How It Works
Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop have no way to correct distortion on shifted frames. Until now, that meant hand-fixing it with Photoshop's Warp tool. Tech Cam Tools corrects each frame precisely, raw or TIFF, using the shift you logged in Shift Notes or entered in the TIFF Corrector.
Import Your Gear
Load your cameras and lenses from Shift Notes into the Gear & Profile Library, and every frame you log is paired with its lens profile and camera automatically.
Profile Each Lens Once
Build a distortion profile from 4-6 shifted test frames. Make it once, then use it on every shoot with that lens.
Correct the Whole Shoot
Your Shift Notes session does the work. Every frame, raw or TIFF, is matched, corrected with its own shift and lens, and tagged with the lens and shift in its metadata.
Profile Once, Correct Every Shoot
Build a profile for each lens, then correct barrel, pincushion, and mustache distortion in batches or one frame at a time.
Distortion Profiler
Photograph straight lines like a brick wall at a few shifts, and the Profiler solves the distortion for your lens across the whole image circle. It shows how good the fit is and saves a PDF report.
RAW Distortion Corrector
Correct raw files before you edit. Choose a folder of raws and your Shift Notes session, and each frame becomes a DNG with its own correction built in. It edits like the original raw in Lightroom and Camera Raw: white balance, camera profiles, and highlight recovery all work as before.
TIFF Distortion Corrector
Open a Shift Notes session and a folder of TIFFs. Frames are matched by image number, and each is corrected with its own shift and lens, even when a shoot mixes lenses. The canvas grows as needed, so nothing the correction pushes past the edge is lost.
Correct a Single Frame
Pick a TIFF, choose the camera and lens profile, and enter the shift. Preview it first, with a crosshair marking where the lens axis was, then correct it at full resolution.
Before and After Correction
The image shown below is after the distortion correction was applied. Click or tap the image to toggle between the original and corrected versions.
Hasselblad CFV 100C · Shift X +6 Y -6 mm · Distortion profile: HD Pentax-D FA 645 35mm f3.5 v1
Questions
Do I need Shift Notes?
For raw files and batches, yes. The session carries each frame's shift and lens. For a single TIFF, you can enter the shift by hand. Shift Notes is free either way.
Which lenses does it work with?
Any lens you profile. You build each profile yourself with the Distortion Profiler from a few photos of straight lines.
How long does it take to make a profile?
Plan on a couple of hours for the hands-on part: shooting your test frames and preparing them for the Distortion Profiler. If you've tested lenses before, the process will feel familiar. Logging your test frames in Shift Notes speeds up the prep. It keeps each frame's shift with the right file, so you can bring the whole set into the Profiler at once instead of entering shifts by hand. Once your frames are ready, the Profiler builds the profile in seconds. You only do this once per lens.
Should I correct raw files or TIFFs?
Raw, for most work. The corrected DNG keeps everything you edit in a raw, and you correct once before retouching. A DNG stays the original size, though, so at large shifts a little detail at the edge farthest from the lens can be lost. When that edge matters, use the TIFF Corrector, whose canvas grows to keep it.
What about frames shifted very far?
When a shift puts the lens axis outside the frame, a standard DNG can't hold the correction. The RAW Corrector lists those frames before it starts and lets you choose: make linear DNGs, with the correction built into the pixels (still editable like a raw, about three times the size), or leave them out and correct them as TIFFs.
Should I also use Lightroom's lens corrections?
No. Leave lens corrections off on corrected DNGs, or the distortion is corrected twice. For TIFFs, leave lens corrections, keystone, and crop off, save a full-size 16-bit TIFF, and let Tech Cam Tools do the distortion. Crop afterward.
Does it change my original files?
No. Each corrected image is saved next to the original as a new file: a DNG for raws, a TIFF at full quality with lossless compression for TIFFs. Your color profile, EXIF, XMP, IPTC, and GPS carry over.
Will my manual lenses show up in my catalog?
Yes, if you want them to. The TIFF Corrector can write the lens name, focal length, aperture, and each frame's shift into the corrected file. The RAW Corrector adds each frame's shift and lens profile to the caption.
Does it correct vignetting?
No. Tech Cam Tools corrects distortion only. Use an LCC frame for vignetting and color cast, as you do today.
Are my images uploaded anywhere?
No. All processing happens on your Mac.
What do I need to run it?
A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) and a free photohus.com account to sign in. It doesn't run on Intel Macs. For raw files, also install Adobe's free DNG Converter.
What does the subscription include?
All four tools in one app (Gear & Profile Library, Distortion Profiler, RAW Distortion Corrector, and TIFF Distortion Corrector), with every update while your subscription is active.
What if I have questions about a feature?
Each tool has a Guide tab that walks through it step by step, and the app's Guide covers the full workflow. Still stuck? Email
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