All Graphic Design Portal is a directory of resources, articles, & design education links for graphic designers & web designers including a design forum, blog, & directory.
-
-
Creative Graphic Design Templates
Take a look at these creative templates for brochures, flyers, newsletters, stationery, postcards, ads, menus and posters for a variety of businesses. If you're faced with time limitations, budget constraints or simply need new creative ideas, let these designs do the work.
- Suggested Links
- Photoshop Tutorials
- Graphic Design Resources
- Vandelay Design Blog
- Web Design & Graphic Design Blog
- Graphic Designers
- Tutorials Outpost
- Creative Public
- The Print Guide
- Creative Track
- Digital Dreamer
- Logomarket
- Desktop Publishing
- Blue Sfear
- Web Design Templates
- More Graphic Design Links
- Design Directory
- Photoshop, Flash Tutorials
- Web Designers & Developers
- Photoshop Tutorial Man
- Tutorial Guide
- Webmaster Tutorials
- Web Designers
- Web Design Portfolios
- All Work at Home Ideas
- Unlimited Website Templates
- Other Sites We Own
- AllFreelance
- Artists Helping Children
- All Freelance Work & Portfolios
- Graphic Design Community
- Best of Graphic Design
home > Graphic Design Articles > Graphics Software > Crooked Horizons in your Photos? – 5 Minute Digital Fix with Photoshop
Crooked Horizons in your Photos? – 5 Minute Digital Fix with Photoshop
by Gary Wilkinson
This article will guide you through the process of fixing up your digital photographs with either Photoshop or other image editing software. By using the rotation tool and the measure tool, you can easily fix the crooked horizons as if nothing was ever wrong with your picture.
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS FROM OUR GRAPHIC DESIGN COMMUNITY |
||||
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
||
Remember the good old photography days? Film camera in hand, you would see that perfect landscape, seascape or sunset and shoot off several shots. Perhaps a couple of weeks later, once you had returned home and finally finished that 24 or 36 exposure film, it was off to the photo-lab to get the film processed. You eagerly open the packet of photographs, looking for that superb seascape you took, knowing that it would almost certainly be taken up by National Geographic for their monthly magazine spread.
What do you find?
A not too bad photo, but the seascape horizon is crooked, here’s your excuse, I hear you say.. “Well when I took the shot I was standing on the side of a sand dune and quickly trying to get that perfect shot while the little sailboat was still in view”. Does this sound familiar to all you budding Adam Ansels and/or Lord Snowdons? The photo is relegated back to the packet never again to see the light of day. I had many of those packets of not so perfect photos until the digital photography age arrived.
The Digital Darkroom has arrived
The advent of the digital camera and in fact, before that, computerized image manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop has completely revolutionized the way we can now resurrect a stunning image from what at face value might have appeared to be just one of those snapshots to be relegated to the shoebox under the stairs.
What I’m going to show you in this article is just one method of taking a mundane snapshot and producing a great shot in as little as five minutes.
The example I’m going to use, is one that I have seen so many times, and have already mentioned above, namely, shots that have crooked horizons, whether this be a landscape, seascape, sunset or whatever.
The source of the image may have come from a scanned negative, scanned print or digital camera image all converted to an image format (most probably .JPG pronounced “jaypeg”) that can be opened in your image manipulation software.
Correcting a crooked horizon
The human eye is remarkably perceptive at picking out features in a photograph that are made up of essentially straight lines and that those lines are not parallel, either horizontally or vertically, with the overall print itself.
These straight lines may well be the horizon, but they may also be an object in your photo that has straight lines such as buildings or walls etc ..
I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS, but almost all other image manipulation software packages have similar tools so the method described should be repeatable with your own software package.
The method used will employ a little known relationship between two Photoshop functions, the Measure tool and the Rotate Canvas command.
Step – 1 Open up your image in your image editor (in our case Photoshop) and select the Measure tool which if not visible on the Photoshop toolbar can be found by hovering your mouse over the Eyedropper tool and “left clicking”.
Watch the other options window “fly-out” and select the Measure tool.
Step – 2 Interestingly enough, we are not actually going to measure anything in the real sense of the word, nor use the Measure tool as it is usually used (i.e. measuring the distance between two points within the photograph).
With the Measure tool active, “left click” and “hold” on a spot on the left hand side of the photo (remember our example is a seascape) where the horizon meets the sea.
While still “holding down” the left mouse button, drag to the right hand side of the photo and find a corresponding point where the horizon meets the sea and then release the mouse button.
What happened? .. Well you will see that a white line has been drawn on top of the photo with what looks like little ”+” anchors at each end. The line is parallel with our crooked horizon.
Step – 3 Now the marvel begins!! Select the Image->Rotate Canvas->Arbitrary … command and the Rotate Canvas pop-up window will appear.
