Gear

ImageAlign Professional

Perspective- and lens-distortion correction tool

Grasshopper’s ImageAlign Professional is an effective, precision “laboratory” that corrects barrel, pincushion, and perspective distortion resulting from using wide-angle lenses or tilting your camera to take a photo. The Professional version can handle any size file and format and works with 8- or 16-bit files. The Mac version comes only as a Photoshop plug-in, while the Windows version can run as a standalone application or as a Photoshop plug-in. It installs under Photoshop’s Filter menu.

Although the interface is user-friendly, simple, and appears intuitive, the tutorial included is a must-read to understand the workflow and which slider to start with for your particular distortion(s). A grid superimposed over the image shows what needs to be straightened, while the large preview window on the left instantaneously reflects your adjustments as you move the correction sliders. The image can be panned and enlarged up to 400%.

Users can make corrections to an image with multiple distortions in a single session by using sliders, entering a number, or clicking on an arrow: Barrel correction realigns the convex bowing-out effect typically created by fisheye lenses; Pincushion corrects the concave appearance of an image; Rotation straightens horizon lines; Vertical Perspective Shift (keystoning) restores converging vertical lines commonly caused by tilting a camera when photographing a tall building; Horizontal Perspective Shift corrects converging horizontal lines; Vertical Skew keeps vertical lines vertical while changing the angle of horizontal line; Horizontal Skew lets you keep horizontal lines horizontal while changing vertical lines; and Rescale enlarges or shrinks the image to crop the resulting white areas. And, you can name, save, and reload settings to apply the same corrections to images with similar distortions. ImageAlign is faster and more precise and versatile than Photoshop’s Free Transform tool—worth owning.

PRICE: $129
FOR: Mac and Windows
FROM: Grasshopper Ltd.
PHONE: +64 7 854-7279
WEB: www.imagealign.com
RATING: 5.0

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