It has been so cold lately, that it’s got me thinking about the beach…so, I was going through some pictures from a past beach trip and found a couple I wanted to edit. I really liked this original, but I thought just a few quick edits could make it look a little better – the main thing being the angle of the picture. Now if you’ve been a blog reader for a while, you will know that I have no problem with a little camera tilt. In fact, I tend to shoot with a little angle. ALOT. But there are times when even I really just want my shot to be straight. This was one of those times. There are several ways you can straighten a picture, but this is my favorite…
Here’s the original:
I really wanted the planks of the boardwalk to be straight. So using my photo editing software (I use Photoshop, but you should be able to do this same thing using other software as well), I selected the Ruler tool – which is in the drop down menu under the eye dropper.
With the ruler tool selected, draw a line on something that should be straight in your picture. For example, I wanted the lines in the boardwalk to be straight, so I just drew a line across there. You will usually use something like the horizon, sidewalk, etc. but vertical lines work too if you are trying to straighten something like, say, a vertical column.
Next, go to ‘Image/Rotate Canvas/Arbitrary’. When you select this option, a box will pop up with an angle that is already populated, based on the line you drew on the picture. You can then select whether you want the picture rotated clockwise, or counterclockwise. Just select ‘OK’ and your picture will be straightened out.
Keep in mind that when you rotate, the edges of your photo will be shifted about, so you will also need to crop your photo to get rid of the empty space on the edges. Select the Crop tool and then set the size you want to crop. For this picture, I selected a width of 4inches, and a length of 6inches.
After a crop and a few more edits, here is my final image:
And the before and after, side by side:
Hope this is helpful! Feel free to email me if you have any questions about this, or any of the other tips! Have a great week everyone!
~Sarah
