I don’t know if I’m missing something, but when I try to position the eight-point lines when using ViewPoint as part of my normal raw processing in PL3 Elite the ‘circles’ used to drag the lines don’t act as magnifiers to facilitate accurate placement. However, they do precisely that if I open VP as a standalone program and then open a file. However, the latter procedure is a bit of a pain since it entails navigating through files to open the raw file.
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It’s like you write, the circles don’t magnify and they are too small for that too. This feature does not (yet) exist in PhotoLab.
You can add your vote and help propel such a feature
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I’d never used Viewpoint in standalone mode until prompted to do so by the posts above. I do a lot of perspective correction of photos of buldings etc. but always using Viewpoint from within PhotoLab as part of my overall processing of the RAW image. Having tried Viewpoint standalone I think the magnified endpoints are a great help in accurately placing the correction endpoints in all of the corrections that employ them (horizon, force parallel, rectangle and eight points).
This would greatly simplify my usual working method whereby I have to:
- position the endpoints approximately prior to zooming the image to 1:1 (This first step is required as the starting point for displaying the correction guide lines and endpoints assumes the full image is visible. If you zoom in first then select the perspective correction some or all of the endpoints may not be visible in the portion of the image displayed on screen and so cannot be dragged to the required position).
- zoom to 1:1 to more accurately position the endpoints
- use the move / zoom control to position the visible image portion to display the required endpoint, accurately position the endpoint and repeat for all endpoints (often eight)
- zoom back out to display the full image to review the effect prior to applying it (and repeat some of the above steps if not satisfied with the result).
I will definitely add my vote via the link provided above.
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The circles in VP3 help a lot for a good positioning, but in PhotoLab, we can define our lines without having to take enplane circles one by one, and this is not possible in VP3.
So if a change would be made adding circles zoom we should still be able to define freely our lines as in current PhotoLab.
Thank you. I will add my vote.
Thank you for pointing this out, I hadn’t realised. I’ve only been getting to grips with VP recently, doing more architectural shots.
Just to be clear, the ability to define the line by “drawing it” (i.e. clicking on a point and then dragging the mouse while keeping it pressed) only applies to the Horizontal correction tool. Although lines with endpoints appear when using the Force Parallel, Rectangle and 8-Points corrections provided with VP3, the only ways to position the endpoints are either by dragging a line itself (which moves both endpoints) or dragging a single, selected endpoint to the desired position.
Hi Paul, @SAFC01
I do confirm that in VP3, you have to move the endpoints to put your lines where you want, and it’s the only way to do it.
But in PhotoLab (and Optics Pro) for all perspective corrections (Horizontal, Force Parallel, Rectangle and 8-Points corrections) I do confirm that you can redefine the lines wherever you want by “drawing them” (i.e. clicking on a point and then dragging the mouse while keeping it pressed), at least on the Mac version, and so you don’t have to pick every endpoint to move it where needed.
Doing so is much more quick for me. And this method needs to be kept while adding the magnifiers to endpoints.
Patrick,
Thanks for pointing this out. I almost added “at least on Windows” to my previous post but then thought “it can’t be that different on a MAC can it?”, and so didn’t 
I’m a Windows PhotoLab user and have never seen or used a MAC version of PhotoLab. Your post made me revisit the VP3 controls in Windows PhotoLab3 just now, in case I’d missed anything. What I found seems even stranger to me than what I thought was the case. I can draw lines for Horizon and Rectangle corrections but not for Force Parallel or 8 Points.
I can see that the ability to draw the lines would be (for me) / is (for you) a very quick way of deploying the corrections. The magnifiers would then just be the added extra that allowed accurate positioning of the endpoints to be done quickly without having to zoom in and move around the image. I also agree we would not want to lose the “draw the line(s)” ability in exchange for the introduction of magnifiers.
As @SAFC01/Paul points out, just above, with the Win version, one can “draw lines” for the Horizon and Rectangle corrections but not for Force Parallel or 8 Points.
