Straightening- Easy As 1-2-3!

[Goofup]

You all know me- I just have a thing about crooked pictures.
* I can’t imagine putting a beautiful, but tilted, picture in a frame and then trying to hang it straight!
* I have trouble understanding why some would go to all the work of applying curves, color correcting, sharpening, cropping, etc., and then not bother to straighten it.
* In the real world water really is flat and level. So are the bottom layers of clouds, and construction guys really don’t build tilted buildings.
*The main thing though is a tilted photo just looks funny. It ain’t right.
*Believe it or not, it’s much easier to fix in PP than it is trying to get it perfectly level in-camera.

With all that in mind, here’s a Simple Reminder on how to straighten a picture. Most of you know all this stuff (it’s Editing 101), but I put this together with beginners (and those who have forgotten) in mind just to remind you that straightening a picture really is as Easy As 1-2-3!

You’ll have to forgive the example I choose, but you gotta admit it does illustrate a crooked picture! (You know I had to force myself to take this one on purpose). Anyway here’s how do it using:

Photoshop Elements
PaintShop Pro
Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)
Photoshop (CS, CS2, CS3)


Photoshop Elements



Step 1- Choose the Straighten Tool.
Step 2- Click and drag a line across the horizon (or roof top, etc., whatever should be level). You might want to have “Crop to Remove Background” checked to save you some cropping.
Step 3- Let go the mouse! That’s it, done.
HINT: If you need to straighten a crooked building (or other vertical line), hold the Ctrl key down while you draw the line with your mouse.

PaintShop Pro



Step 1- Choose the Straighten Tool.
Step 2- A line with a “grab box” on each end will superimpose on the screen. Just move the line around using the grab boxes to line up with a either a horizontal or a vertical line (doesn't matter). Have the “Crop Image” box checked, and the Mode on “Auto”.
Step 3- Click the green checkmark to straighten it up, or just simply double-click anywhere in the image.

Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)



Step 1- Click on the Straighten Tool in the tool bar. (Sheesh! ACR has a straighten tool, why can’t Photoshop itself?)
Step 2- Draw a line along the horizon with your mouse. (Holding the Ctrl key down while you draw a vertical line with the mouse will align verticals.)
Stop 3- When you let go the picture will be cropped as you see here. Looks funny right now, but it remembers that adjustment so when you open the file up in Photoshop it will be cropped and straight!

PhotoShop



Step 1- Choose the Measuring Tool (the little ruler). It’s buried under the Eyedropper tool, so just hit Shift-I till it shows up.
Step 2- Using the mouse click and drag a line along the horizon (hold the Ctrl key down while dragging to do verticals).
Step 3- Go to the menu and choose Image/Rotate Canvas/Arbitrary… A little dialog box (Rotate Canvas) will then pop up, but it’s already all filled in for you. Just hit Enter and you’re done!

Final Hint: The picture looks good to you- but what’s an easy way to test to see if it needs straightening? Choose the Rectangular Marque Tool (the square selection tool) and use the edge of a box you draw along the horizon or vertical line. You’ll see right away if it needs straightening or not. (In most programs Ctrl-D undoes the selection box, or just Undo it).

See, nothing to it! Easy as 1-2-3!

[SebSays]

Question: If the picture is perfectly straight in the frame and all is level is it OK to hang the frame crooked LOL!!! I have approx 26 foot of display windows out front and many prints out on display of all sizes in groupings and I have several turned helter skelter!

Seb

[Goofup]

Whatever sells...

[yendikeno]

which version of Elements does that screen shot show?

[Paht6]

Great tutorial, goofup. karma for this.

[Goofup]

Version of Elements? 6.0, but the older version should be the same.

[yendikeno]

Originally Posted by Goofup

Version of Elements? 6.0, but the older version should be the same.

Thank you.

[Benji]

In the portrait studio when using "old masters" type of backgrounds one can tilt the camera without the viewer knowing it because there are no straight lines in the background.

Benji

[Torlough]

In photoshop when you do this:

Go to the menu and choose Image/Rotate Canvas/Arbitrary… A little dialog box (Rotate Canvas) will then pop up, but it’s already all filled in for you. Just hit Enter and you’re done!

your background will be straight but the border will be need to be croped and resized correct?

[rockvillage]

Cool. I used to have Elements, and just got Photoshop CS3. I didn't know either one had these types of tools. I was using the manual rotate & eye-balling the amount. Thank you so much for sharing this.

Anne

[ljh34465]

Thanks, Goofup. Really appreciate your effort - deserving of Karma

[Bob Stothfang]

I'm with benji on this one, except I usually take a portrait straight in the studio and then crop it crooked in Photo Shop to get the angle I want for the subject in the frame. Obviously you need a plain or old masters background to pull this off.

The straightening technique described by the original poster works quite well for more reasonable subjects that must be straight to look right (images with horizontal or vertical lines that need to appear straight).