You’ll probably end up using the Correct Camera Distortion filter for most of your straightening and warp-correcting. But Elements also includes a set of Transform commands, demonstrated in Figure 11-13, that come in handy when you want to make a change to just one side of a photo, or for making final tweaks to a correction you made with Correct Camera Distortion. You can also apply these commands just for fun to create wacky photos or text effects. The following pages explain all your options.
Figure 11-13. Left: While you could use Correct Camera Distortion (page 383) to straighten a slanting building like this one, sometimes it’s easier to make straightforward corrections like this by switching to the Transform commands and just giving the object a yank to pull it where you want it. Right: Here, it took only a dose of Skew and a bit of Distort to pull the building straight and make it tall again.
Elements gives you four Transform commands, including three specialized ones—Skew, Distort, and Perspective—to help straighten out objects in your photos. They all move your photo in different directions, but the way you use them is the same. When you choose the Transform command you want, the same box-like handles appear around your photo that you see when using the Move tool. Just drag a handle in the direction you want your photo to move. Figure 11-14 shows how to use these commands.
Figure 11-14. Here’s an example of how you’d use the Skew command to pull a building upright. To apply the Transform commands, make sure you can reach the handles on the image’s corners; it helps to enlarge your image window far beyond the size of the actual image to give yourself room to pull. (If you’re using tabbed windows, you don’t need to do this because you already have plenty of space around your image. But if you’re working with floating windows, just drag the lower-right corner to enlarge the window.)
To see the list of Transform commands, go to Image→Transform. The first one, Free Transform, is the most powerful because it includes all the others—you’ll learn about it in the next section. (Although Free Transform is the most capable command, it can also be the trickiest to use. You may find it easier to use one of the specialized Transform commands so you don’t have to worry about inadvertently moving a photo in an unwanted direction.)
Note
Transform commands work only on layers or active selections. So if you have only a Background layer, Elements turns it into a regular layer when you use Transform commands.
Here’s what the other Transform commands do:
Skew slants an image. If you have a building that looks like it’s leaning to one side, for example, you can use this command to straighten it back up again.
Distort stretches your photo in the direction you pull it. Use it to make buildings (or people) taller and skinnier, or shorter and squatter.
Perspective stretches your photo to make it look like parts are nearer or farther away. For example, if a building in your photo looks like it’s leaning away from you, you can use this command to pull the top back toward you.
Tip
If you have an active selection, then you can apply the Transform commands to just that selection (as long as you aren’t working on a Background layer).
All the Transform commands—including Free Transform—have the same Options bar settings, shown in Figure 11-15.
Figure 11-15. The Options bar for the Transform commands. The W (width) and H (height) boxes let you specify dimensions when you’re resizing an image. To scale by dragging instead, click the Scale button labeled here, and then drag any of the scaling handles (not shown) that appear on the bounding box around your image.
From left to right, the Options bar settings control:
Reference point location. This strange little doodad (shown in Figure 11-16) lets you tell Elements where the fixed point should be when you transform something; it’s a miniature cousin of the Canvas Size dialog box’s placement grid (Adding Canvas). The reference point starts out in the image’s center, but you can tell Elements to move everything using the upper-left corner or the bottom-right corner as the reference point instead. To do that, click the square you want it to use as the reference.
Figure 11-16. This nine-box icon in the Options bar is where you set the reference point for transformations, which tells Elements the central point to rotate around. For example, if you want your photo to spin around its lower-left corner instead of its center, click the lower-left square here. For the Transform commands, this also tells Elements to use that corner as the pivot point for the rotation.
Scale, W, H, Constrain Proportions. You can resize your image by dragging, or by entering a percentage in the W or H box. Turn on the Constrain Proportions checkbox to preserve your image’s original proportions.
Rotate. Confusingly, there are two different Rotate commands next to each other in the Options bar. The box next just to the right of Constrain Proportions lets you enter the number of degrees you want Elements to rotate your image or selection. Or, click the next pair of rotated squares and you can grab a corner of your image to make a free rotation (see Free Rotate Layer).
Scale. Yup, this is yet another Options bar setting for controlling scale. Click here if you want to resize your image by dragging it rather than entering numbers in the W and H boxes.
Skew. Click this icon, and then pull a corner of your image to the left or right, the way you do with the Skew command.
In most cases, you can transform an object without paying much attention to these settings—just grab a handle and drag. Here’s what you do:
Position your image to give yourself room to work.
Position your photo so that you have room to drag the handles far beyond its edges (Figure 11-14 explains how). If you’re using tabbed windows, you probably have plenty of room.
Choose how to transform your image.
Go to Image→Transform, and then select the command you want. It’s not always easy to tell which will work best for a given photo, so you may want to try all three in turn. You can always change your mind and undo your changes by pressing Esc before you accept a change, or by pressing Ctrl+Z/⌘-Z after you’ve made the change.
You can use Transform commands only on regular layers, so if your image just has a Background layer, the first thing Elements does is convert that layer to a regular layer. (You can apply Transform commands to a selection on a Background layer without converting it to a regular layer, though.) Once the Transform command is active, handles appear around your image.
Transform your image.
Grab a handle and pull in the direction you want the image to move. You can switch to another handle to pull in a different direction. If you decide you made a mistake, press Esc to return to your original photo.
When you’re happy with how your photo looks, accept the change.
Click the Commit button (the green checkmark) below your photo or press Return. If you decide not to apply the transformation after all, click the Cancel button (the red No symbol) instead.
Free Transform combines all the other Transform commands into one, and lets you warp your image in many different ways. If you aren’t sure what you need to do, Free Transform is a good choice.
You use Free Transform exactly the way you use the other Transform tools, following the steps in the previous section. The difference is that with Free Transform, you can pull in any direction, using keystroke-drag combinations to tell Elements which kind of transformation you want to apply. Each of the following transformations does exactly the same thing it would if you selected it from the Image→Transform menu:
Distort. To make your photo taller or shorter, Ctrl-drag/⌘-drag any handle. Your cursor turns into a gray arrowhead.
Skew. To make your photo lean to the left or right, Ctrl+Shift-drag/⌘-Shift-drag a handle in the middle of a side. Your cursor turns into a gray arrowhead with a tiny double-arrow next to it.
Perspective. To correct an object that appears to lean away from or toward you, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/⌘-Option-Shift and drag a corner handle. You see the same gray arrowhead cursor as when you’re distorting.
Free Transform is the most powerful of all the Transform commands, but when you’re pulling in several different directions, it’s easy to distort your photo. That’s why some people prefer to use the simpler Transform commands and apply multiple transformations instead.
Tip
To transform only a selected area, try the Transform Selection command (Making a Selection Larger or Smaller), which lets you make any of these changes to a selection’s outline without calling up Free Transform. To change the contents of a selection, use the tools covered in this chapter.