Hanging by a thread !

[chris h]

Took this snap a few years ago in the English Lake District . I was hanging by my fingernails from a rock with one hand and camera in the other and alas the horizon is askew. There's not much room for maneuvre in the cropping department, any suggestions.

[CJ Swartz]

Chris,

I'm not speaking from any expertise here - understand that first.
If you straighten it and crop by going as far to the right as possible, then you have space on the left missing -- which is a very dark mountain that could be easily cloned to fill up the image.

Carolyn (stepping aside to let someone who knows tell us how)

[chris h]

CJ,

Thanks for your comments. The picture looks a bit rough in its 56k form. I'm sure some more ideas will appear.

[vogonpoet]

Great photo! I would simply rotate the photo anti clockwise to get the horison correct, and then the areas that become 'blank' due to the rotation, I would use the clone tool. The areas your working with are low on detail, so carefully cloning should work nicely (i.e. the rock face and the sky)

Post back the results. Would be nice to see how you pull it off Chris ~Vp~

[DJ Dubovsky]

How about duplicate background and then choose transform perspective. It may distort slightly but no worse than cloning. Or maybe use distort or skew if you only want to raise one side with out the lower half stretching. I only tried perspective and not even to the extent of being perfect only enough to show you the difference.
DJ

OK I tried transform distort and liked that better than perspective. You get the same results in the horizon but you don't loose any of the lower part of the scene. See what you think when you try them both.

[DJ Dubovsky]

Sorry Chris,
In my attempt to help you out I forgot to tell you that I think that picture was worth hanging off a cliff to get. Beautiful site!!
DJ

[chris h]

DJ & VP, Thanks for your input I think the transform route is the better option. I always remember the day, I went out with two friends who are keen mountaineers and spent the day chasing them up steep hills. This snap was probably taken while I attempted to stuff my lungs back down my throat !!.

There's a pub in the sunlit part of the shot where they hold the national 'Gurning' contest and the 'Biggest Liar' contest every year.

[DJ Dubovsky]

You're most welcome Chris. I can't tell from the details in the dark areas how the perspective affected the photo but as I said, distort only took some of the upper right sky away as opposed to perspective that lost sky and lower right regions of the photo.
DJ

[CJ Swartz]

DJ -- Wonderful solution! I haven't done that before, but bet I have some images that could benefit. So glad that Chris asked the question so that I could get your great answer. Definitely works better than cloning.

Chris, I forgot to mention my appreciation of your image also while I was wondering about a solution. I'm so glad that there are folks like you (insert any adjective you choose here - brave, nuts, adventurous, fool-hardy, ) who are willing to climb high and take beautiful images of places from a perspective that I will NEVER see.

[chris h]

CJ,

It's easy, just walk uphill !

[DJ Dubovsky]

Walk uphill and just dangle by your fingers from the first cliff you come to. Sounds like sound advice to me. Not that I would ever listen to sound advice.

CJ_ Glad you liked the solution. I remembered it from a book lesson to straighten the perspective of a building and thought you should be able to use it on horizons as well.
DJ

[chris h]

Funnily enough we were playing with perspective control on the Photoshop course I did last week and I never thought of applying it to landscape.

[Ed_L]

Nice shot Chris! I'm not sure if I would be holding on with my fingernails, or chewing them. That looks to be pretty high. I didn't know you had anything that high in that particular area. Hmmmm - good question for a geography test.

Ed

[kathleen]

chris-

what a lovely place. thanks for sharing it.

we have liars here, but not, i think, gurning. at least we don't call it that. what is it?

dj,

clever girl, clever solution.

[chris h]

The highest point in England is about 3200', the hill I was on is about 2900' and I was someway below the summit. Nothing very high over here, Ben Nevis in Scotland is only 4400'

I was wondering if anybody would pick up on the 'Gurning' It's a contest to find who can pull the ugliest face and I believe held every year, funny folk in these parts !

http://www.whitehaven.org.uk/gurn.html