Using Photoshop's Hidden Auto-Rotate Feature
By Deke McClelland
Total Training Inc.

 

Photoshop has a variety of neat tricks that are hidden - here's one example.

This is an image that I accidentally shot crooked. You can use the crop tool to correct this, but even easier way to fix this problem is to use the Measure tool.
   
You can bring this up by pressing the "U" key for MeasUre, as in a unit of measure. Now notice that there are no options for the measure tool.
   
However, drag a vertical line with the measure tool inside the image to what looks like correct angle, which causes Photoshop to switch from the options palette (which wasn't any help anyway) to the Info palette. The info palette now tells us the angle of the measurement. From the numeric values that are now shown, it's somewhat difficult to figure out what you need to do to correct the image. You could put the measurement tool horizontally instead and come up with another set of numbers. However, the whole point of this tip is that you don't have to know what degree of rotation you need - you don't have to even look at this value. Here's why. Let's use a vertical placement of the measuring tool, which now displays a value of 89. 3 degrees (for what it's worth).
   
Now select Image from the pull down menu, Rotate Canvas, and then Arbitrary.
   
Photoshop automatically loads in a value to correct the image, in this case .7 Counter Clockwise (CCW), which will rotate the image back to 90 degrees. Hit enter and now the Eiffel Tower is straight.
   

Hit enter and now the Eiffel Tower is straight.

Deke McClelland is the number one-selling author of books about computer graphics, digital imaging, and electronic design. Having written more than 50 titles in the past decade, his work has been translated into 24 languages with 2.5 million copies in print worldwide. He is best known for his titles on industry-standard image editing application Adobe Photoshop, which include Photoshop Bible, Photoshop for Dummies, and Photoshop Studio Secrets.

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To see and hear Deke explain this tip, just click on the image (QuickTime movie 2.3 Mbytes)


   

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