Can't figure out how to straighten a photo in CS3

Dogdots

I just received my CS3 and I can't figure out how to straighten a picture in the dang thing. Any help would be a big help for me.

DoctorIt

this is actually really simple in Photoshop... here, I googled some step-by-step instructions for you (there's plenty more if you just google "straightening a photo in Photoshop)

http://www.photocritic.org/2005/straightening-an-image-in-photoshop/

tip: the "measure" tool shares space with the eyedropper tool.

Dogdots

Thank you---I never thought of checking in google.

digismile

Hey DogDots. When you say straighten, do you mean just a crooked horizon line or are you talking about something like a building (or some other object) where the vertical lines seem to be warped in?

Let's start with easiest, the crooked horizon.

1. Open your file.
2. Now you need to find the Ruler Tool. It's in the flyout menu with Eye Dropper and Color Picker tool. It looks like a little ruler.
3. Drag the ruler along any part of the photo that you want horizontal (or vertical for that matter). In the case of a horizon, just drag it along the horizon. It doesn't need to be the whole way, you just need to provide a guide.
4. Now from the menu select Image->Rotate Canvas->Arbitrary. You now see a dialog box. You must now choose whether you want to rotate the photo clockwise or counter clockwise. Then select OK.
5. The photo is now rotated horizontally/vertically but you will now need to crop the photo to a rectangular shape.

All done!

If this isn't what you're looking for, how about posting a photo for us to see?


Regards,

Dogdots

Thats what I was looking for -- thanks. Now I just have to try it out. Can't believe I couldn't figure that one out. Anyone know of any good books that give very detailed instructions on CS3. Like the step by step you just gave me.

digismile

Try Photoshop CS3 One on One by Deke McClelland or
Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby

DoctorIt

digismile wrote:

Try Photoshop CS3 One on One by Deke McClelland or
Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby

I second the vote for Kelby. His books are to the point, step-by-step good stuff. He doesn't waste time with "theory" or "technique" just "this is what buttons to press to do this" (if that's what you're looking for, not to bash theory)

Dogdots

I like the push the button kind of learning. Theory we can use for something else . Thanks I will check into this book.

Icebear

Scott Kelby
Let me add my endorsement to the general praise of Scott Kelby's books. His PSE4 book was fantastic. His Lightroom book convinced me to buy the software. When I recently took the plunge and bought CS3, I was stoopid enough to take Adobe up on their "good deal" on "Classroom in a Book". What a waste of money. If any of the photo stores or book stores in Northern Virginia had his CS3 book on the shelves I'da bought that instead. Now I'll have both. Once I get Kelby's book, I'll prolly never look at the Adobe book again.

LAB.rat

www.ronbigelow.com/articles/straighten-1/straighten-1.htm
www.ronbigelow.com/articles/straighten-2/straighten2.htm

Dogdots

Icebear--thank you for your insight into Scott's book. I will be looking for it today. Probably order it thru BN. I know I need all the help I can get.

Labrat--that was some very usefull information on straightening a picture. I never knew everytime you played with a picture (cropping/straightening, etc.) a different way you were destroying it somewhat. You'd think with all the geeks in the world they could come up with a way to prevent that . Then amuteurs like me wouldn't have to worry about that.

Icebear

You're Saved!

Dogdots wrote:

I never knew everytime you played with a picture (cropping/straightening, etc.) a different way you were destroying it somewhat. You'd think with all the geeks in the world they could come up with a way to prevent that

They have. It's called RAW or TIFF. If you're shooting in jpeg, stop if possible. If your camera will only give you a jpeg file, then you should treat your original jpeg file like a fine piece of porcelain. Never manipulate it, rather make a copy and do all your editing on the copy. Don't quit in the middle of editing, save and reopen. Finish what you start. In jpeg, every time you "save" you lose data. If you just "close" you don't lose data. If you "save as" you are essentially creating another copy, without effecting your original. When you make your first copy, you can "save as" a tiff, then you can mess with it to your heart's content, cause it ain't in a lossey format any more. Just because you start with a jpeg file doesn't mean you're doomed to losing data. Just do it right. If there's anyone out there with a better way to explain this, I'm sure they'll chime in here. They'll be much louder if I'm just plain wrong.:argue

Dogdots

I was always shooting in jpeg then switched to RAW and jpeg. But...I went back to jpeg today...don't ask me why. From now on I will shot just RAW. Shame on me for knowing better and not doing so.