What you will notice (in the case of Photoshop anyway) is that it has ”pre-filled” the pop-up rotate options with the exact rotation information to correct the crooked horizon, 1.5 degrees counter-clockwise in our example on our web-site. Click OK and see what happens ..
The photo has been magically rotated the right amount to correct the crooked horizon!
Step – 4 All that is required now is to do a tight “crop” on the overall photograph and save it.
And there you have it!! Less than five minutes of digital image manipulation to take that mundane snapshot into a photograph that is very pleasing to the eye.
If you find the steps taking are a little hard to understand in this text based article, you can click on the link at the beginning of this article to see the same method explained on our website with the aid of example graphical images.
Gary Wilkinson may be contacted at http://www.restoring-photos-made-easy.com art-submit@restoring-photos-made-easy.co. Click here to view more of their articles.
© Gary Wilkinson 2005 - All Rights Reserved
Gary Wilkinson is a photographer, photographic restorer and the owner of a photographic retail business.
He is also the publisher of the www.restoring-photos-made-easy.com website, where other methods of correcting common photographic restoration problems are discussed.
With Adobe recently launching their online version of Adobe Photoshop - Adobe Photoshop Express - you might be wondering if there are other quality image editors online. You don't have to wonder anymore. We have put together a list of more than 30 web-based picture editors that are great alternatives to Photoshop Express. I am not saying that any of these online image editing tools are better than Photoshop Express, but they are all quality tools that can be used to create great image effects.
We have set up a script to take the freelance design jobs from dozens of freelance sites, graphic design forums, web design forums, job boards, and graphic design job sites. This script is set to automatically update this job board several times a day so you can be assured that you are looking at regularly updated freelance graphic design and web design projects on this aggregator.
I get questions about fonts all the time and I wanted to write a post that would help many of you. Today I am answering many questions about fonts that will help you in your daily graphic design tasks.
You will find that a lot of these tools can automate your graphic design process by actually doing the tedious repetitive tasks that slow you down. There are a ton of tools listed here, so make sure to bookmark this page.
Logo Design Process of Inspirational Graphic Designer Jon Sandruck Do you want to learn about the logo design process from a logo designer who is going to have two of his logos to be included in the inspirational Logo Lounge 5? Then please welcome the very talented Jon Sandruck. Today Jon Sandruck is going to detail [...]
I have collected more than a dozen of the coolest shopping bags that I have ever seen. The creativity that was put into designing these bags could be put towards any graphic design project, and is not only limited to shopping bag design. These graphic designers thought outside the box (or bag in this situation) and I would love to have you submit some designs that you think showcase the same creative thinking (designing).
If you are a Photoshop guru, then you are probably always on the lookout for new free Photoshop stuff. Well, we try to do that legwork for you. On this page you will find a nice roundup of free Photoshop pattern sites. Click through to these sites and download some of those free patterns. Have fun.
A collection of Typography blogs & resources, Typography articles, Typography showcases, and Typography tools and then categorized them for you in this article.
I have collected the top Photoshop Logo Design tutorials online and listed them for you below. There are also plenty of Web 2.0 Logo Design tutorials as well.
This part II of a never-ending series of the coolest outside ads, billboards, and public advertising.
-
SOUR!
Where to get these type of floral elements?
i can't believe it.. i'm in.
whats the general courtesy when a client decides
Up For Grabs: Adobe CS2
I Get to Go Shopping! Large Format Printer Help
Logo and website for new initiative: Orangutan Land Trust
Logo for Orangutan-Friendly Palm Oil Required
I want to be Sedated...
"Selling" your design
how lengthen dog tail into font script ?
Wings of Compassion
Web Design Critique
My second Flash site
Help with product pricing
6 Million Downloadable Clipart Images for Graphic Designers
The Clipart.com collection of more than 10 million royalty-free clipart images, photos, illustrations, fonts, sounds and Web graphics provides creative professionals with the most choice at the best price. With a Clipart.com subscription, you pay one fee and download what you need.
Sep 1Huge Roundup of Typography Blogs, Resources, Articles, Galleries, & Tools
A collection of Typography blogs & resources, Typography articles, Typography showcases, and Typography tools and then categorized them for you in this article.
May 27A New and More Accurate Search Engine for Finding Free Clipart
As graphic designers, we are always on the hunt for quality free clipart images to use in our designs. The problem is that often searching for clipart often brings back very inaccurate search results. Well, thanks to one of my friends, I have found a new site called Find Free Clipart which will make my life much easier the next time I search for clipart online.
Apr 26Podcast for Freelance Graphic Designers
Lindsay Marsh, owner of Marsh Graphic Design has created several audio and video podcasts she calls the Freelancer. They cover various topics related to the freelance graphic designer. She plans on doing these pretty regularly and from what we see there is a lot of potential here. I suggest you check them out. The [...]
