One feature I loved about programs like ACDSee was the ability to rotate a picture to straighten it by drawing a line on something and watching the picture rotate to make that line straight. It’s a handy feature, and a fast way to straighten something based on some point of reference in a photo.

David Chartier at the Unofficial Photoshop Weblog has come up with a way to replicate that functionality, and it works like a dream:

Using the Measure Tool (oddly hidden under the Eyedropper Tool) in CS2 and CS, as well as 7 and I think 6 and earlier, you can draw a straight line and use it to orient your comp. For example: say you need to rotate an image ever so slightly so the side of a building is perfectly vertical or the edge of a table exactly horizontal. Simply draw a line with the Measure Tool along whatever object, edge or item you would like to straighten out with, then go up to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary. The Angle field will already be filled in with the value needed to straighten out the line you drew, in which case your canvas will rotate by that amount.

Utterly brilliant, and even though I’ve been using Photoshop for a looooooooong time, I’ve never seen this tip actually documented. Go figure!

Thanks David!

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