I do have a a couple questions I would like help with.

1. When I'm editing and I want to dodge and burn how to I do that in a layer?

2. When I am done editing my photo and I do "Save As" do I save it as a copy? ---I know save as a Tiff ? so I can re-edit if I want to. Right? Then if I want to print it out I can just change it over to jpeg?

3. I noticed on my Bridge on the right side there is a IPTC Core under File Properties. What is that for and how do I get my copyright to follow my photo.

4. Megadata?

5. And the big question. Can you edit/flatten then save a photo and open it to a different software program do to the sharpening. Then return to CS3 and do the cropping, etc. to the photo?

I know I should buy the book by Scott Kelby right? And if I did would this infomation be in the book?

SloYerRoll

Wow you are asking some big questions. I'll be happy to try and shed some light on them for you though.

Dogdots wrote:

1. When I'm editing and I want to dodge and burn how to I do that in a layer?

Start here. Don't be concerned if you have to read it three times to get it. It's definately worth knowing and will give you an edge over many ppl in post that don't know this technique. You can also just copy the b/g layer and dodge and burn that. You can't d/b a blank layer since it needs pixels to lighten/darken.

Dogdots wrote:

2. When I am done editing my photo and I do "Save As" do I save it as a copy? ---I know save as a Tiff ? so I can re-edit if I want to. Right? Then if I want to print it out I can just change it over to jpeg?

This is workflow preference. I only save as copy if I have multiple versions. In that case I name each one instead of keeping the 'copy' text. i.e. a B&W conversion copy that I'm not sure will be the final piece will be saved as "modelshoot_BW.jpg" the letters BW were used in place of the word copy. This helps makes things clear. It doesn't help if you have 5 copys of a shot and can't visually tell the difference between them.

Dogdots wrote:

3. I noticed on my Bridge on the right side there is a IPTC Core under File Properties. What is that for and how do I get my copyright to follow my photo.

When a media file is created by a computer or digital device, information is embedded into the file to describe it. This information is called metadata, it's used by softwawre such as PS, BR, DxO, LR to accurately understand the media file.
How to get it to work for you? Open Br, right click (optin click Mac) an image, click on file info. Go down all the tabs in the window that pops up and fill out all the relevant data. Click on the little triangle in the top right corner of that window then select, "Save Metadata Template" Now you will have that for a "master" template. Every time you upload images w/ Br. Tell Br to use the tempate you just created. It will write all the data to the images you import. This is a very good thing. If a person sees your work and the metadata is there, they can easily find you and offer you tons of cash for that killer shot you took (or something like that )

Dogdots wrote:

4. Megadata?

Wikipedia tells you more than you ever need to know. It is indeed Megadata about Metadata:D

Dogdots wrote:

5. And the big question. Can you edit/flatten then save a photo and open it to a different software program do to the sharpening. Then return to CS3 and do the cropping, etc. to the photo?

Why in the world would you do that?

Dogdots wrote:

I know I should buy the book by Scott Kelby right? And if I did would this infomation be in the book?

If you want to just know how to do the cool stuff. Scott is great. If your interested in really understanding, he's definately not the best.