Mar 7Hot in Graphic Design - A Superb Guide to Designing With Black
A Superb Guide to Designing With Black Many of the people who visit All Graphic Design are Graphic Designers and many of you are Web Designers. If you are a Graphic Designer, than you most likely know that many things can go wrong when sending your files to be printed. For one thing, colors never look [...]
Mar 6Hot in Graphic Design - Find Out if You are a Lousy, No Good Graphic Designer
Find Out if You are a Lousy, No Good Graphic Designer Hey, I bet you think you are the best Graphic Designer around, don't you?! Well, if you are brave enough, you should take a look at an article which will hit you where it hurts (if you are doing any of the 13 tell tale [...]
Mar 5Hot in Graphic Design - Examples of Good Graphic Design Portfolios
Examples of Good Graphic Design Portfolios This is a post on Astheria Design Blog that is in response to a previous post called "?My Last Portfolio Sucked, Yours Might Too"?. This articles includes pictures and links to Design portfolios that were designed with a goal in mind. All of these design portfolios have one thing in [...]
Mar 5Hot in Graphic Design - Some Online Printing Services I?ve Used
Some Online Printing Services I've Used - Personal Commercial Printers Review Whether you are a Graphic Designer or a Web Designer, we all need to use commercial printing services every once in a while. All freelancers, in fact, need to use printing services to print items such as business cards, printing labels, envelopes, letterhead, marketing materials, [...]
Feb 29Hot in Graphic Design - Should Graphic Designers Use Design Elements in Their Resume?
Should Graphic Designers Use Design Elements in Their Resume? I have always been told that utilizing design within a resume is the wrong thing to do, Graphic Designer or not. So when I saw this article title, it caught my eye and I had to read more. However, the author of this article doesn't agree with [...]
Feb 29Hot in Graphic Design - List of 120+ Free Photoshop Actions for Cool Designs
List of 120+ Free Adobe Photoshop Actions for Cool Designs I was excited when I found this huge list of free Adobe Photoshop actions, and I am guessing that you will be excited as well. Actions are the best way to speed up Photoshop tasks that you do on a regular basis, such as change an [...]
Feb 29Hot in Graphic Design - Logo Design Trends for 2008
Logo Design Trends for Graphic Designers in 2008 As a Graphic Designer, you might not think that trends are important when it comes to designing a logo. However, as you can see if you look at design archives, the art of Graphic Design changes. As a designer, you will need to keep on top of these [...]
Website Redesign for Real Estate Resourc
Hi all, My website needs facelifting. This is a real estate resource similar to Trulia. The purpose of redesign is to give our site the modern look and keep it up to the "international web design st? Client is in Kyiv,
Package Design for Warehouse Club Produc
We prefer to work with local Tucson, AZ resource. My Industry: Stationery Review of current package design for Warehouse Club Stationery set. Recommend and prepare design improvements. ? Client is in Tucson, AZ
Website Redesign for Vehicle Performance
Local to Houston area, please. I am look for a designer to work with to refresh and update the company website. The site is about 20 pages currently, will probably need to add more. I don't have any ? Client is in Houston, TX
Website Redesign for a Financial Service
Number of pages (approx): 5-6 pages My Industry: Financial Services We currently have somewhat of a site listed at the URL provided. However, before we advertise, we would like a more professional s? Client is in Mcdonough, GA
Redesign website and logo for Party Serv
Number of pages (approx): 6? My Industry: childrens entertainment The site is 3 years old. It was a cheap and cheerful site that served as a simple presence to highlight the birthday parties. Sin? Client is in Dublin 15,
Web Design: Residential Remodeling
I have pictures and would like a web page that customers can go to so they can view our work. Also would like information about our company and references etc. Once the web page is completed I can upd? Client is in Hayward, CA
Motion Designer After Effects Expert Nee
Hi I`m looking for an After Effects / Flash expert to give me three different quotes. Quote 1 I already have this After Effects Project, and I can send to you. But how much just to customize this p? Client is in Washington, DC
One Page Web Design for Entertainment
Number of pages (approx): 1 basic layout with reusable content for websites / possibly a logo My Industry: Entertainment I need a one page website design that can be reused for myspace as well. No f? Client is in Poplar Bluff, MO
Creative Tee Shirt Design
Number of pages (approx):1 My Industry: Promotional Products 1)2 or 3 original drawings to be proposed/presented to resturants and bars shown on spec leading to an order. 2) Finished art suitable f? Client is in Key West, FL
Logo Design for Towing Company
Looking to revamp our current logo design. We have some ideas in mind as to what direction we would like to go in. Looking to incorporate 4 colors or less (colors would be Emerald Green, Gold, White, ? Client is in Downers Grove, IL