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 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.
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!
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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Robin
March 3, 2017 at 2:18 amThis 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!
Erica Gamet
March 4, 2017 at 1:08 pmGlad it was helpful!
Paul
March 7, 2017 at 6:05 pmWithin 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.
Terry Veiga
March 10, 2017 at 7:33 pmThanks, 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.
Terry Veiga
March 10, 2017 at 7:52 pm…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.
Dave
March 16, 2017 at 7:38 amWhat “straighten button”?
Much easier in Picasa.
When will Photo Shop catch up?