Hope this helps a bit.
-Jon

SloYerRoll

Icebear wrote:

They have. It's called RAW or TIFF. If you're shooting in jpeg, stop if possible. If your camera will only give you a jpeg file, then you should treat your original jpeg file like a fine piece of porcelain. Never manipulate it, rather make a copy and do all your editing on the copy. Don't quit in the middle of editing, save and reopen. Finish what you start. In jpeg, every time you "save" you lose data. If you just "close" you don't lose data. If you "save as" you are essentially creating another copy, without effecting your original. When you make your first copy, you can "save as" a tiff, then you can mess with it to your heart's content, cause it ain't in a lossey format any more. Just because you start with a jpeg file doesn't mean you're doomed to losing data. Just do it right. If there's anyone out there with a better way to explain this, I'm sure they'll chime in here. They'll be much louder if I'm just plain wrong.:argue

While Icebear is correct. I think you need to back up and try to grasp what is happening w/ pixels and photoshop before you get into this further.

Cropping does NOT destropy image data. All it does is remove excess pixels.
Rotating does NOT destroy image data. All it does is tilt them to the angle you depict.
What you want to start doing from the jump while learnig photshop is using adjustment layers. (Just google it. TONS of stuff out there on them). This type of editing is called non-destructive editing. What does that mean? (I'm going to assume you know what layers are) It means that your background or base image is NEVER alrtered in any way. Only layers above the image are changed. Why is this good? If you blast a shot through a post production nightmare and figure out you did a tip top job bashing the shot. All youneed to do is remove the adjustment layers and you still have the original image sitting there unscathed.

I'm not going to go into further detail than this. You need to sit down w/ some books and start reading IMO. Right now your getting the cliff notes via dgrin on PS. Nothing wrong w/ that. But cliff notes are for stuff you don't care to learn. If your truly pasionate about learning this, study manuals will pay immense dividends.

-Jon

ivar

SloYerRoll wrote:

Rotating does NOT destroy image data. All it does is tilt them to the angle you depict.

You sure about this? The way I was taught was it can only be lossless if you rotate it at x times 90 degrees, or am I thinking apples and pears here?

Dogdots

Thanks SloYerRoll for the information. It was helpful.

You did ask why would I want to do that-(I don't know how to do the quote button in here yet)-on saving my edited photo and then taking it to another software program to sharpen it and then take it back to photoshop to crop, etc. Well, I like my sharpening tool better in DPP. I haven't mastered the one in photoshop very well. Like most other things in photoshop . So that is why I asked. I am worried it might damage my photo. Also I haven't cropped my photo yet because I would like to do a 4x6 to see if I like it then do another crop at a larger size if I do like it. I really don't know the steps in doing that and how many pixels I would set for a crop that is 11x14 for example.

Dogdots

Your so right. I need to read a lot of books on this. I do want to learn it--everything about CS3. I know I won't learn everything, but I do need a good grip on it.

So to the bookstore and library I go......

SloYerRoll

ivar wrote:

You sure about this? The way I was taught was it can only be lossless if you rotate it at x times 90 degrees, or am I thinking apples and pears here?

EDIT:
Sorry, it was late last night and I made a mistake.
Rotating DOES damage pixels.
Thanks Ivar and Icebear for pointing out my mistake. I was burning the midnight oil and got sloppy.:cry

I'd like to correct myslef and make sure what I said was clear so..

Cropping does NOT destroy image data. All it does is remove excess pixels.
Rotating DOES destroy image data. As Ivar posted, it doesn't if you shift it 90degrees since the pixels are square and are not affected by 90deg rotations.
Saving as a jpeg DOES destroy image data.

When you save an image as a jpeg you are effectively modifying pixels since the jpeg 'assumes' certain factors which are way out of the scope of this thread.

Best practices for saving jpeg:
ALWAYS save from the original file.
i.e.
If you save as a jpeg, close the file then open the saved jpeg then save again as jpeg. You effectively did twice as much damage to the image.
If you open the original, save as jpeg. Then open the original and save as a different revision of a jpeg, you are only "damaging" the image once since it's using the original (or native) image to create the jpeg.

Sorry for the confusion. It's always my goal to be clear, concise and accurate. Sometimes I fall short though...

-Jon

Dogdots

Jon--people make mistakes sometimes. Totally understandable.

When you mentioned rotating--any time you rotate past 90 degrees? Duh...I bet the answer is yes . Is there a safe time to rotate past 90 degrees?

