This is actually a tip and a half, ’cause there’s a really handy keyboard shortcut (one I use all the time) that I think you might get some use out of, and I show that first, and then the auto-straighten tip.

Hope you find it helpful. 🙂

Best,

-Scott

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18 comments

  1. Milton Lau 1 April, 2019 at 16:45 Reply

    Hi Scott I found this explanations extremely helpful. However, there is one thing I have not been able to automate in a preset. In the develop mode, there is the Crop & Straighten option. Within it, there is the Auto Angle. I prefer this over the Transform > Level option, because I can still see the image outside to cropped region. Transform “adjusts” it but the I cannot see the original image. Anyway to automate LR to use the Auto Angle?

    • Camilla Fuchs 14 November, 2017 at 19:23 Reply

      This is going to save me HOURS in the future. I do a lot of surf photography… imagine… hundreds of photos and a horizon in every one of them, most of them crooked, and I used to straighten them all manually, one by one… until today. THANK YOU!!

  2. ElSki 12 May, 2016 at 13:41 Reply

    I have a two-part question and I hope it isn’t a ‘feature request’. Is there a way to select several photos and have Auto-Straighten correct each one rather than apply the correction from the most selected photo? Is the something like Upright Mode that would let me add Auto-Straighten to an import preset and have it correct each photo on import (now it just applies the straightening it put in for the photo used to create the preset). Thanks!!!

        • Rob Sylvan 12 March, 2018 at 07:13 Reply

          You could select all desired photos, then in Develop click the Level button in the Transform panel to auto level the active photo. Then click the Sync button, and in the Synchronize Settings dialog click Check None to clear it, and then only check Upright Mode (under Transform). Click Synchronize, and it should sync an auto level adjustment to each photo individually (as opposed to adjusting all to same setting). It doesn’t guarantee the auto level will be right every time, but it should give you an auto adjustment in a batch.

  3. swkingsley 4 May, 2016 at 07:51 Reply

    I learned at least 3 new things in less than 2 minutes. Thank you for these short videos Scott, they are really helpful – even for people who have used Lightroom for 4+ years – and the length of the videos is great.

  4. sunny 3 May, 2016 at 13:33 Reply

    I have been wondering about this! It seems I’ve been shooting “crooked” lately and knew there must be an auto function somewhere. Thanks!

    • notlyle 4 May, 2016 at 11:57 Reply

      You can cycle through the options in Lens Corrections (OFF/AUTO/LEVEL/VERTICAL/FULL) at any time by CTRL-TAB (windows). Is that what you’re asking ?

  5. Paul Parkinson 3 May, 2016 at 07:20 Reply

    Hi Scott – another great, super-short, snappy (heh) video.

    I have a more detailed question about horizon straightening in Lightroom and, having asked around, I don’t have a workable answer – so here goes.

    Sometimes you have an image with a small piece of horizon to work from – it’s large enough to know that it’s not straight but too small to accurately straighten without a tonne of trial-and-error. Do you know of a way to (accurately) use the straightening tool on such small areas?

    Ideally I’d like to zoom in and use the straighten tool but you can’t do that. Any ideas?

    • notlyle 3 May, 2016 at 23:00 Reply

      Bring up the crop tool and get it artificially tight around the area you want to use as your horizontal reference. (It’ll be like zooming in…)

      Do the 2 point ruler. Resize the crop by using the handles.

      Kind of a long way around something that ought to be simple right ?

  6. Steve L 3 May, 2016 at 05:29 Reply

    Love these tips, Scott! Even if I’ve heard them before, the repetition helps me remember they’re out there. Thanks!

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