Straighten Walls in Photoshop

Straight lines and neat walls make great interior photos

How to Straighten Walls in Photoshop

By using a wide angle lens and especially if you rush a job, you will end up with wonky walls. It is important that you correct this either at the time of shooting or in Photoshop later.

If you have a tilt shift lens, use it. Although they are expensive, they can save a lot of time adjusting and tweaking in Photoshop.

Do you have a standard wide angle lens? Make sure that you set up the tripod and camera as best you can to get the walls as straight as you can at the time of shooting;

There will be times when you load an image into Photoshop and there is some correction needed. When the image is loaded, make sure that you use the GRID tool from the top menu bar;

Straighten Walls in Photoshop - VIEW - SHOW - GRID

Check each area to see where the image needs adjusting. In the image below, you can see that both the walls and the ceiling are slightly off. There is also some pin-cushioning from the wide angle lens. If I were to leave it like this it looks sloppy and unprofessional. People would wonder whether it is the image or house that is wonky...not good.

What you need to do is first of all, select the entire image;

Straightening Walls in Photoshop – SELECT - ALL

Then, I like to use the "Distort" tool as it allows you to push and pull each corner individually, perfect for this adjustment. Go to;

EDIT - TRANSFORM - DISTORT

...as in the image below (click for larger version).

Now, starting at one corner, gradually pull it out until the walls and ceiling are perfectly horizontal and vertical as in the following images.

Then, even though this is a relatively minor adjustment, the results show.