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use the measureing tool in CS2 to draw a line along your horizon.
[its in with the eyedropper tool, looks like a ruler]

before you let go of the mouse clicker you press Alt

go to image rotate and click on arbitury and the image will level itself the correct amount.

Do you need to press "Alt"? I've used the technique many times before but I only ever remember clicking and dragging from the start of the 'edge' to whatever finish point you think will give you a decent sample for the angle. I've never used the Alt key.

dunno, just found it worked this way.

An even better way is to use the straighten tool in Adobe Camera Raw... Draw a line along the plane that you want to be horizontal (or vertical) and it automatically rotates and crops the image...
I suspect you probably lose less image information doing it at this point as well...

Never used it John but you make a good point about loss of data. Thanks

The straightener in Google's Picassa is great and really simple to use.

leek wrote:An even better way is to use the straighten tool in Adobe Camera Raw... Draw a line along the plane that you want to be horizontal (or vertical) and it automatically rotates and crops the image...
I suspect you probably lose less image information doing it at this point as well...

Thanks John. Didn't know that. BTW it's the 3rd icon from the right in the toolbar at the top of the ACR window

Big Red wrote:use the measureing tool in CS2 to draw a line along your horizon.
[its in with the eyedropper tool, looks like a ruler]

before you let go of the mouse clicker you press Alt

go to image rotate and click on arbitury and the image will level itself the correct amount.

I've used it a few times myself, but sometimes found it to be off too much for my liking. You really need to be zoomed in and completely accurate with the measuring tool.

I just use the gridlines, line up something with the gridline and rotate. I know its a longer process but it gives me the results I want

I use either method:

• In PS, draw a line with Measure Tool. Then Rotate->Arbitrary. No need for Alt/Option/whatever.
• In ACR, use straighten tool. Note that this was NOT available in ACR2.* (i.e. in CS).

Mostly I do my straightening in ACR so that it's recorded with the RAW settings and next time I open the file it'll remember the tilt.

Note that the line you're trying to straighten doesn't have to be horizontal. If it's tilted more than 45 degrees the software will assume you're working on a vertical line. This is useful when using water reflections as a guide.

new version of nikon Capture also has an auto horizon fixer

Jonathan