Adobe Photoshop CS5 One-on-One

To monitor the angle of the rotation, choose Window→Info or

press the F8 key to display the Info panel. Then note the angle

value (A) in the upper-right corner of the panel. I finally settled

on an angle of –6.1 degrees, as pictured in Figure 2-19 on the

preceding page.

You may notice that Photoshop rotates the boundary

around a central origin point, labeled in that same figure.

To rotate around a different spot, drag the origin from the

center of the boundary to the desired location.

8. Move and scale the crop boundary. Drag inside the crop
   boundary to move it. Drag the crop outline or one of the
   eight square handles surrounding the crop boundary to
   scale it (that is, change its size). Also worth noting:
   
   
   • Press the Shift key while dragging a corner handle to
     scale the boundary by the same percentage horizon-
     tally and vertically.
   
   
   • Press the Alt key (Option on the Mac) while dragging
     to scale the boundary with respect to the origin point.
     In other words, the corners move but the origin stays
     fixed in place. It’s a great way to scale an image with
     respect to a specific location.
     I sized the boundary to expose about 100 pixels of shoulder
     on either side of the woman’s blouse, and moved the bot-
     tom edge about 100 pixels below the necklace, as shown
     in Figure 2-20. I also moved the top edge high enough to
     expose some hair—so she’s not all forehead—which results
     in an empty wedge in the top-right corner, labeled in the
     figure. This wedge is all background, making it relatively
     easy to fix, as you’ll soon see.
   
   
   
   


9. Apply your changes. Click the on the right side of the
   options bar or press the Enter or Return key to accept
   your changes. Photoshop crops away the pixels outside
   the boundary and rotates the image upright.

By which I mean, Photoshop rotates the image to match the

rotated view, as witnessed by the left image in Figure 2-21 on

the facing page. To restore the view to its standard upright self,

select the rotate view tool and click the Reset View button in the

options bar. Or better yet, don’t switch tools, just press the Esc

key. Either way, you’ll end up with the upright image on the right

side of Figure 2-21.

Empty wedge

Figure 2-20.

50 Lesson 2: Straighten, Crop, and Size