However, that’s really only useful for the Horizon tool - - because, as is demonstrated when doing this for the Rectangle tool, PL has no idea which line it is that you’re intending to draw - and, so, it simply starts a new Rectangle outline at the point on which you click.
@Pathal/Patrick: How does this work on Mac for, say, the 8 Point tool ?
John M
For the 8 Point tool, I launch the tool using the toolbar icon.
Then the default 4 lines appear.
Instead of going to a first endpoint to move it, I simply ignore all lines and draw directly my own 4 lines where needed.
Doing this I have only 4 clicks to begin lines and 4 drawing holding the mouse to its destination, this instead of having to move 8 points.
Patrick
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John,
Regarding the Rectangle correction, although PhotoLab does draw a rectangle at the point you first click, you can then drag the mouse in any direction and the rectangle is drawn as required. However, in doing so the assumption is that the rectangle has sides that are horizontal and vertical. This rather misses the point since you are are using the tool to make four points that initially are not the corners of a rectangle become the four corners - you wouldn’t need to use this correction otherwise. That said, the ability to “draw” the rectangle still speeds up the rough positioning of the four endpoints when compared to having to drag each of the four endpoints separately.
Patrick,
I’d love to be able to just draw the four lines for the 8 Points correction, and draw two lines for the Force Parallel correction with the Windows version of PhotoLab. As you point out, this would simply my use of these two corrections
For the Rectangle tool, can you draw a “rectangle” that is not rectangular - i.e. where two, or all four, of the sides aren’t parallel? I can see this being a bit trickier to implement since PhotoLab then has to determine when the “rectangle” is complete - albeit many other software products successfully manage to allow the drawing of closed polygons.
Paul,
for the Rectangle, I go where I need the first corner, then drag up to the opposite corner, and finally adjust the position of the 2 other corners. The gain here is less than in other corrections.
Thanks Patrick. It’s still less effort than moving four separate corner points one at a time.
OK - The Mac version obviously works differently, then: one cannot do that with the Win version.
I’m remain puzzled tho; when you “draw directly {your} own 4 lines”, how does PL understand which lines you are drawing ?
John M
Hi John,
PL do not understand which line I’m drawing, and it has any effect on the result.
I simply draw 4 lines, and after each line, a “preset” line disappear. And it could be a vertical one while I have drawn a horizontal one! But at the end I have my 4 lines and no “preset” lines anymore.
You can see that in the video capture:
Patrick
Patrick,
Thanks for the video. It looks so much simpler with the Mac version to just draw the four lines you want rather than drag 8 endpoints.
Interestingly (?), your video illustrates another, albeit minor, difference between the windows and Mac versions. On the Mac version your four “preset” lines are all red whereas with with the Windows version the two horizontal “preset” lines are blue while the two vertical ones are red.
Early on in my career I spent several years portiing a suite of software products from one platform to another. I’m intrigued as to where the PhotoLab Mac / Windows products split development paths that results in such discrepancies between the two products. The differences we’ve identified - from significant such as when you can or can’t draw correction lines, to trivial like the preset line colours just discussed - don’t seem to me to be things that would result from inherent features of the underlying Windows and Mac platforms.
I’m going to add a What Features Do You Need topic to the Windows category requesting that it offers the same line drawing features you have available with the Mac version. That way others can vote for it if they too would see it of benefit.
Paul,
They are red, but I can change the color, but for all lines the same.
Thank you, Patrick - that’s very interesting, (and quite different from the Win version).
PS. Great image !
John M
I realise now that it would have been helpful if I’d added in my original post that I was using PL3 and VP with Windows. I will add this info to any future posts, after learning here just how different the Windows and Mac versions of PL can be.
It would be nice too, if PL added the functionality lacking from the Windows version as a free upgrade to this version and not as a feature incorporated into some future, paid, update, since users of Windows and Mac have paid the same price for the software.