Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

Chapter 3: Rotating and Resizing Your Photos 67

Straightening the

Contents of Your

Image

If you want to position your photo at an angle on a page (as you would in a scrap-

book), use Free Rotate Layer, described on page 70.

Straightening the Contents of Your Image

What about all those photos you’ve taken where the content isn’t quite straight?

You can flip those pictures around forever, but if your camera was off-kilter when

you snapped the shot, your subjects will lean like a certain tower in Pisa. Elements

has planned for this problem, too, by including a nifty Straighten tool that makes

adjusting the horizon as easy as drawing a line.

TIP About 95 percent of the time, the Straighten tool will do the trick. But for the few cases

where you can’t get things looking perfect, you can still use the old school Elements method—the

Free Rotate command, described on page 69.

Straighten Tool

If you can never seem to hold a camera perfectly level, you’ll love the Elements

Straighten tool. It lives just below the Cookie Cutter tool in the Full Editor’s tool-

box. To straighten a crooked photo:

1. Open the photo, and then activate the Straighten tool.

Its icon is two little photos, one crooked and one not. Or, on the keyboard, just

press P.

2. Make any changes to the Options bar settings for the Straighten tool before

you use the tool.

Your choices are described below.

Figure 3-3:

Even the most uncooperative cat ...