Lets see if I have this jpeg thing right.

1. When I download a picture from my card--And it is a jpeg download from the card, not raw--I then copy it to a disk to save---it stays ok, right? And anytime I want to copy a picture from the disk to work on it I have done some damage to it right? (EX. I did one kind of picture with the image and then I want to do another kind of picture with the image)

2. I then open the image from the file that I downloaded from my card(original image) and start editing. I then flatten them image and use save as and save my image under a different file name it stays undamaged, right?

3. If I want to edit the picture again I can open the original and the original is still ok--right?

I hope you have some understanding for me and this image damaging stuff. It is all new to me and I really want to get it down right and not do damage to an image I feel is important or good. When I first started taking photos I never knew you could damage anything in the editing process. Only lately have I started reading things about it. Amazing with all the technology out there you would think they would come up with something with in the processing of the image inside the camera that wouldn't let this happen.

Safest thing to do is never take jpeg---I have to learn RAW, but want to keep my jpegs I have done ok.

Jon and all of you in this thread have been such a great help. Many thank you's!!

Icebear

Not exactly
If you just copy a file, you don't mess with it. It's the opening and SAVING that puts it through the jpeg compression algorithm again. Somebody smack me if I'm sayin' this wrong. An easy way to break the cycle of losing data from your original jpegs is to save them as PSDs or TIFFS the first time you edit them.

Remember, the damage comes from repeatedly opening and SAVING a jpeg.

If you never SAVE that original jpeg, you never damage it. Oh, I assume you have your originals all backed up on a CD someplace anyway, right?

Dogdots

Icebear, I do have them saved to a cd. Learned the hard way. Thats the first thing I do now when I download my card to the computer.

I have been doing my editing and saving them as a jpeg and not tiff. Oops.

But if you save it as a tiff and want to print it out later, don't you have to change it back to jpeg to print it?

Icebear

Dogdots wrote:

But if you save it as a tiff and want to print it out later, don't you have to change it back to jpeg to print it?

No.

Dogdots

I learn something new everyday---thanks!

SloYerRoll

Icebear wrote:

No.

In case your not getting enough yet

You will see an option to use "LZW" compression for saving the tiff. It is OK to do this since this type of comression is lossless, not lossy. For all intents and purposes it is just making your file size a bit smaller. The details of this compression type aren't relevant here.

JPEG's create lossy comression. LZW compression Tiff's do not.

You don't HAVE TO use this option though. It is just if you want tosave alittle space. Which adds up to big space after a few thousand images.

-Jon

Dogdots

I just did a photo (jpeg to tiff) and tried to print it out. It wouldn't print. I must not be setting something right in my print set up. Any ideas?

Dogdots

Oops forgot to mention--the LZW option sounds like a good thing. Want to save as much space on the computer as possible.

SloYerRoll

Dogdots wrote:

I just did a photo (jpeg to tiff) and tried to print it out. It wouldn't print. I must not be setting something right in my print set up. Any ideas?

OK to figure this out. I need to know the steps.

i.e.
opened jpeg
converted to tiff
used the print command
print dialog came up
I hit print
____ happened.

You may also want to check the different print options to see if that has an affect.

-Jon

Dogdots

Ha--I hit the print and my paper went thru the printer and came out without a picture. Just a plain piece of paper.

I tried setting it up to just print a 4x6 and still no picture on my paper. I know I'm doing something wrong---really wrong. Which wouldn't be anything new for me . I did get this big printing page and I was scared and lost as to what to do with it. Never saw it before. Something else new for me. I'm sure all of you would like me to just fade into the sunset with all these questions

Icebear

That's a puzzlement
Can you print a different file OK?

Dogdots

Yes, I can print jpeg files just great. Wait a second.....I just downloaded CS3. Maybe they aren't talking to each other. Do they have to be able to? Last time I printed a photo I printed off of Photoshop 4. I haven't tried a jpeg off of CS3 yet. I will do that.

I do have a cheap all in one HP printer as I use a photo place to do my good prints.