Lens correction not working on RAW photos

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Level 1

44 points

Lens correction not working on RAW photos

Even though I can see my lens (Sony 24-105) is recognised by Apple Photos, there is no lens correction/barrel correction being applied. I've read other posts but many of them are 10+ years old. Does anyone know what is the current situation? Why would lens correction fail to be applied, and is there another method or workaround. I'm talking many photos of framed artworks and can find no way to get them looking 'square' in the Photos, which doesn't seem likely. FWIW I'm shooting on a Sony A7siii with, as I say, Sony 24-105, in RAW.

Many thanks in anticipation of a possible solution to this frustrating issue.

Posted on Sep 13, 2024 12:36 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,861 points

Sep 13, 2024 2:45 AM in response to baldoyler

There is no documentation by Apple about the lens correction during the RAW development in Photos for Mac.

I can only tell from the results I am seeing, that some basic lens correction is applied for the standard lenses of a camera. But the barrel distortion of special lenses will not recorrected. We need a third party RaW development tool for these lenses. Photos for Mac does not include tools for an advanced RAW developement. The only tool we have is to repeat the RAW development after a software update that improved the RAW support.

I don't have your camera model, but the RAW files from my Lumix FZ300, also with a zoom lens, don't show much barrel distortion, when developed by Photos.

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Answer 2

Sep 13, 2024 7:55 AM in response to baldoyler

Horizontal and Vertical distortion controls are in the Edit>Crop mode.

I'm not sure that you should expect Photos, a free app that comes with a Mac, to offer much RAW control. For my Nikon's RAW files, I use Nikon's NX-studio (free) and Adobe's Lightroom (monthly fee) when I think it's worth the extra work to deal with RAW. I then export the results as jpegs, and finish up and organize my pictures in Photos. For most of my pictures I use the RAW development to jpegs done in the camera.

Does Sony offer it's own RAW developer app?

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Answer 3

baldoyler Author

Level 1

44 points

Sep 13, 2024 4:08 AM in response to léonie

Many thanks for your kind reply.

Unfortunately the barrel distortion I am experiencing makes it almost impossible to use the lens in any part of its zoom range. Apple Photos is clearly not applying any form of lens correction, despite the fact that it appears to recognise the lens. How frustrating! I would have thought basic lens correction, especially of a very well-known and popular lens (and range) would be part of any, even basic photo editor.

Yet again, Apple does some things so well but so many more so poorly.

Thank you again for your time.

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