Straightening Photos

Most of the time, we're pretty good at keeping the horizon level in photos, but every now and then we mess up, as in the picture of a glacier in Figure 4.49. Since iPhoto can straighten images with the Straighten slider in the Adjust panel, it was easy to rotate the angle by 1.7 degrees to make it straight, as you can see in Figure 4.50.

Figure 4.49. I'm going to blame my inability to take a straight photo of a glacier on the rocking boat.

Figure 4.50. Luckily, iPhoto's Straighten slider lets me eliminate the need for the lame excuse.

To adjust the angle of a photo:

• In the Adjust panel, drag the Straighten slider to the left to rotate the image clockwise or to the right to rotate the image counter-clockwise, using the yellow grid lines as a reference for true vertical and horizontal.

Tips

• The Straighten slider actually zooms in on your photo and crops it slightly to keep the edges straight. The white bands on the top and bottom of the photo in Figure 4.50 are an indication that the cropping has taken place, since the photo is now slightly smaller.

• You can use the Straighten slider to tweak the angles of photos up to 10 degrees in either direction.

• If 10 degrees isn't enough (and remember that the greater the angle, the more iPhoto is cropping), save your changes, edit the photo again, and use the Straighten slider one more time.

• I haven't the foggiest idea why Apple chose to include the Straighten slider in the Adjust panel, since it's completely different from all the other controls and doesn't affect the histogram at all. They probably couldn't think of anywhere else to put it.