CROPPING TO STRAIGHTEN A CROOKED IMAGE

STEP 1: Go to the File menu and Open the image you want to work on. For this tip, we'll fix this crooked horizon by cutting away some of the image using the Crop tool:

STEP 2: Although 20 tools are accessible in the Photoshop 5 toolbox at any given time, 46 tools actually make up the toolbox. 26 are hidden away inside pop-up menus. A tool that is comprised of several tools has a tiny triangle in the lower right corner of its tool icon on the toolbox. Click and hold on this triangle, and several more tools will appear. To select one of these alternate tools, continue holding with the mouse and slide across to the tool you want to select. Release the mouse.

The Crop tool is tucked away beneath the Marquee tool which is located at the top left corner of the toolbox. (Why Adobe decided to hide this important tool away is a mystery to many.) Just click once on the Marquee tool icon or hit the M key to select it. When you click and hold on the Marquee tool icon in the toolbox, notice that several more tools emerge, including the Crop tool at the very end. Slide across to the Crop tool and then release the mouse. However, the quickest way to access the Crop tool is to just hit the C key.

STEP 3: With the Crop tool selected, drag across your image from the top left to lower right, and then release the mouse. Don't worry about including the area you wish to crop inside the crop boundaries just yet. When you release the mouse, a Crop marquee (selection) appears with tiny boxes in each corner that work as handles. By grabbing a handle, you can change the height and width of the crop selection.

You can also rotate the Crop marquee. Just position the cursor outside the Crop marquee and the cursor will change into a curved arrow. Click, hold, and drag up or down to rotate the Crop marquee. When trying to straighten an image, the best way is to first reduce the size of your Crop marquee using the crop marquee handles, and then rotate the marquee so the top, horizontal border of the marquee is aligned with your horizon:

STEP 4: Using the crop marquee handles, extend the Crop marquee so that it encompasses all of the area in the image you wish to keep. All of the area outside of the Crop marquee will be cut away. Note that you will lose some physical image height and width:

STEP 5: To straighten and crop the image, double-click inside the Crop marquee or just hit the Return key (Enter key for Windows). You should now have an image with a straight horizon:

If you don't like the way your crop turned out, just Undo the action by selecting Undo from the File Menu or use the shortcut Command Z (Control Z for Windows).