of keeping the Monument or the bridge level. I chose the latter. Is there a way to correct only the monument?

I've tried both the Crop & Quick Selection tools with no luck. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!
Travis M. Chance
twin Mark IV's & a bunch of "L" glass
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    divamumdivamum Registered Users Posts: 9,021 Major grins
    edited November 1, 2010
    Have you played around with the free transformation tools, like distort, perspective, and warp? Just a thought.
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    jjbongjjbong Registered Users Posts: 244 Major grins
    edited November 1, 2010
    divamum wrote: »
    Have you played around with the free transformation tools, like distort, perspective, and warp? Just a thought.

    In this kind of situation, I've found Lens Correction (in CS3 Filter->Distort->Lens Correction) very useful. You have control over both horizontal and vertical. I assume that the origin of your problem is the lens, the position you took the shot from, etc.

    The problem with this method is you end up with something that isn't rectangular, and you have to crop it, possibly losing some of the components that you wanted in the shot.

    Anyway, it's pretty easy to try.
    John Bongiovanni
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    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited November 1, 2010
    travischance wrote: »
    I recently took an image that has two points of interest: the Washington Monument & the Tidal Basin bridge in Washington DC. When I composed this image, I had to make the choice of keeping the Monument or the bridge level. I chose the latter. Is there a way to correct only the monument?

    I've tried both the Crop & Quick Selection tools with no luck. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!
    Sounds like a difficult problem. How about posting the image so we can play with it?
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    travischancetravischance Registered Users Posts: 642 Major grins
    edited November 1, 2010
    Thank You for everyone's responses. I've tried everything I could think of (including the suggestions by Divamum & John). As requested, attached is a copy of the image. Thanks again!!!

    1073441659_EpSBQ-L.jpg
    Travis M. Chance
    twin Mark IV's & a bunch of "L" glass
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    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited November 1, 2010
    OK. The bridge must be inclined where you were shooting, but you chose to make it level, so the horizon and monument are slanted. And you want to have your cake and eat it too. lol3.gif

    If it were my pic, I would rotate the canvas so that the monument is vertical and not worry about what that does to the bridge. But if you really, really want the bridge to be horizontal while the monument is vertical, you could select just the circle that is seen through the bridge, copy it to a new layer and rotate that layer. You'll have to do some touchup around the edges, if it is not a perfect circle. The horizon will still look off in the other circles, so if it's really, really, really important, you'll have to repeat the trick with each one separately.
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    travischancetravischance Registered Users Posts: 642 Major grins
    edited November 1, 2010
    Richard wrote: »
    OK. The bridge must be inclined where you were shooting, but you chose to make it level, so the horizon and monument are slanted. And you want to have your cake and eat it too. lol3.gif

    If it were my pic, I would rotate the canvas so that the monument is vertical and not worry about what that does to the bridge. But if you really, really want the bridge to be horizontal while the monument is vertical, you could select just the circle that is seen through the bridge, copy it to a new layer and rotate that layer. You'll have to do some touchup around the edges, if it is not a perfect circle. The horizon will still look off in the other circles, so if it's really, really, really important, you'll have to repeat the trick with each one separately.

    :D Great response! Umm yes you are correct. . .I chose to keep the bridge level. I'll give your recommendation a go and see how it turns out. Whew! However, is there a way to select only the monument (using the quick selection tool maybe) and rotate it only? I could then clone the trees below.
    Travis M. Chance
    twin Mark IV's & a bunch of "L" glass
    site ∙ facebook
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    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited November 2, 2010
    travischance wrote: »
    However, is there a way to select only the monument (using the quick selection tool maybe) and rotate it only? I could then clone the trees below.
    Not without doing more work to fill in the area previously occupied by the right edge of the monument. CS5's Puppet Warp tool is a handy way of distorting individual elements, but you still have the problem of dealing with the background. Not really hard in this case because skies are easily fixed.

    Here's a two minute version using the method I suggested earlier:

    1074337745_FWiuW-L.jpg

    I didn't have to do any touchup, just rotation of the selected circle. Note that the horizon immediately adjacent to the monument is perpendicular to it, which would not be the case if you just nudged the monument. OTOH, it is not consistent with the horizon in the other holes. Personally, I don't think this matters much, but you could fix that if you want.
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    travischancetravischance Registered Users Posts: 642 Major grins
    edited November 2, 2010
    Thank You Richard. Your edit looks great & I honestly wouldn't notice the horizon in the other holes. It's just too much of an eye sore in the first image as the eyes are almost instantly drawn to it. Is there a way to achieve this result with CS4? I googled & searched YouTube for puppet warp tool & everything was related to CS5.
    Travis M. Chance
    twin Mark IV's & a bunch of "L" glass
    site ∙ facebook
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    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited November 2, 2010
    travischance wrote: »
    Thank You Richard. Your edit looks great & I honestly wouldn't notice the horizon in the other holes. It's just too much of an eye sore in the first image as the eyes are almost instantly drawn to it. Is there a way to achieve this result with CS4? I googled & searched YouTube for puppet warp tool & everything was related to CS5.

    Travis,
    I mentioned Puppet Warp as an FYI, but I didn't use it here. Sorry if this wasn't clear. All I did was use the Elliptical Marquee tool to select a circle inside the bridge opening, create a new layer via copy and rotate the new bit using the free transform tool. All these functions are available in CS4 and earlier versions as well.
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    travischancetravischance Registered Users Posts: 642 Major grins
    edited November 2, 2010
    Richard wrote: »
    Travis,
    I mentioned Puppet Warp as an FYI, but I didn't use it here. Sorry if this wasn't clear. All I did was use the Elliptical Marquee tool to select a circle inside the bridge opening, create a new layer via copy and rotate the new bit using the free transform tool. All these functions are available in CS4 and earlier versions as well.

    No worries. You actually helped me achieve the result I was after! I ended up using the Quick selection tool with a Free Transform that allowed me to rotate the monument only. Thanks again for your help! Final image found here.
    Travis M. Chance
    twin Mark IV's & a bunch of "L" glass
    site ∙ facebook
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