Photography Pet Peeve - Crooked Horizons

If you were thinking about buying a fine art seascape or waterscape image would you buy one that has a crooked horizon? I know I wouldn't and all my professional photographer friends feel the same way. So why is it there are so many images (even by professionals) out there that are crooked? Especially on websites that specializes in selling fine art?

Yes, all photographers, including myself have made this big error at some point in their career. Sometimes you just don't think about it or you rely too much on the editing program to be correct. A lot of my mistakes was relying too much on the program or being in too much of a rush while working on the photo. I do have some older images I need to go back to and correct because of that.

The longer I've been doing photography, the more crooked horizons drive me nuts!! Yes, there are those creative shots where they are meant to be crooked and artistic but in most photos I see with this issue, that's not the case. Even just a slightly crooked horizon can be the difference between a sale and a no sale, especially if a fine art agent, magazine, or art gallery is looking at the photo.

So how do you make sure your horizons are straight in editing? Lightroom is my main program for editing. I first will try the auto level option to see what it does. Even if it looks okay, I still click on the crop tool, then click on the slider tool so the smaller lines show up. This allows me to then look closely at all the lines to see if they are straight and make further adjustments as needed. Most of the time Lightroom is not correct especially if there are a lot of different lines and shapes in the photo. You can also check this by zooming in on the photo, and then moving or sliding the photo up to the top of your screen to see if it's straight.

So next time you're thinking about putting a photo up on your website to sell, please double check the horizon so it doesn't affect your chances of making a sale.

What experiences or mistakes have you made with photography? Comment below.

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