Quick Photoshop Cs Tip...quick Straighten

[Tony_32]

I'm just finding out so if you didn't know, click the eyedropper tool and hold, choose ruler. Then align the ruler with the page or a column on the page and go to image, rotate canvas, then arbitrary. PS auto-straightens the image according to your line. Before, I just had a shortcut to F4 and F5 to arbitrarily straighten either direction by 1 degree and then using the crop selector to check the straightness of the page.

[kbf_private_joker]

I'm just finding out so if you didn't know, click the eyedropper tool and hold, choose ruler. Then align the ruler with the page or a column on the page and go to image, rotate canvas, then arbitrary. PS auto-straightens the image according to your line. Before, I just had a shortcut to F4 and F5 to arbitrarily straighten either direction by 1 degree and then using the crop selector to check the straightness of the page.

I actually used to do that, but I found it is actually easier to use F3 and F4 to rotate by 0.25% clockwise/counterclockwise. For some reason, drawing the line seemed to be more of a hassle and didn't always produce straight results. Also, instead of using the crop selector, I use the horizontal line. To access it, hold the crop selector box and it should be one of the options. Then find a straight line on the page and compare.

For some reason this works better for me than the auto-rotate. Another tip is to use a consistent size cropping box instead of re-drawing it every time. You'll lose some of the outer-most parts, but it is so much faster than re-drawing the box every page.

[Tony_32]

I just discovered the same thing. I've used it for about 10 pages and now back to the old way. I do believe I read where you mention the crop box trick. Mind telling me how to do it?

[kbf_private_joker]

I just discovered the same thing. I've used it for about 10 pages and now back to the old way. I do believe I read where you mention the crop box trick. Mind telling me how to do it?

Here's my workflow

1. Scan however pages I think I can accomplish in a reasonable amount of time (usually batches of 50 to keep the whole process under 1 hour)

2. Use the horizontal selection as a gauge to check how straight a random line on the page is (I was mistaken when I said cropping section. The horizontal one should be either 2nd or 3rd choice in the selection box. I'm not at home or else I'd include a screenshot)

3. If not straight, I use F3 or F4 (set up macros for 0.25 CW or CCW)

4. Now that everything is straight, I just need to crop. I set up a crop box that will allow me to crop every page without having the scanner glass showing (use regular selection tool and make sure it is set to fixed crop, not 4x5, 3x5, etc.)

- There will be some pages that crop more than others. That is ok. It is more important to not show the scanner glass.

5. Go through each page and crop. After setting down the crop selection box, I press F4 (macro to crop)

- On 2 page spreads, I set the pages side by side and verify that the crops will match in the middle. For all others, I just make sure I have the crop centered on the page.

6. Once everything is cropped, I do a batch job that resizes to 1200 or 1440 for the width and will resize the height. The batch job also saves the JPG at level 9 to disk. Level 10 is overkill in my opinion. 2x-3x the size on disk and no noticeable difference when looked at on a 24 inch LCD monitor.

- Since all pages have the same resolution, they should all be the same size in the end.

7. Then I bulk rename using Bulk Rename Tool (Google for the free app - it's wonderful for lots of activities other than this too)

8. RAR all the files, including the Retromags page at the end

9. Rename to .CBR or .CBZ (I do .CBR out of habit and no other reason)

10. Upload (when upload is about 2 min from completion, I create a 90-100KB thumbnail for the site)

Done!

[Tony_32]

Thanks for the detailed info. I just manually crop, then F2 to resize to 1440 then F3 to save as JPG at level 9. It's not as fast as yours but I'm just trying to make sure I do it all correctly before I learned to go any faster.

I just got to trying it and glad you mentioned it. I think I got it figured out. It will be more important for my SF2 guide because there's lots of pages that will will really stand out if they're not aligned correctly.

[Mister Zero]

Hey kbf can you or someone else add that to the FAQ? useful info, there..

I never knew about this stuff.. thanks guys.

[kbf_private_joker]

Thanks for the detailed info. I just manually crop, then F2 to resize to 1440 then F3 to save as JPG at level 9. It's not as fast as yours but I'm just trying to make sure I do it all correctly before I learned to go any faster.

I just got to trying it and glad you mentioned it. I think I got it figured out. It will be more important for my SF2 guide because there's lots of pages that will will really stand out if they're not aligned correctly.

Having the crop area already set up for you will save a ton of time. Manually cropping will also make the pages uneven in that when you resize to 1440, the heights will be different. Then when you open them in a reader, you get different zoom sizes.