How to Rotate an Image in Photoshop | MakeUseOf

blognet   Wednesday, September 09, 2020   How to, Make it Useful   Comment  

Have you captured a photo in the wrong orientation? Rotating your image in Photoshop will fix the problem.

There are also many other occasions when you’d need to rotate or tilt your images, and Photoshop has all the tools you need to do just that.

In this article, we show you a few ways to rotate your pictures using Photoshop. Feel free to choose the method that works for your particular needs.

Depending on whether you’re looking to rotate an entire image or a layer within your image, you can use one of the following methods in Photoshop.

If you want to fully rotate your picture by a certain degree, Photoshop has a tool that rotates your canvas. This, in turn, rotates everything that’s sitting on the canvas (your picture and any other elements that you may have added with Photoshop).

Here’s how to rotate the canvas in Photoshop:

1. Open your image with Photoshop.
2. Click the Image option at the top, select Image Rotation, and choose one of the options to rotate your image.

   

3. If you want to manually specify the degree of rotation, click Edit > Image Rotation > Arbitrary. Then, specify the Angle, clockwise or counterclockwise options, and click OK.

   

Make sure to save your rotated image before closing Photoshop.

If the rotation doesn’t look good or if it isn't how you wanted it, press Ctrl + Z (for Windows) or Command + Z (Mac) to undo your rotation.

2. How to Rotate a Picture on a Picture With Layers

If you’re only looking to rotate certain parts in your image, and these parts have their individual layers, you can simply rotate the layer to rotate your chosen elements.

This uses a tool that’s different from the one used in the above method. Transform tool is one of the Photoshop tools that helps rotate individual objects in your photos.

You can use this tool as follows to rotate a picture on your main picture, or rotate other objects as long as they have their own individual layers:

1. Launch your image with Photoshop and click the layer you want to rotate in the layers list.
2. Click Edit at the top, select Transform, and choose one of the rotation options.

   

3. If you want to rotate your image by a custom angle, select Edit > Free Transform. You can now rotate the edges to rotate your image.
4. Make sure to click the checkmark icon at the top to save your rotation.

3. How to Rotate an Image Using the Crop Tool

While the crop tool is supposed to help you crop your images in Photoshop, you can use this tool to rotate your images as well. This is the perfect tool to use for when you want to both crop and rotate your photos.

Here’s how to use this tool for rotation:

1. While your image is still open in Photoshop, click the crop tool in the toolbar on the left. Alternatively, press C on your keyboard to activate the tool.
2. Click on your image once and bring your cursor to one of the four corners of the image.
3. When your cursor turns into a dual-arrow icon, you’re ready to rotate the image. Hold down the mouse button and start rotating the image.

   

4. Click the checkmark icon at the top to save your changes.

4. How to Rotate a Picture Just to See How It Looks

Sometimes, you may want to rotate an image just to see how it looks rotated. Photoshop has a tool for this task as well, and this tool won’t make any permanent changes to your photo.

The tool is called Rotate View and it helps preview your rotated images. You can use it as follows:

1. Click the Rotate View Tool in the toolbar on the left. If you don’t see it, click and hold on the hand icon and you’ll see the tool. Alternatively, press R on your keyboard and that will activate the tool for you.
2. Click on your image and you can rotate it in whatever direction you want.

   

3. If you want to rotate your image by a certain degree, enter that degree in the box at the top and press Enter.
4. To go back to the unrotated image, click on the Reset View button at the top. This will reset all of your rotation changes.

How to Automate Image Rotation in Photoshop

If you have several images to rotate, using the above methods to do that will take forever. A more efficient approach would be to use an automation feature that’s built into Photoshop.

Photoshop has a feature called Actions which enable you to record your photo editing tasks. You can record an action that rotates your images, and you can then use this action for all your images that need to be rotated. When the action runs, it will batch rotate all your images at once.

Here are the two stages to set this feature up in Photoshop.

1. How to Create an Action to Rotate Images in Photoshop:

1. Create a folder named Rotated on your desktop. This folder will save your rotated images.
2. Open one of the images you want to rotate with Photoshop.
3. Click the Window option at the top and select Actions.
4. Select the Create new action option, enter a name for your action, and click Record.

   

5. Now, rotate your image how you’d like to rotate your other images. This usually includes clicking Image > Image Rotation and choosing a rotation option.
6. When your image is rotated, click File > Save As.
7. Select the Rotated folder on your desktop, leave the image name as is, choose a format from the Format dropdown menu, and finally hit Save at the bottom.
8. Click the stop button in the Actions pane to stop your action recording.

2. How to Use an Action to Rotate Images in Photoshop

1. Make a folder called To Rotate on your desktop; copy all of the images you want to rotate to this folder.
2. Open Photoshop and click File > Automate > Batch.

   

3. Select the action you created in the previous phase from the Action dropdown menu.
4. Choose Folder from the Source dropdown menu.
5. Click the Choose button and choose the To Rotate folder containing all your images on the desktop.
6. Click OK and Photoshop will start rotating all of the images in that folder.

Your resulting images will be saved in the Rotated folder on your desktop.

No matter how and why you want to rotate images, Photoshop has all of the rotation options that you'll ever need. It even offers automatic rotation saving you from manually rotating each of your images in turn.

Photos oriented the wrong way isn’t the only issue people have with their images. Sometimes your images may be blurry and need fixing. Thankfully, Photoshop can help with that too.