How to Straighten an Image in Photoshop

Since I can remember, I’ve been told I was a little off-kilter. Whether or not that’s true about me, it is an issue with several of the photos I take. I’m not alone, as many of the photos I receive for projects are as tilted as Italy’s iconic tower. Photoshop gives us a couple of ways to straighten a crooked image with very little effort.

I was too pre-occupied with not falling off a cliff to worry about my horizon.

I was too pre-occupied with not tripping over a log to worry about my horizon.

The first approach is super old-school and the way I still tackle this fix. Old habits refuse to die, I guess. This method isn’t readily apparent and maybe it makes me feel like I have a hidden superpower.

Straightening Images with the Ruler Tool

If you have a pre-CC 2015 version of Photoshop, this method is for you.

  • Go to the Tools panel and choose the Ruler tool (nested under the Eyedropper tool).
  • Click and drag along the horizon, or any plane you want to make horizontal or vertical.
  • In the Image menu, choose Image Rotation > Arbitrary.
  • The values and direction are filled in with info from the Ruler tool, so just click OK.
  • You’ll have to crop the image to accommodate the blank bits of canvas created by the rotation.

RotateCanvas
RotatedCanvas

Using the Straighten Button

Newer features have made the process a little more straightforward and easier. The Straighten button in the Control panel works like the old-school method, but in reverse.

  • Select the Crop tool in the Tools panel, move the handles to crop if needed.
  • Click the Straighten button.
  • With the Straighten tool that appears (it looks like a level), drag it along the horizon, then release.
  • The crop even automatically adjusts to get rid of any empty canvas areas created by the rotation!

SmartRotate

Just Because It’s a Classic…

Sometimes an old dog knows there’s a new trick, but she just doesn’t want to learn it. But in this case, considering how many crooked images I have to fix, the Straighten button is my new best friend!

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This article was last modified on February 27, 2017

Comments (6)

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  1. What “straighten button”?
    Much easier in Picasa.
    When will Photo Shop catch up?

  2. Terry Veiga

    Thanks, Erica, it’s good to see other techniques. I like to turn on Show Grid (Cmd-‘), hit Cmd-T for Transform, then rotate the image to a horizon line using the grid lines as guides. Simultaneously, you can click-drag the image to move its position, then continue your rotation/scaling edits all during the same procedure.

    1. Terry Veiga

      …I forgot to add, I do these steps, including canvas crops, using Smart Object layers to avoid progressive image interpolation over the course of multiple edits. This way, of course, the original image will always be a double-click away.

  3. Within PS it’s easier to simply click outside the cropping area to rotate it – find the horizon that way and then re-size the cropping box. You get to choose your best fit that way. Frankly Corel PhotoPaint does it much more intuitively so I use that instead. Faster and smoother by far for straightening images in my workflow.

  4. This was very helpful. I have to confess that I straighten my images by eyeballing them and use the rotate tool, then crop. Will try these methods to hopefully straighten a bit more accurately!

    1. Erica Gamet

      Glad it was helpful!