What should be straight?

[Rob Silliman]

The airplane?  Or if they are close to the ground - the ground?

Example;



Should I straighten the picture to level the aircraft?

Should I straighten the picture to level the runway? Or just crop to eliminate the runway?

[Jay Beckman]

IMO, when you're perpendicular to the aircraft, the runway should be level.

Unless of course there's a significant uphill or downhill grade (or both like at Payson.)

[Joe Copalman]

IMO, when you're perpendicular to the aircraft, the runway should be level.

Unless of course there's a significant uphill or downhill grade (or both like at Payson.)

Seconded.  The first thing I do when editing photos in which the horizon is visible is to make sure that it is level.  Then from there I'll crop or do whatever else I need to do. 

I do have a question about this though - does Photoshop 7 have another way of rotating/leveling aside from the "rotate" option where you enter the number of degrees you want the image rotated?  I've been doing it this way for a long time and it can get tedious when you need to make a 0.1º adjustment.  Thanks!

[Jay Beckman]

Do you turn on the GRID VIEW Joe?  Makes it a little easier to see where horizontal and vertical really are.

[Joe Copalman]

Thanks Jay, precisely what I'm looking for.  Now I'm all excited to get home to poke around and find this "grid view," but my PC is in the shop right now (either the power supply or motherboard died).  Grr.

[Jay Beckman]

CTL + ' toggles the grid On/Off (in CS4). Probably the same in PS7.

[Joe Copalman]

Sweet!  Does this allow you to rotate freely in order to align the photo, or would I still have to guesstimate the required degrees to rotate the image?

[Jay Beckman]

Free Rotation is usually a function found under TRANSFORM.

You may have to do a CTL + J to copy the image to a new layer because you can't rotate the background.  Once you have it straightened, you can flatten the image and re-crop.

[Rob Silliman]

Sounds like we almost need a Photoshop tips and tricks forum.....

[Joe Copalman]

Done.  Just made it a general photo tips and techniques board.  Been wanting to add something like this for a while, thanks for lighting the proverbial fire Rob!

[Jay Beckman]

Cool New Section!