Oct 27 2008
Photoshop Video Tutorial - Getting a Straight Horizon
Welcome to a Photoshop “video quicky” tutorial. It’s funny cuz I got a request from a reader on how to quickly straighten a horizon on a photo without having to fiddle around and guestimate using the Arbitrary option under Rotate Canvas (Image-Rotate Canvas-Arbitrary). I actually had to think about it for a moment since I’ve been using Lightroom 2 to rotate and crop my images for a while now. 
It only did take a moment and it came back to me. In this video I’ll actually show you 2 ways of doing it. Enjoy!
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I have to thank you a lot because you also use Vimeo… my office firewall blocks youtube videos at all. Thank for this tutorial
I had never even seen that grid actually, despite the fact that I’ve been using Photoshop for almost four years now. Thanks for that one ^^
i really like it mate its great
not worry i will digg it and blog it too in my blogger thanks for that great tut
Great videos. I too had never noticed the grid option before… kind of embarrassing with all the time I spend in Photoshop. Getting the horizon straight is much easier with these tips. Thanks!
Gee, I never thought about using the ruler like that. In school we used ctrl+r and had to guess I the amount. But this is briliant! good job!
Me again, Ive been testing with the ruler option you said. There is something bugging me, perhaps you know what went wrong..
Here is a picture of my tryout (sorry for the size): http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9064/tryoutpu4.jpg
if i try small horizontal lines it works perfect but this kinda lines didn’t seem to work.
Actually, using the shoreline is not an accurate way to judge a straight horizon.
As the camara’s elevation increases from the height of the water, the parts of the shorline that are closer to the camera will not be bart of the horizon line and will actually sink below it. The higher the elevation of the camera from ground level, the more this effect will increase.
I try to average the top of the trees for horizontal, while also maintaining vertical lines such as tree trunks, telephone poles (sailboat mast) etc. Often it is just by eye. If I went coley by the shoreline, or even the tops of the tree, often things will be off.
If someone has a more accurate way, I would love to know it.