Obvious Tip #2

A client will bring in a drawing, an album cover, or a bit of text and it's my job to make sure the final outline comes out as perfect as possible. Scanning an image precisely in line is incredibly rare, but thankfully Photoshop can help. All it needs to know is what angle should be perfectly straight.

Here's a scanned image of an old Gorillaz album. Obviously it's crooked.

1. Select your Measuring Tool. (It's the ruler under the Eyedropper, or cycle to it with Shift+I)

2. Drag a line with the Measuring Tool along a line that should be straight. (The red below is an indicator, I actually drew it directly on the bottom line of the CD cover)

3. From the above pulldown menu select Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary. The correct value will be automatically loaded. Hit OK and the image will be autorotated.

* This is perfect for straightening crosses, lines of text, faces (draw the line from eye to eye), kanji (you can do this vertically also), photos, and just about anything else you can scan.