Level 2 Plus

Lesson 7

Rotate & Straighten

Images often need to be rotated for editing. In addition, images are sometimes captured without a straight horizon.

Introduction

In this lesson, we will cover the rotation of images for easier viewing and editing. We will also cover automatic and manual methods to level horizontal lines in your images.

We have selected an image to work on. In this lesson we are not actually going to work on this image.

However, this action allows us to enter the “Standard Edit Screen”.

[ Edit ]

[ Go to Standard Edit ]

When we arrive at the “Standard Edit Screen”, we may find that our image needs to be rotated before it can be viewed in the usual orientation.

To rotate our image, we must go to the Main menu & click on:

[ Image ]

From the drop down Menu, select:

[ Rotate ]

Then click on the appropriate “Rotation direction”.

After a rotation, you may find that your entire image is not shown on the screen.

You can use the “Scroll bar”, as shown, to move around the image.

You can also see the entire image, as shown in the next step.

To make your image fit on the screen, select:

[ View ]

From the drop down menu, click on:

[ Fit on Screen ]

Now our image appears in its entirety on the desktop.

In this example, the horizon is definitely not level.

From the Main menu, select:

[ Image ]

From the first drop down menu, select:

[ Rotate ]

From the next drop down menu, select:

[ Straighten Image ]

“Auto Straighten” either works very well, or horribly.

There is a very easy way to “Undo” any step.

From the Main menu, click on:

[ Edit ]

Your last step will appear as the first choice in the drop down menu.

In this case, we will select:

You should have your “Info” palette on the screen. If this palette is not on the screen, return to Lesson #6 and bring it onto the screen.

The “Line” tool is located in the “Toolbox”.

It is in the 4^th Group under the “Shape” tools.

Drag the mouse across your image along the straight line that you would like to have level.

Here we have drawn our line across the top of the cupboard.

Now look at the “Info” palette.

Note the angle recorded beside the letter:

[ A ]

In this case, it is:

Now release your “Line” tool. We didn’t really want to draw a line.

From the Main menu, click on:

[ Image ]

From the drop down menu, select:

In the “Rotate Canvas” dialogue, enter the angle that appeared in the “Info” palette.

In this example:

“3.5˚”         

Select the appropriate direction, and then click on:

[ OK ]

It is always preferable to take the original photograph as level as possible.

Whenever you level it in Elements, there will be some loss of image coverage in the corners.

This is shown by the red arrows.

Summary

In this lesson, we covered rotation of images for easier viewing and editing. We also covered automatic and manual methods of leveling horizontal lines in your images.