Lens corrections

Remove distortion and straighten verticals, but be prepared to lose some detail at the edges

When you’re shooting in an environment that’s full of straight vertical and horizontal lines, any lens distortion or lines that aren’t parallel with the edge of the picture will be obvious. The keystone effect can be another problem to deal with when you’re shooting with a wide-angle lens. Even though the effect, where the top of a building appears narrower than the bottom, can emphasise height, it can make the buildings appear to be leaning.

Applying lens corrections in software can help restore the balance, although this can result in some substantial cropping to the image. So it pays to not frame the shot too tightly if you anticipate applying corrections later.

If you leave it to the software, it will usually produce a more subtle adjustment that doesn’t lead to heavy cropping, but you can make more substantial changes manually.

Straight up Making manual adjustments (left) to straighten the verticals results in empty space that has to be filled or cropped out.