How To Take Distorted Photos On Iphone 11

6 Ways to fix Perspective Distortions on iPhone

Perspective distortions in photography come in many different forms. Since I turned to iPhone Photography in 2012, I've tried several photo perspective corrections apps on the iPhone, but the results I got were, let's say, suboptimal.

Many of the apps I tried reduced the overall resolution of photos. But things changed.

As of 2020, perspective correction is available in many iPhone photo editing apps. In this article, I'll share 5 (actually it's 4 plus 1 as a bonus) different apps I regularly use that will help you fixing perspective distortions.

For each of these apps, and that's one of the most important features, if you ask me, I'll let you know if the app will keep or reduce the overall resolution of your photo.

What is Perspective Distortion in Photography?
- Converging Lines
- Horizontal Distortion
- Barrel Distortion from Ultra Wide or Fisheye Lenses
How to fix Perspective Distortion on iPhone
- Fixing Perspective Distortion with SKRWT App
- Fixing Perspective Distortion with Adobe Lightroom Mobile
- Apply Perspective Correction in Photos App in iOS13
- Fix Perspective Distortion while shooting with Pro Camera App
- Fixing Perspective Distortions with Snapseed
- Fixing Perspective Distortions with Photoshop on iPad
Recommendation for fixing perspective distortions on iPhone

Let's start with a short recap about the different forms of perspective distortion.

What is Perspective Distortion in Photography?

The three mainly encountered forms of perspective distortions in photography are converging lines, horizontal distortion and barrel distortion. In many cases, you just can't avoid distortion, but there are several ways to fix them on your iPhone or iPad.

Converging Lines

The mostly encountered type of perspective distortion in photography is called converging lines or plunging lines. It occurs when you photograph a large object, like a building, from the ground level and tilt your camera upwards.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about in a photo I took in Bucharest, Romania.

Notice the red lines I've added to illustrate the converging lines. In a perfect picture, those lines would be parallel to the edges of the frame, which would make the building perfectly upright.

Example of vertical perspective distortion: Converging Lines

However, you can also use converging lines in a photo as a compositional element. Many photographers use it to convey height.

Horizontal Distortion

Another kind of perspective distortion is horizontal distortion that occurs when you're not perfectly aligned with a subject, e.g., a building, or in this case, the door that I used as a frame for the Ferris wheel in Chernobyl.

Example of horizontal perspective distortion

Again, there are several scenarios where you can use such a perspective distortion as a compositional element.

Barrel Distortion from Ultra Wide or Fisheye Lenses

The third kind of distortion in photography is barrel distortion that occurs when you use an ultra-wide lens or a fisheye lens like in this photo of an abandoned church near Leipzig.

Example of barrel distortion from a Fisheye Lens

Luckily for us, iPhone photographers, we can fix all those different kinds of distortions right on our iPhone today. There are at least 5 photo editing apps that will help you with that.

How to fix Perspective Distortion on iPhone

As of 2020, you have a lot photo perspective correction apps on iPhone to choose from, like SKRWT, Lightroom Mobile Premium, Photos App, ProCamera App and Snapseed. Read on to learn where to find these features.

Fixing Perspective Distortion with SKRWT App

In 2014, a fantastic new app appeared on the scene. It touted itself as the missing link in iPhone photography. And yes, it was.

With SKRWT, you could fix all kinds of distortions, be it horizontal, vertical, or barrel distortion. And with an optional in-app purchase, you could even use a freeform edit to fix all other kinds of distortions as well. I've written SKRWT App review here in the blog, and I've been using SKRWT extensively since 2014.

Unlike any other perspective correction app I tried by then, SKRWT would keep the current resolution of the photo. The app received a lot of praise when it was released, and that praise was well deserved.

As of 2020, it seems that SKRWT app is not maintained any longer. The last update was released more than two years ago, and a bug exists that surfaces when you try to edit a photo in HEIC format.

I sent an email about this bug a while ago and never got any response (or a bugfix release). Still, the app works on iOS13.

I guess I'll keep and use it until it stops working, especially for fixing barrel distortions that occur from the Moment Superfish Lens or until I can find any other app that does an equally good job.

But for fixing horizontal and vertical distortions, I've turned to Adobe Lightroom Mobile.

Fixing Perspective Distortion with Adobe Lightroom Mobile

Sometime in 2018, Adobe updated Lightroom Mobile with a feature that was only available on the desktop by then; the geometry adjustments to fix perspective distortions.

Now you can fix horizontal, vertical, and even some barrel distortions on your iPhone or iPad with Adobe Lightroom Mobile.

Adobe calls these adjustments Geometry, and they're available for Adobe Lightroom CC subscribers. I've hesitated for some time to subscribe to Lightroom. But doing the math and once I saw what's included in a Adobe Lightroom Mobile Premium subscription, I finally subscribed. No regrets so far.

With Lightroom Mobile, you can basically fix all kinds of perspective distortions:

Vertical distortions
Horizontal distortions
Barrel distortions (but not to the same extent as SKRWT)
And even a combination of all of the above.

