How To Straighten A Photo In Photoshop Using The Ruler Tool

Here’s a quick Photoshop fix for straightening crooked photographs using the Ruler tool. This was also a little video experiment for me too.

The Ruler Tool

The Ruler tool is an often overlooked tool hidden beneath the eyedropper on the Photoshop toolbar. You can use it to measure lengths, straighten photographs and place objects exact distances apart. In short, it’s very handy. Here’s a video showing you how to quickly straighten a lopsided photo. If you prefer to read, you can find the step by step instructions for straightening a photo underneath the video.

 

How to Straighten A Photograph With The Ruler Tool in Photoshop 

The photo I’m using below is one I took in Dublin. The street is on a hill and you can see that the photo I took is quite crooked and the door looks completely lopsided.

01 - Straighten A Photo In Photoshop

1. With your photograph open in Photoshop, select the Ruler tool. Ruler-Tool Photoshop
The Ruler tool is hidden under the Eyedropper tool in the toolbar. Press and hold, or right-click on the Eyedropper to reveal the hidden tools, then select the Ruler tool.

ruler-tool-hidden-under-eyedropper-photoshop

2. Click, then drag along the edge of something in the photograph that should be perfectly vertical or horizontal. In my photograph, I’m dragging a straight line along the top of the doorway.

02 - Straighten A Photo In Photoshop - Drag Ruler

3. Click the Straighten Layer button in the Options bar at the top of the screen. If you’ve made a mistake when drawing a line with the Ruler, hit the Clear button instead of Straighten Layer and start over.

03 - Straighten A Photo In Photoshop - Straighten Layer Button

Photoshop works its magic and straightens the whole photograph.

04 - Straighten A Photo In Photoshop - Image Straightened

4. You’ll notice that as part of the straightening process, some areas in the top and bottom corners of the photograph have become transparent. To crop away these parts of the photo, select the Crop tool, and use the handles to drag an area that covers the part of the photo you want. Then hit Enter/Return on the keyboard or press the Commit button on the Options bar.

05 - Straighten A Photo In Photoshop - Crop Handles

You should now have a nicely straightened and cropped photo.

05 - Straighten A Photo In Photoshop - Final Straightened and Cropped Image

If you found this useful, please share it. Thank you very much!

How To Straighten A Photo In Photoshop Using The Ruler Tool

Jennifer Farley

Jennifer Farley

Hello!

My name is Jennifer Farley. I'm an Irish author, illustrator, designer, and design educator. I've been teaching and working in the design field for over 20 years. I help people learn Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and Graphic Design.

Photoshop Bootcamp is a growing collection of my Photoshop tutorials and lessons I've written for my students.

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