7.01.2008

Tutorial Tuesday - Straightening A Photo

Happy Birthday Canada!! YAY FOR CANADA DAY!

Okay, now I've got that out of my system, time for a super quick Tutorial Tuesday. There is a nifty (yes, I said nifty) tool in Photoshop Elements that makes quick work of straightening a not-so-straight photo. Have you ever taken photos where they are unintentionally crooked? I do. Especially when dealing with landscapes or any photo with a horizon line. I'm going to show you how to use the nifty straightening tool to fix it. You can do this in full photoshop in the RAW screen, however there isn't this same tool in full version. There is a round about way of doing it I can show you, if you'd like, but for now we're dealing with elements.

1. Open your beautiful, though not quite straight, photo. You can see from my example that the baby and towels are slightly lifted up on the left. We don't want that.

2. Select the straightening tool from your tools palette. It's the one that kind of looks like a photo being straightened. I know. Make sure "Rotate All Layers" is selected in the options bar at the top of the screen.

Once you've clicked on the straightening tool, drag your mouse over to your photo and find a spot on the photo that should be a straight line. This could be horizontally or vertically. For me, an easy spot was the bottom of the towel. I click on the left end of the towel, and while holding down the mouse, drag it towards the right - drawing a line where the straight line should be. Make sense? You can see in my example what I mean.
3. Once you let up on the mouse button, Elements will automatically straighten the photo. You will have some blank areas left (the white spaces) that you will then need to crop out.
4. Select the crop tool from the tools palette (remember which one that is?) and now crop your photo in a bit closer to remove the blank spots. Click the green checkmark when your happy with the crop.
5. Your photo will be straight as an arrow! Now save the straightened image and you are good to go!

Doesn't this sweetheart deserve to be straight? This is the angel I rescheduled the photoshoot with. The re-shoot went so well! He was a complete angel. I can't wait to show you some of the fun shots we got of this little guy. Ciao for now!

4 comments:

Jenn said...

I figured this one out on my own--- but it is the first thing I've done without your help!!! So thank you again a ton! I love your tutorials!

And yes little man deserves a second chance- I love his picture from yesterday with his finger in his mouth--- how sweet!

Are You Serious! said...

♡ I'd never played with this before just trying to chage it by twisting hte whole photo! Much EASIER! :)

Jamie said...

Very neat trick. Thanks for sharing.

RK said...

Just realised you are a Canadian, me too!! I live in the US but proud Canadian citizen! Great tuts on your site.