A wise photoshop guru once taught me this well kept secret and it’s about time I share it with the masses. Sometimes it’s fine to eyeball a photo level using the crop tool and rotating it to taste. But if you have a horizontal reference (something that should be level) in the photo you can use it to quickly take the guess work out of leveling.
Step 1: Select the Ruler Tool
Step 2: Use the ruler tool and draw from point A to point B that represents “Level” in the photograph.
Step 3: Goto Rotate Arbitrary as shown below.
Step 4: Click Ok, take note of the degrees off level just incase it’s way off or rotating the wrong direction clockwise vs counter clockwise.
Step 5: You’re photo is now leveled without having to guess and you can crop to taste.
If you’ve got a photoshop tip or trick we’d love to share it with our readers. mark@digitalweddingforum.com
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4 Comments at "Photoshop – How to Level a Photo Using the Ruler Tool"
nice!
Does this work in CS2? I always had to go to the filter “Lens Correction” to manage the same thing- drawing a line for horizontal or vertical.
I like Aperture’s rotate command and how it auto-crops as it goes, but I still love being able to draw a vertical or horizontal. It’s especially useful for architectural work where you know which element absolutely has to be dead-on straight.
This is fabulous!
@Dan: this will work in CS2. I’m pretty sure this “secret” has been hiding since around Photoshop 5, but no one seems to realize that it’s there.
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