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Quick Answer: To straighten a photo on iPhone, here's a quick step-by-step for you.
- open the Photos app, and go to one of your photos
- Tap “Edit,” go to the Crop tool
- Use the slider to adjust the angle
For more advanced options, we would recommend you use a free app like YouCam Perfect.
Why Straighten a Photo?
Sometimes, your photos turn out a little tilted — maybe the horizon isn’t level or your selfie feels slightly off-balance.
Straightening helps make your photos look more professional and polished. The good news? You don’t need professional software to fix this. You can straighten photos directly on your iPhone or use a powerful free app.
How to Straighten a Photo on iPhone
The easiest way to straighten a photo is using the Photos app already on your iPhone.
- Open the Photos app and choose the photo.
- Tap Edit in the top-right corner.
- Select the Crop and Rotate icon (looks like a square with arrows).
- Use the slider below the image to straighten the photo manually.
- Tap Done to save the changes.
This is ideal for quick fixes, but the options are limited if you need more precision or want to apply other edits.
Use a Photo Straightener App to Make a Picture Straight
The YouCam Perfect app makes it easy to straighten your image, even if it’s vastly crooked. Here’s how to do it:
- Step 1. Crop & Rotate a Picture
- Step 2. Manually Straighten the Photo “Horizon”
- Step 3. Straighten a Photo in a 2-dimensional Way
Step 1. Crop & Rotate a Picture
To begin, choose the picture from your photo stream that needs straightening. Once you have the photo selected, open up the YouCam Perfect app and tap the camera tile.
Once your photo is added, tap “Edit” on the bottom of the screen. Tap on “Tools” in the navigation bar, and then select “Crop and Rotate.”
Step 2. Manually Straighten the Photo “Horizon”
When you’re editing your photo, it’s important to remember that no matter what type of photo you want to straighten, a portrait, a landscape, a cityscape, or a group photo, you want to make sure that the photo’s “horizon” is level.
In photography speak, the “horizon line” helps to create balance in a photo and show a level line across the horizontal plane of the photo. Traditionally, this provides a sense of calm in a photo.
📌Rotate a Picture at a 90-degree Angle
In the YouCam Perfect app, you can use the “Free” adjust tool to rotate the photo 45 degrees in either direction. When you’re straightening your image, use the “Rule of Thirds” composition lines on the photo to line up the image and ensure your subjects remain the focus.
For those of you out there who intend to create a clean, professional-looking mirror photo edit, straighten your photo first before applying the mirror effect.
Step 3. Straighten a Photo in a 2-dimensional Way
Another great way to adjust your photo is to straighten it in a 2D way, which is achievable using the “Perspective” tool. This feature in the YouCam Perfect app is especially useful for architecture photos where you want to adjust the perspective that the photo was taken in. When used correctly, the tool can have the powerful effect of making your photo look as if it was taken from a perfect viewpoint, even if it wasn’t.
Although the “Perspective” tool works best for architectural photos, it can also be used in scenarios where you want to bring a certain area of your photo to the back or front. For instance, if one subject in your photo looks strangely too far back, you can use this tool to adjust it slightly. As with any photo edits, they can have a distorted effect if used incorrectly, so try to only adjust as necessary.
Why Choose YouCam Perfect to Straighten Your Photo?
Here’s why YouCam Perfect is a great choice over the default Photos app:
- Advanced straightening tools with better control
- AI auto-enhance to fix lighting and alignment at once
- All-in-one editor: crop, rotate, filters, retouching, background removal
- Easy to use even for beginners
- Free to download and use
Comparison: iPhone Photos App vs YouCam Perfect
| Feature | iPhone Photos App | YouCam Perfect |
| Straightening Slider | Basic | Advanced |
| AI Auto Adjustment | ❌ | ✅ |
| Additional Editing Tools | Limited | Full Suite |
| Free to Use | ✅ | ✅ |
Which One Should You Use?
If you need to make a quick correction, the iPhone’s built-in Photos app is good enough. But if you want more editing power and want to improve the overall quality of your photos at the same time, YouCam Perfect is the better option — and it’s completely free.
Get Creative With Crop & Straighten Pictures
Sometimes it can be obvious when a photo needs to be straightened, but in other cases, straightening a photo can help bring a “calming” effect to the image aesthetics. By adjusting the plane of a photo to be a bit off-skew, you can also give the image a creative effect. When editing your photo, be sure to experiment with all tools to see which one gives your photo the best end result.
Remember, you can also use the additional “Crop & Rotate” edits in the YouCam Perfect app to change the perspective of an image. You can flip it horizontally or vertically, or rotate it 90 degrees in any direction.
Download YouCam Perfect: The Best Free App to Straighten a Photo on iPhone & Android
Many apps let you edit your photos, but there’s no doubt it's no question that the YouCam Perfect is one of the best free photo editing apps out there. Straightening your photo is a fantastic feature, but you can also blur your photos, remove unwanted objects, do double exposures, and much more.
Ready to start straightening a picture using an app? Get these and much more easy-to-use photo editing tools now with the YouCam Perfect app! Download it for either iOS or Android today to get started!
