Fixing Horizons? ... & General PS Question

TinySpark

TinySpark

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Name
Melissa
Edit My Images
Yes
Is there any way i can fix the horizon in this pic, as in make it straight?
I have Photoshop 7, but i only got it recently and I'm pretty useless lol.

DSC06530edit.jpg




Also, I went and bought a tog mag thinking the free photoshop tutorial cd inside would be great, only to find it's photoshop elements and CS3 that they use... So is photoshop 7 a crappier version of these?
Also I had to use photomatix for my HDR images, (photoshop can't so it..?) but there's watermarks over the image, grrr.

Hmmm... is there any way of doing HDR on PS 7?
 
rotate it so that its straight then crop it.

Photoshop 7 is just like the old main version of photoshop, more like Cs3 really but older. elements its like a basic version of CS3
 
The quick and slightly dirty way I straighten horizons is using the crop tool.

I select a free crop (all boxes empty at the top), stretch out a thinnish rectangle over the horizon then I grab a handle at a corner (hover the pointer outside the crop area near a corner) and move it up or down until the horizon is level in the box. Having done that, I pull the corners of the crop box out to include as much of the original image as possible (it's sometimes possible to rebuild some sky and even corner foreground) before clicking the tick or double clicking in the crop to complete it.

It's probably worth you looking in 2nd hand bookshops and charity shops to see fi you can find a book on PhotoShop 7 - it'll explain stuff like this far better than I can!
 
In answer the the HDR part of your question, photomatix offers a trial version that will watermark your images. Buying the software will get you a key that will stop that happening. PS7 cannot do HDR, although there may be plug in's or stand alone programs that will do it cheaper or maybe even free.


Nod's technique for rotate/crop is certainly the quickest, and you can also go to the image menu, select 'rotate image' then rotate 'arbitary' a few degress at a time until straight, then crop. Sadly, either method will lose some of the original picture.
 
Also... a quick and handy way to check verticals and horizontals is to press CTRL ' (Would be Command ' on a Mac I guess) to bring up a grid.

Re HDR... Photoshop only introduced HDR in CS3 (a later version to yours)... but Photomatix is better anyway. To get rid of the watermark, I'm afraid you'll have to buy it!

EDIT: Bah! Yv beat me to it on the HDR... must type faster!
 
Tiny another way is to do the straightening in Aperture or Lightroom if you are using it for Raw conversion.

Do not know if you are shooting RAW or not, but it is very easy to do those sort of jobs before conversion.

Nigel
 
I would usually shoot RAW but I only have/use the sony raw converter that came with the camera... would it have the same features as lightroom etc?
Is aperture a free program?
 
TinySpark said:
I would usually shoot RAW but I only have/use the sony raw converter that came with the camera... would it have the same features as lightroom etc?
Is aperture a free program?
Click to expand...

Aperture is not free, and only works with MAC.

I do not know if the sony software has these features. Will have hunt round and see what recent free raw convertors are about.

Regards

Nigel
 
The proper way to do it is with the Measure tool, and it's just as quick, if not quicker, than any manual method using the crop/rotate tools.

I'm guessing that PS7 was a lot like CS (v8), which is the earliest version I still have on my pc. The Measure tool is found in the same group as the eyedropper. Select it, then run a line along the horizon. Go to top menu bar Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary and it will then level your horizon.

You don't need to run a line edge to edge - just a section of horizon will do. You can also use it vertically, to straighten buildings, towers etc.
 
If there is one thing I can advise strongly with photoshop (and I am no expert, still learning the rope myself) is to learn as many keyboard shortcuts as possible, it saves so much time.
 
MisterE said:
The proper way to do it is with the Measure tool, and it's just as quick, if not quicker, than any manual method using the crop/rotate tools.

I'm guessing that PS7 was a lot like CS (v8), which is the earliest version I still have on my pc. The Measure tool is found in the same group as the eyedropper. Select it, then run a line along the horizon. Go to top menu bar Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary and it will then level your horizon.

You don't need to run a line edge to edge - just a section of horizon will do. You can also use it vertically, to straighten buildings, towers etc.
Click to expand...

That's the way I do it, seems quick and painless to me.

subseasniper said:
If there is one thing I can advise strongly with photoshop (and I am no expert, still learning the rope myself) is to learn as many keyboard shortcuts as possible, it saves so much time.
Click to expand...

Most definitely, it's the single key ones I tend to use most - C for cropping - Z for zooming etc.
 
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