Straighten Crooked Photos - Straighten Tool

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a picture is kitty-whampus...but, no matter...there are 2 easy ways to correct this. First, is MY favorire way...I like this way because it automatically corrects it so you don't have to clone the white corners to accomadate the image being rotated. The other way is the Ande way ;-) - this is a good way to do it if you don't have a lot of background to work with and will have to fake (or "clone") background in the empty voids created by the rotating. Enough of this...you need to know what I'm talking about.

Option 1: Okay, see my image? Looks like they are walking on an incline...they aren't, although it looks like the photographer was drunk - I wasn't! :-) Open up you RAW file, or if it's a JPEG, right-click and do a OPEN AS RAW. Once you are there, select the 7th tool button - it is to the right of the Crop tool and looks like something from Algebra - you know, find X? Anyway, this will allow you to draw a line on what you want to become the NEW straight plane of your photo. I thought the couple's feet would best identify in my case, but horizons also work great. Can you see the little dashed line (or marching ants) under their feet? To draw this dashed line you need to click AND HOLD until finished. Once you release your mouse, it will automatically correc the photo (see #2). Now you can edit cropping from here...in Camera Raw mode, you will not be able to crop outside the photo area, but with my photo I didn't need to, but I did crop further to center the subjects (see #3). Once you like what you have, double click in the center of the photo and you will get a straight shot (see #4).

Option 2: If you know you will have area that will fall off the photo area, you can also correct this in the main Photoshop mode. In your toolbar, along with the eyedropper tool button, there is a Ruler tool. Select this, make your line, then go to Image, then Image Rotation, then choose Arbitrary. Same thing, but it will not auto-crop. Either way, you'll straighten it out! Remember, practice makes perfect!

Note: sometimes images are hard to see in the blog, but you can click on the image and it will open up in a new window and from there you should be able to click again and it will be the real size...MUCH easier to view!