Lightroom Mobile offers three ways to fix perspective distortions:

A manual way by adjusting the proper sliders for either horizontal, vertical, or barrel distortion
An automatic way where Lightroom tries to find converging lines and automatically fix them by making them parallel
A guided way where you draw lines and Adobe adjusts the photo accordingly.

Fixing different kinds of perspective distortions in Adobe Lightroom Mobile

Lightroom also offers a way to keep the resolution of the original photo using either the zoom, x-offset or y-offset adjustments, or a combination of all three. If you don't use these, Lightroom will crop the photo.

Apply Perspective Correction in Photos App in iOS13

With iOS13, Apple has made some updates to the Photos app. One of them is that you can fix horizontal and vertical perspective distortions.

However, by default, those fixes won't keep the current resolution of the photo.

You will lose up to 1-2 megapixels unless you're willing to apply a different crop to your photo. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. First, I just fixed the perspective distortion and didn't adjust the cropping. Then I checked the resolution of the photo in the EXIF reader of the ProCamera App. Then I adjusted the cropping and rechecked the resolution.

Fixing perspective distortion in Photos App without re-cropping.

Resolution of photo with perspective correction and no re-cropping.

For this scenario, the photo has a resolution of 10.3 megapixels (3722 x 2792 pixels)

Fixing perspective distortion in Photos App with re-cropping applied.

Resolution of a photo with perspective correction applied and re-cropped.

In the second scenario, the overall resolution actually increased due to the crop I applied. The overall resolution now is 3713 x 3763, which results in a total of 13.9 megapixels.

Please note that the increase of resolution is not due to some fancy pixel duplication magic. It's only because the algorithm that does the perspective correction actually "stretches" the image horizontally and upwards to get the lines straight.

Just keep that in mind when using the perspective correction feature of iOS13.

You can find those perspective corrections adjustments under the crop adjustment group:

Tap and photo to view it large
Tap edit in the upper right corner
Tap the crop and rotation adjustment group in the lower toolbar.
Swipe left to the vertical or horizontal perspective correction adjustment
Adjust the slider

How to use perspective correction in Photos Apps

Fix Perspective Distortion while shooting with Pro Camera App

ProCamera App is one of my recommended iPhone camera apps.

In 2019, the developers introduced a fancy new feature: automatic perspective correction.

With this feature turned on, you're able to fix converging lines right when you're taking the photo. You even get to see how the auto perspective correction will look like because you get a preview on the screen even before you take the photo. Simply awesome.

Here's a full review of auto perspective correction in ProCamera.

Fixing Perspective Distortions with Photoshop on iPad

If you have a Creative Cloud subscription that includes Photoshop, you can use Photoshop on iPad to fix horizontal and vertical perspective corrections using the transform tool.

Using the transformation tool to fix perspective distortions in Photoshop on iPad

Next, tap on freeform transformation and drag the points on the blue rectangle until everything is perfectly aligned with the edges of the frame.

Use the free-form transformation tool to fix perspective distortions on Photoshop iPad

Fixing Perspective Distortions with Snapseed

Snapseed is not one of the apps I use regularly, that's why I don't have a review for it. In fact, I rarely use it.

But as SKRWT App is not maintained any longer I looked for an app that supports free form perspective corrections. And that's where Snapseed comes in. You can find this feature under Tools, Perspective, and then Free.

So far, I've used it for a few photos only, but I'm quite impressed by the results. And, most important, the images keep their resolution.

In addition to the free form perspective correction, Snapseed supports vertical and horizontal fixes. Even with content-aware fill.

Maybe, if Snapseed adds a feature that will enable users to fix barrel distortions, it could completely replace SKRWT - at least on my iPhone.

Recommendation for fixing perspective distortions on iPhone

So from all of the apps above, I use the auto perspective correction feature in ProCamera while shooting, the Premium edition of Adobe Lightroom and occasionally, SKRWT, especially when I need to fix barrel distortions. For quick edits of snapshots, I use the perspective correction feature in Photos App.

To recommend one of these apps to you is difficult without knowing more about your kind of photography.

If you own a Fisheye lens, like the Moment Fisheye Lens, SKRWT was and still is the best option despite knowing, that the app is not maintained any more. So at some point, it may stop working.

You can also fix barrel distortion in Lightroom Mobile, but not to the same extent as with SKRWT App. If you want to give SKRWT a try, you can get SKRWT from the App Store.

If you mainly need to fix horizontal or vertical perspective distortions, then Adobe Lightroom is a good choice.

I really love the guided approach to perspective correction that Adobe implemented. Besides, I had several other reasons why I subscribed to Lightroom Mobile that you can read about in my Lightroom Mobile Premium Review that also contains a detailed list of free and paid features.

But if you're an occasional photographer and only need to fix perspective distortions every now and then, I recommend the perspective correction in the iOS13 Photos App or, as an alternative, Snapseed. You can get Snapseed from the App Store.

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