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Photographing architecture usually means wide angles and skewed lines. Buildings tilt even after applying lens corrections. Short of an expensive tilt-shift setup, getting straight lines in camera is a challenge. That’s where the Transform tool in ON1 Photo RAW comes into play. You can use Transform to correct perspective and get perfect lines in your architecture images.

The Keystone Tool

The Keystone Tool is my go-to option in the Transform tool. Why? Keystone lets you guide the transform to align both vertical and horizontals with reference lines of your choosing. Traditionally, the Keystone is set against a window or doorway. Yet it’s more versatile than that. For some architecture photos, you can use Keystone on a grand scale using the major features of a building as the keystone.

In this example of Royce Hall on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles, I used Keystone to set my reference using the two towers of the building - its main architecture feature.

Pro tip: Zoom in while using Keystone for more precise placement of your guidelines.

Refine With The Grid Overlay

After correcting perspective with Keystone, turn on the Grid overlay in Transform and refine the lines with the sliders. As you adjust sliders like Vertical, Horizontal and Rotation the grid appears to assist with alignment.

Pro tip: Use Transform early in your workflow, before applying edits. Why? Transform will work faster when Photo RAW doesn’t need to recompute your editing adjustments while correcting angles and lines.