Problem: You have a nice framed picture and you wish to photograph it. If you're like most people in this situation you'll simply prop the picture up against anything handy - like a wall - stand as close as you can get to right-smack-in-front of it and take the photo.

The chances are you will NOT be dead-square in front, but somewhat off-centre, probably off on both x-axis and y-axis (i.e. you'll be left or right from centre, and be up or down from centre).

Now you may not have tried this, but I can assure you it's very difficult to position yourself absolutely dead-centre in front of a painting, or in fact just about any object. You'd have the same problem if you wanted to photograph that new dog kennel, or the garden shed you just built.

Before we go any further, I'll show you an example of what I'm talking about.

Above is a picture of a framed photograph (actually it's one of my photos, overlooking the historic town of Maldon, Victoria, Australia); the original photo is about 9.5"x12" and the frame is 16"x20". To take the picture you see above I rested the frame against a support on top of a table, set up my camera on a tripod in front of it and took the picture. You'll notice the picture frame is "square" and parallel, i.e. there is no distortion. That's because my camera was absolutely smack in front of the picture AND was parallel to it.

That's how it should always be; unfortunately, all too frequently the results look like the image below.

The frame and picture look as though they're leaning backwards - and they are. Sad to say, this and similar distortions are all-too familiar when one views photographs of framed artworks, stamp albums, scrapbooks, rooms, buildings - just about anything that is in some way square or rectangular.

Now some will immediately say, "Hey, you can fix that stuff in Photoshop", and that's quite true, up to a point. The use of digital image editing assumes the image is in (or available in) digital format, and that it's appropriate and convenient to use it (not to mention having the software and skills necessary). I suggest it's much better to shoot it correctly - that is, distortion-free - in the first place.

How? Well, as the magician said, "It's all done with mirrors". HERE'S THE TRICK >>