Making your own lens profiles.

Apologies for always asking bizarre questions, but one thing I love about this forum is people's willingness to discuss unusual topics.

I want to try and make lens profiles for two types of laminated windows that I shoot through regularly; is this possible, and does anyone have any idea how I could go about it? I know that infinity doees not work through both types of window, especially at longer focal lengths (above about 60mm), and this has led me to think there may be some way of compensating for it. One window has fairly uniform curvature throughout the part I use and the other is compltely flat. Both require focus at slightly less than infinity, regardless of aperture, for subjects over 2 miles away. Is it possible that there could be a way of correcting what I would guess is fairly uniform distortion? Or am I talking complete bollocks?

Do you mean lightroom lens profiles?

ACR or Lightroom profiles. I would like to know how to experiment with making my own profiles.

Its pretty easy in light room, just do your editing as normal then press the + button next to where all the light room presets are. In the dialogue box which comes up, tick the adjustments you want applied to all future shots.

Thanks Pentaxophile, I will try that. I presume I will be able to see the adjustments as I am trying them? I am also guessing I will have to create a different profile for different focal lengths? Or is it possible there is some sort of constant?

How you correct for that sort of distortion is a different matter.

???

Not sure I get you on that one.

Very useful, but that's not a lens profile, it's a develop preset.

Lens profiles are created using the Adobe Lens Profile Creator

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lensprofile_creator/

It involves printing out some benchmark images and shooting them through your lens and any other medium such as your laminated windows.

The Adobe program then create a profile which will correct any distortions measured

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-processing-articles/112707-adobe-lens-profiles-camera-raw-photoshop-cs5-lightroom-3-a.html

...is a good list of Pentax lens profiles for Camera Raw, Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3

Thanks Smeggy I will download that Lens Profile Creator and give it a try. I didn't know it existed.

Finally found a solution, which is Focus Magic, I don't know why I had not tried it before. I originally downloaded the trial version to try and improve some thunderstorm shots, but had limited success with those. Works a treat on normal aerial shots though, see my thread on Focus magic for a view of the results if interested.