Correcting Converging Verticals in Lightroom
Converging verticals is the effect you see where the sides of tall buildings appear to converge inwards. This then gives the building the appearance that it is leaning backwards. You can see an example in the image below.
In another article, I explain the cause of this problem and how to correct the problem in Photoshop. But as not everyone is a Photoshop user this tutorial will examine how to fix converging verticals in Lightroom.
Lightroom Lens Correction
I can’t quite recall which version of Lightroom introduced the capability to correct this problem in the Lens Correction panel of the Develop Module but it was certainly present in Lightroom version 5. In the following screenshot, you can see the panel and controls.
Don’t See These Controls?
It’s quite possible that you’re using a later version of Lightroom than version 5 and you don’t have all these controls. That’s because the tools to correct converging verticals were moved into a separate Transform panel. If you can see the Transform panel in your version of Lightroom, please see my tutorial and video about Using Lightroom Transform to Fix Converging Verticals.
There are a number of sections within the Lens Correction Panel. These are Basic, Profile, Color and Manual. We need to use the features of the Manual Panel. In the screenshot above you can see that a correction has already been applied to the image as it wasn’t exactly horizontal.
To correct the converging verticals it’s necessary to apply a negative Vertical adjustment. This causes the lower part of the image to move inwards whilst the upper part moves out. You can see this in the following screenshot.
The alignment is done by eye using the grid that is overlaid on the image when making changes. Notice that the correction isn’t a perfect correction as I felt this appeared a little unnatural.
Next, the scale of the image needs to be increased to remove the area of white to the bottom of the image. You can see the correction settings used in the screenshot below.
And below you can see the fully corrected image.
This makes for a much more professional image.
Learn more about using the editing tools in Lightroom by reading my book Mastering Lightroom’s Develop Module.
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