Correction facility

What does the Lens Correction function in Lightroom actually change? Jon Reese

ATo some extent or other, most if not all lenses have some issues that may need correcting for. Typically these are things such as chromatic aberration, vignetting or distortion such as barrel and pincushion. Left uncorrected, these things can adversely affect the quality of the final digital image, so Lightroom has an option that helps to get rid of these problems in the raw file. Of course, the issues you are likely to face will differ from lens to lens and image to image, so there is no one-sizefits-all method of correction.

In Lightroom, the Lens Correction function will recognise the lens that has been used and then make any necessary adjustments to improve the quality of the image. It’s not foolproof, but it does a pretty decent job of resolving a lot of the issues you are likely to face. It’s possible with a newly released lens for the Lens Correction Function not to recognise it – but in most cases, the correction algorithm is added in the next update.

One of the things I’ve done is made sure that Lightroom applies the lens correction as it imports the raw files, and I’d recommend you do the same. This means that you don’t have to remember to scroll down to the Lens Correction panel in the Develop module and apply them manually. It’s a lot easier! Obviously you can also manually make further adjustments if required, but in a lot of cases the correction will probably only be minor, and the automatic adjustment will sort it out.