Photoshop quick tip: Straighten

Photoshop CS6 has a new Crop Tool, which makes straightening of a photo much easier and quicker. The standard method is to press the ‘Straighten’ button in the tool bar and then draw a line over the horizon (or over something that should be perfectly vertical). However, it’s sometimes not that easy to find such a line, especially in a landscape picture. A good alternative is to place your cursor outside the image, at one of the corners. The cursor will become a bended arrow, and click and drag will now rotate the image within the crop tool frame. You’ll see a grid to make things easier to judge. If you deselect ‘Delete cropped pixels’, the crop will not be applied to the pixels, but a mask will be used. That means you can adjust the crop later of you’re not completely satisfied.