replacement for missing transform->warp tool in Photoshop Elements?

[unfrostedpoptart]

Hi.

I just upgraded to PSE10 but, unfortunately, it's still missing the warp transform from the full PS

I have some panoramas I created from wide-angle photos in a small room.  As is common, some of the straight wall/ceiling lines appear curved.  From what I've found online, the warp transform could fix this in seconds, but PSE doesn't have it.  Any suggestions?  Any 3rd-party pluggins to do this (that cost less than PS!).

Thanks,

David (who is always trying to do the one thing the program can't do...)

[Guest]

Nope.  I really miss a good Warp Mesh tool (that PaintShopPho has), too.

The best you can try in PSE is the Liquify filter, using the "Shift pixels" mode.  It can be really tricky, so you'll have to experiment with different brush sizes and brush pressures.

I'm interested in seeing if anyone has found a 3rd party plugin, also....

Ken

[Barbara_B_]

If you're talking about barrel distortion, try Filter>Camera Distortion and see if that can help you.

[unfrostedpoptart]

Barbara B. wrote:

If you're talking about barrel distortion, try Filter>Camera Distortion and see if that can help you.

Just played a bit with that.  Looks like I would have to try and correct each of the source images separately and then create the pano.  I'll have to play with that tomorrow.

[Guest]

This is a good plugin for correcting each image.

http://www.vicanek.de/plugins/panowarp.htm

MTSTUNER

[Guest]

Here's a very rough example of using a combination of the Filter>Distort>Liquify (warp tool) in combination with making some selections and some rubber (clone) stamping to straighten out

the uneven liquify. In pse 10 you could probably use the Healing Brush Tool in place of the clone stamp tool. I was testing out a new installation of windows xp so i had to use a very old version of photoshop.

(don't have any version of elements yet on that computer)

after liquify (just did the ceiling and part of the window)

Making some selections along the wavy edges and using the clone stamp tool to fill in the green to straighten.

after

MTSTUNER

[unfrostedpoptart]

Thanks so much for your work on this. Unfortunately, it look like I either need to use full PS or some alternative program (suggestions?) that allows geometric warping with curves.  Your idea is a lot of manual work and only fixed the ceiling lines. That made the top of the window on the right look really strange, plus lots of other straight lines (e.g. the desk) that aren't.

I will try using the panowarp plugin and report back!

[99jon]

Photoshop can never make up for bad photography.

[unfrostedpoptart]

99jon wrote:

Photoshop can never make up for bad photography.

Well, that was rude, not to mention unhelpful and irrelevant.  The curvature I'm trying to correct is caused by a combination of the wide-angle lens I need to use to capture the small room and the panorama stitching process.

[99jon]

Not meant to be rude. It’s reality.

[Guest]

Yes it's probably more work than actually getting the photos to merge right in the first place.  You could probably straighten everthing with liquify, but like you said it's a lot of work.

Did you try the different options in the photomerge dialog when merging the photos, sometimes using a setting like reposition only with the blending checked does a better job on wide angle photos.

Also reducing the size of your photos will make things go faster when experimenting with the different options and that plugin linked to does pretty well for straightening the photos before merging.

Here's a short clip of using puppet warp in photoshop cs5 to straighten photos and you can download a trial of cs5 that is fully functional for 30 days if you want to try it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnmJRl8R6fY&feature=channel_video_title

MTSTUNER

[Guest]

Yeah, PS's Puppet Warp looks like the way to do it.  I tried modifying the supplied panorama using CorelPhotoPaint's Mesh Warp tool with mixed results.  It would be very tedious to use the Mesh Warp to individually move each mesh point the proper amount to correct all the distortions.  Puppet Warp does the tedious stuff automatically when moving its control points.

Ken

[Guest]

Here's a more complete example just using the liquify tool to add to the above.

MTSTUNER

[Guest]

Not too shabby, my friend.  A lot better than I thought would be possible.

Ken

[unfrostedpoptart]

Wow!  I'm very impressed.  I got the trial copy of ps-cs5 and played with transform-warp for a couple of minutes and it's not quite the magic wand I had hoped for.

Anyway, thanks for everyone's suggestions.  I've got lots of things to try but probably won't have time until the weekend.

David

[Guest]

Maybe if you post an example we could think of a way to do it in pse without plugins.

There are also several free plugins for dealing with panos that need tweaking.

MTSTUNER

[unfrostedpoptart]

MTSTUNER wrote:

Maybe if you post an example we could think of a way to do it in pse without plugins.

There are also several free plugins for dealing with panos that need tweaking.

MTSTUNER

Here you go - thanks!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9224623/office_pano1.jpg

[Guest]

Whoa!  Looks like a little judicious cropping is what's needed :

Ken

[Guest]

Also did you try the different options in the photomerge dialog?

MTSTUNER

[I_Live_In_The_Clouds]

Had the same question, might not quite work for what your doing but try the image > transform > skew