I am a painter. I took a photo of a painting and noticed that the aspect ratio looked a little off.

[jwt99]

The aspect ratio looked slightly wider in the horizontal and shorter in the vertical aspect.  I turned the painting horizontal and took a photo and it looked correct but when I rotated it to upright in digital photo pro it returned to the slightly wider and shorter than reality aspect ratio.  Any help would be appreciated. I am using a EOS 40D camera.

[ebiggs1]

James,

One last thought. redux!

I forgot to advise you to learn PS.  You have what you need.  You need to learn how to use what you have!

Paintings are made on the canvas and likewise photos are made in Photoshop.

[TTMartin]

---

ebiggs1 wrote: 

Paintings are made on the canvas and likewise photos are made in Photoshop.

---

Photos require post processing. Usually that can be as simple as DPP, or more commonly Lightroom.

If you need to manipulate your photos beyond what can be done in Lightroom, I would say you've left the realm of photography, and entered the realm of computer graphic arts. 

[Waddizzle]

---

TTMartin wrote:

If you need to manipulate your photos beyond what can be done in Lightroom, I would say you've left the realm of photography, and entered the realm of computer graphic arts. 

---

I agree, wholeheartedly.  Lightroom is the equivalent of a digital darkroom.

As I noted earlier, I do most of my work in Llightroom, over 99% of it.  I only use Photoshop to introduce some sort of special effect, or for simply removing smudges created by dust spots on the image sensor. 

[RobertTheFat]

---

@ebiggs1 wrote:

James,

One last thought. redux!

I forgot to advise you to learn PS.  You have what you need.  You need to learn how to use what you have!

Paintings are made on the canvas and likewise photos are made in Photoshop.

---

James,

Ernie Biggs is to Photoshop as Ansel Adams was to the darkroom. (Adams was a perfectionist who spent countless hours dodging, burning, reprinting, trying different papers and chemicals, etc., etc., etc., never satisfied until he had it just right.) If I had a piece of software I wanted to promote, I could ask for nothing more than to have Ernie as an enthusiastic user.

That said ...

A large percentage, perhaps most, of the people who pay for Photoshop don't really need it. In his career as a photographer and graphic designer, Ernie probably did. But you probably don't. Photoshop is a marvelous (and expensive) program for serious graphic design and high-end photo manipulation, but that's not what you do. If you want to learn and use Photoshop, you may find it a highly rewarding exercise; but for the requirements you've shared with us, DPP, or a variety of other photo editors (including Lightroom), will do the job every bit as well.

[kvbarkley]

"The negative is the score, the print the symphony" Ansel Adams.

Photoshop Elements is dumbed down, but it has most of the stuff Photoshop has. I just wish it had a better levels interface.

[ebiggs1]

B from B said,

"... but for the requirements you've shared with us, DPP, or a variety of other photo editors ..."

But PS has a greatly improved and enhanced crop tool. It is called the Perspective Crop Tool, a crop tool designed to easily fix common distortion and perspective problems in an image.

To fix a perspective problem, all you need do is drag the corner crop handles left or right, up or down, until the vertical and/or horizontal lines of the grid line up with something in the image.

Does "DPP, or a variety of other photo editors" do that?

[TTMartin]

---

@ebiggs1 wrote:

B from B said,

"... but for the requirements you've shared with us, DPP, or a variety of other photo editors ..."

But PS has a greatly improved and enhanced crop tool. It is called the Perspective Crop Tool, a crop tool designed to easily fix common distortion and perspective problems in an image.

To fix a perspective problem, all you need do is drag the corner crop handles left or right, up or down, until the vertical and/or horizontal lines of the grid line up with something in the image.

Does "DPP, or a variety of other photo editors" do that?

---

Lightroom allows you to make those same corrections, not as automated. However, you also don't need to learn a whole different program either.

[ebiggs1]

Execpt.....

 "I use RAW files and experiment with changing images and altering sizes and layering in PS without any problems like this one in years."

"... you also don't need to learn a whole different program ..."

Exactly!

[jwt99]

Mr. Martin, Thanks for mentioning that Lightroom has means of solving the issues I am having. This is the first time that I explored the editing and cropping and straightening possibilities in LR.  You have been such a huge help.   

[jwt99]

Mr Biggs, Thanks for mentioning the Perspective Crop Tool.  This was the first time that I watched a tutorial for that aspect of cropping photos.  I have been mainly watching tutorials as I found a need for them and was a bit overwhelmed by all the possibilities.  You have shown me a whole variety of applications that I had never considered.  Thanks so much..