Quick tip: Straightening a horizon line.
You may have remembered my class admonition to take care with those horizon
lines--crooked horizons are really disconcerting. As disconcerting, however,
is remembering to hold your camera straight. Heaven knows, I don't, as in this
practice photo. I really like the photo (Spanish Mediterranean),
but not the crooked horizon. You could straighten it by rotating the canvas
by hand, or by cropping, but here's a shortcut.
1. Choose the Ruler tool (li'l ruler). It might be behind the Eyedropper tool. Note: If you don't see the tool working on a PC, choose Window pulldown, Workspace, and Graphics and Web.)
2. Drag over the line you want to be straight, in this case the horizon line. If you make a mistake, choose Clear from the Options Bar at top to start over.
3. Note that the Options Bar displays the angle of your line ("A:"). Even better, it remembers the angle you need when you...
4. Open the Image Rotation dialogue box from the Image pull-down menu, and choose Arbitrary. The angle is already in the box. Choose Okay, and behold: straight horizon.
5. You will have to crop to eliminate that extra white space. Choose the Crop Tool (overlapping Ls), select area, and Crop (Image pulldown).
