How to Correct a Photo's Perspective Distortion With GIMP

Remove any warping caused by perspective

By

Sue Chastain

Updated on February 3, 2021

Design

What to Know

Drag a set of guidelines around the object you want to edit, then select the Perspective Tool (the 3D wire-frame).
Select the image and drag the corner squares to alter the perspective, then select Transform.
Crop out any empty space around the image and remove the guides by going to Image > Guides > Remove all Guides.

This article explains how to use the Perspective tool in GIMP to correct a photo's perspective distortion.

Adjust a Photo's Perspective in GIMP

You probably have photos of tall buildings in your collection. You might notice that the sides appear to slant inward at the top due to the perspective from which the photo was taken. You can correct this with the perspective tool in GIMP. This works with any image that has a tall object. The example used here is a tree.

Open GIMP and load your photo.
Drag a set of guidelines, one for each side, around the object that you want to edit the perspective of. You can pull guidelines from the top and left side of your project in GIMP. Try to position them to be right where your object would touch with the perspective corrected.
Select the Perspective Tool from the toolbox. The icon looks like a 3D wire-frame box.
Turn your attention to the Perspective Tool options below the toolbox. Make sure the settings are as follows:
- Direction: Normal (Forward)
- Interpolation: Cubic
- Clipping: Crop to result
- Show image preview: X
Select the image to activate the tool. The Perspective dialog will appear, and you'll see squares on each of the four corners of your image.
Drag the corner squares to alter the perspective of your image. The direction and distance depend on your image. Generally, dragging the top squares out and the bottom ones in will help correct your perspective.

If the perspective dialog is in the way, detach it by pressing the icon that looks like eject.
When you have everything set, press Transform to make it final.
If you dragged in any of the corners, you'll see empty space around your image. That space needs to be cropped out. Select Image in the top menu followed by Crop to Content.

On older versions of GIMP Crop to Content was Autocrop Image.
The result after cropping is smaller, but you won't have that blank space.
Next, remove the guides from your image. Select Image > Guides > Remove all Guides.
The finished result is ready for you to export.

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