Straighten a Crooked Photo

It’s common to take a photo where the horizon does not appear level or objects with straight lines (such as a fence, railing, or house) seem tilted.

The horizon in this image is tilted

You can fix tilted photos by rotating the image a few degrees at a time until it looks straight. With the image open, select the Rotate command in the Image menu. To use the rotation wheel, grab the knob and drag it to any position. You can also rotate the image by clicking on one of the preset arrow buttons, or typing in a specific number of degrees and hitting enter.

 

Rotate the image by degrees until the horizon appears straight

As you rotate the image, you’ll see the background color appear to fill the open space left behind by the original image. To get rid of the background color, you’ll have to crop the rotated photo. For details on how to crop, see Using the Crop Tool, below.

Crop the rotated photo

Now the horizon appears level