Seascapes sloping horizons

[Rodders]

As a terrible photographer (I am not being modest) I love the sea and all its moods often getting a good soaking as I try for the breaking waves of a storm driven sea. I sent some photos to a mate of mine who said there was no sea as all the water had run out of the scene due to the tilted horizons.
I recently bought Elements 10but being technologically inept cannot see how to correct these photos. In camera I am looking at the waves and my own safety but do try to keep horizons level with the top edge of the viewfinder, still they tilt! Some simple advice to remedy these images would be appreciated.
Rod

[Wendy]

Hi Rod ..

Its reasonably easy to do this in PE10 ... you need the Straighten Tool.

Look in the Tool Bar and look for a blue rectangle with another tilted rectangle behind it. That is the straighten Tool.

Just select it then use it to draw a line along the horizon and it will automatically straighten the image. You may then need to crop away any excess from the photo

Wendy

[cats4jan]

As with anything in PSE, there are many ways to accomplish the same thing.

I like to use the grids and the move tool.

Turn on the grid view> grid

control T - turns on Transform which is a function of the move tool
With the grid on, you can see how off the horizon is and rotate your photo using the middle arrow of the bounding box - it looks like a two headed arrow.

Using control T has the added benefit of automatically changing your "background" layer to "layer 0 - which is necessary to allow you to edit background layers.

You will still need to crop the photo, but you could also enlarge the photo to fill those blank spaces created by straightening - just use the corner arrow and drag the photo outward to enlarge it to fill the spaces.

Make sure to save your photo with a new name. As you get more skilled with PSE, there may be a time when you want to go back to the original to re-work your photo. Never work on an original photo.

[baycruisers]

May I add another (non-PSE) suggestion? Check your camera to see if it has the option to display a grid in the viewfinder or LCD screen. If it does, turn it on and that will help you capture straight horizons when you take the picture. Even using that and a tripod, it's a rare picture where the horizon is perfectly straight for me.

[Rodders]

Thank you all very much, I will be correcting a lot of photos
I must remember to watch the horizon as well as the crashing waves.
Rod

[Wendy]

Hi Rod ..

I have the same problem ... I suspect its because my camera is quite heavy so it tends to tilt

Wendy

[TonyW]

One other way that I like is to use the Correct Camera Distortion Filter (it's under Filters). That gives you a grid, you can adjust the angle of the horizon but will also let you fix other things like curved horizons.

Tony

[Rodders]

Luckily my modest wide angle does not give me distortion problems but I will try the grid you suggest out of curiosity. I usually find that there is more than one way of solving a problem even if it is not the best way and if you don't try it you will never know