Keystoning Tool

Ladies and gentlemen, Photoshop has it all. It may seem confusing and intimidating but once you learn your way around it, Photoshop becomes so easy. In turn, your creativity and your work will thrive! No matter how great you think you are at photography, there’s always that one photo that we wish was a little bit better. This can especially be true when you are taking urban landscape pictures and the buildings in your photo seem to lean and be a little crooked. This is where Keystoning comes in.

I never knew that you had this option in photoshop. It is never really talked about, but this tool is so unique and special! One day I was walking down Philadelphia street in Indiana, PA, and I took a picture of a local bar called The Coney. Because of the angle, I was at, I didn’t find the image to be too appealing, so I thought of changing how I viewed it by using the Kystoning tool. What the keystoning tool allows you to do is try and correct this by warping the image perspective. When done right, it can improve an image, but it is really easy to mess up.

To get started, I recommend creating another layer of the image so that way you can see the changes you make along the way. After this, go to the toolbar and within the drop-down menu of “edit” select Perspective Warp. You will now have the option to stretch a graph over the object (building) you want to warp. The first box I stretched over the front of the building. The next box I created going down the alley. I connected the two boxes and once you do that you can use the other two pinpoints (the corners of the box) to stretch down the alley to a point. Try and run that box along a leading line. This box does not have to be straight as long as you are running it on a line. The image directly below will show you what I mean about the boxes.  

Once you have the graphs aligned in the spots you choose, you will then click the “warp” button which can be found in the toolbar, directly above your file name. You can now use the pinpoints to move the viewpoint around. This can change the perspective of the picture. When you are done, you can either hit enter or you can click the checkmark which can be found in the same row as the Warp button.  

This tool can be so useful, but it can be pretty tricky with getting it right. I recommend practicing a lot with this one. If you need additional help, then Julieanne Kost has a great video on this tool that I highly recommend that you watch. What do you think of this tool? Is it tricky or easy to use? What questions do you have? Don’t forget to comment down below and let me know.