Andromeda's LensDoc exists because optics ain't always pretty. Despite hundreds of years of optical technology, you can't get around the simple fact of physics that when you take a close-up picture with a wide angle setting, things that should be straight become rounded. The more of a wide angle setting you use, the more "barrel-house" the effects will be. The extreme example of this is the fish-eye lens. Similarly, using a telephoto lens can create pin-cushioning although this effect is often too subtle to be observed. Regardless, LensDoc can help.

If you use a wide angle lens on a distant landscape, any barreling effect will be insignificant. But when such effects are noticeable, getting rid of the barrel effects can be quite a challenge.

There are three different types of camera lens effects that LensDoc corrects, the barrel distortion is the first. LensDoc can also take care of perspective and images that were taken with a slight angle.

These latter two corrections can be repaired using Photoshop, but LensDoc does the perspective repair with a bit more class. More on that later

When opening up LensDoc, Mac users will wonder if they inadvertently opened up Virtual PC or something because Andromeda made no effort to create a Mac version of the program. Andromeda simply took the PC version and "Macified" the guts leaving the skin the same.

Above you see the LensDoc window that is brought up when you select from the Filter Menu (Filters -> Andromeda -> LensDoc). Here on the left is a bathroom vanity I built for our bathroom. Our bathroom is small and to get as much of the bathroom as possible in one image you need to use as wide a field as possible--this is a perfect recipe for image distortion. Here you can see a typical example of the barrel effect on the wall to the right in the foreground as the wall tends to slope to the left toward the bottom of the image.

After opening the image in LensDoc, one simply takes the green and yellow squares and places them on a straight line, or rather what should be a straight line. To fine-tune the placement, one can see a very magnified image in the upper right of the LensDoc window. Further, to assist the best location in the desired pixel, if one presses the Control key while dragging, the movements of the mouse are greatly magnified. That is, you move the mouse much more than the little yellow/green square move without the Control key pressed. Once the little colored squares are properly placed, you simply click the "Correct" button. The results of this are shown below. On the left is the "before" on the right is the "after."

As you can see, the wall is now straight, but it still tilts to the right. At this point, in Photoshop one can take the image, place it in a Transform box and drag the lower right corner out until it is visually parallel to the left side of the vanity. That is very easy to do, but I do believe that LensDoc does it easier. Below is a before and after picture of fixing perspective.

For this, one places two squares on two straight lines that one wishes were parallel. In this case I placed the two yellows on the left side of the vanity and the green squares on the errant wall. I then clicked on the button that says "Make Parallel." That was it.

The last correction that LensDoc can do is to make a selected line horizontal or vertical. It then rotates the whole image to accommodate the change.

This is one correction that is very easy to do in Photoshop, albeit requires several steps:

1. Select the Measurement tool (part of the Eyedrop collection in the toolbar).
2. Click & Drag the Measurement tool along a line that is close to (but not quite) horizontal or vertical.
3. Now go to the menu Image -> Rotate Canvas -> Arbitrary... and whatever it says, just click OK. Your done.

However, if you are already correcting an image in LensDoc, it doesn't make sense to go out of LensDoc to do what you can also easily do from within.

So, lets say you want to use the front edge of the vanity as a vertical reference.

It was a subtle change, but what it also did was to rotate the right wall (that was straightened in the first step) inward at the top. So, I backed up a step and made the front edge of the vanity parallel with the wall. Below is the original image and final result.

LensDoc does subtle "adding" and "subtracting" of pixels similar to what's taking place in Photoshop's Liquefy, but in a very controlled, calculating manner. The above image did not have significant aberration, but it's often those "little things" that can make a home photo look like a professional photo. Consider: how many images do you find in "Home and Garden" have a barrel effect? Well, now you can do this yourself with little effort.

In addition to the techniques explained above, LensDoc also can function off of parameters for one's own camera. Unfortunately they only provide descriptions for the Olympus E-10 and the Nikon CoolPix 950. Andromeda does provide complete instructions for creating specific lens descriptions for your own camera. A link to Andromeda's special page for LensDoc is here. Please be advised that Andromeda chooses to build their site in frames and because of this, the link just provided does not have any global links. (This is a great example of why frames should not be used in web design, but this isn't a review or commentary on web design, so I'll stop.) However, you can examine how to create a full description for your lens by clicking on the link titled: "Creating Curves for LensDoc."

Despite the Windows appearance, I like LensDoc. The interface is well thought out and straightforward. The filter is easy to use and does what it says. 'Nuff said.

• RedEyePro Filter
• ScatterLight Lenses
• VariFocus Filter
• Perspective Filter

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