Can get rid of vignetting with photoshop?

Hi all!

Here's one for ya pros: Can I get rid of vignetting with photoshop without major image quality loss?

Here's my case: I own Olympus 7070 camera and Olympus pt-027 housing for it (all my images are available light, no strobes, and with magic filter, I shoot lot with RAW). Since I am only a "holiday" diver/UW-photographer I can't justify spending thousands of dollars for neat UW-set. So cheapest WA-solutions seems to be Epoque DCL-20, Inon 100, Athena dome + uly WA, or inon 100 + inon dome.

The cheapest solution by far is epoque DCL-20 but I know it has some vignetting issues....but bottom line is, so what? Is this really an issue worth extra 200-300$ if basically I can get rid of it with ~1min of photoshop work?

Please post your thoughts, as they are really important to me

P.S. Please post some pics with inon wa or epoque dcl-20 so I can try photoshopping vignetting out, thanks.

There are at least two easy ways to get rid of MINOR vignetting in PS:

1) Clone out the dark corners

2) Correct the perspective using the lens correction filter

There are probably other ways, but these 2 are fast and easy...

Because I don't use many of PS's features often, my workflow has migrated toward Aperture, and I use separate stand-alone applications for distortion/vignetting (DxO optics pro standard edition) and noise removal (noise ninja). I don't do compositing -- I use grads instead. All the comments below are based more on landscape results than UW results -- I shoot 10 times as much above water.

I'm much happier with results in these specialized software compared to PS; because I only do such extreme processing on about 1 percent (or even less) of my shots, the stand-alone approach works well for me. Both also support batch processing (at least in some versions).

These two programs, combined, cost about as much as a good kit lens like the Nikon 18-70. Optics Pro isn't cheap ($149), but it offers a suite of corrections that are tailored for many lens/body combinations, and can be further tailored (sadly, the venerable Nikon 16mm FE is not included, yet). I've gotten excellent results for the lenses I correct most often, for both distortion and vignetting (even includes abberations). I find it far easier to get good results with them than PS, and I have never been able to do better in PS than with DxO/NN. More than worth it, to me (I think NoiseNinja can give me back about a stop of ISO, as far as noise goes).

On the other hand, I regret how they force me out of raw, but at least DxO reads raw and both r/w 16-bit TIF files.

I'm still experimenting, so others with more experience (esp. in PS) can tell you more about how to do it in that program. I'd recommend getting the demo version of DxO and checking it out, though.

All the best,

Chris in Red Stick

Thanks for answers Chris and Matt. I am aware how to get rid of vignetting with PS. My bottom line question was, is vignetting with non dome lenses so bad that I can NOT get rid of it with any editin program without major quality loss?

That is million dollar question to me, since dome wide angles cost 200-300$ more. IMHO that's kinda pricey for just to have images without vignetting.

The cheapest solution by far is epoque DCL-20 but I know it has some vignetting issues....but bottom line is, so what? Is this really an issue worth extra 200-300$ if basically I can get rid of it with ~1min of photoshop work?

Umm, well, with most of these W/A lenses you just have to zoom in slightly to get rid of the vignetting issue. I shot a lot with the Inons for instance this way. Or you just crop in a little later on.

You can also use the vignette control in Camera RAW to lighten or darken the corners and move the whole vignette around.

FYI; Fantasea has a new W/A lens that's pretty nice. Not sure if they have the right diameter mounting rings, there are a couple of adapters available.

http://opticaloceansales.com/p%26s.html#wa_lens

Jack