Good free app for straightening scanned photos

I scan with Irfanview but sometimes the photos are crooked.
I can straighten with Paint.NET but it's a guessing game on the degrees of
rotation.

Googling I find too many choices, most of which is software I don't have
installed (and don't really want to install an entire photo package just to
straighten a photo).

I guess I'll install "The GIMP", but is there a dedicated freeware
straightening program for Windows?

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Ask your question on alt.comp.freeware.
--
Bill

Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska

"Tatsuki Takahashi" wrote in message
...
I scan with Irfanview but sometimes the photos are crooked.
I can straighten with Paint.NET but it's a guessing game on the degrees of
rotation.

Googling I find too many choices, most of which is software I don't have
installed (and don't really want to install an entire photo package just
to
straighten a photo).

I guess I'll install "The GIMP", but is there a dedicated freeware
straightening program for Windows?

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On 15/07/2016 18:21, Bill Bradshaw wrote:
Ask your question on alt.comp.

But make sure you don't cross post it to this or other Windows
newsgroups. We don't need any crackpots to start posting rubbish here.

This Japanese guy is known to spam other newsgroups.



--
With over 350 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

Tatsuki Takahashi wrote:
I scan with Irfanview but sometimes the photos are crooked. I can
straighten with Paint.NET but it's a guessing game on the
degrees of rotation.

IV can rotate by degrees + or - and also show you the result before you
actually change it, so you can choose a different degree. ctrl-U or
View/ Custom rotation



--
Mike Easter

|I scan with Irfanview but sometimes the photos are crooked.
| I can straighten with Paint.NET but it's a guessing game on the degrees of
| rotation.
|

It's always going to be a guessing game because
there's no reference for what's straight.

I have 2 versions of Paint Shop Pro and use v. 5 for
rotating. With scans it's often less than 1 degree off.
I typically run into it when I scan printed pages to feed
to OCR software. (With photos 1 degree off is usually
not so noticeable.)

You really need a graphic editor for that. First because
most free software doesn't provide incremental rotation.
(Like IrfavView, which just provides a 90 degree option.)
But also because once you rotate it you need to clean
up the edges so that you still have a rectangular image.

In other words, the problem is not the software. It's
just a tricky job getting an image perfectly straight.

Why wouldn't you want to have a graphic editor, anyway?
If Paint.Net isn't adequate you might look into Paint
Shop Pro. You can usually get it for less than $50, with
functionality comparable to Photoshop, which is far more
expensive. There are dozens of partially functional graphic
programs. They used to be given away with printers and
scanners. But those are generally limited to basic operations.
Incremental rotation is not basic in that it's not available
as a Windows function, so it requires complex code to do
it. Rotating 90 degrees, on the other hand, is easy.

I originally paid $100 for PSP5 and $50 for PSP 16. Oldapps.com
has older copies for download. V 5.03 is called psp503ev.exe.
Maybe that's only an "evaluation" copy? I don't know. I know
that some versions were given away free with modems and such.
So you may be able to get it free.

The nice thing about the older versions is that most basic
functions are there but the program is small and simple. (PSP5
was written for Win9x, but runs fine on NT systems.)
If you don't need professional editing functions, like turning
an average model into a more shapely woman with perfect
skin or working with RAW images, then you don't need the
newer, bloated versions. (I mainly use PSP 16 for advanced
sharpening functions and working with RAW format. For web
graphics, simple image editing and work diagrams, PSP5 is
quicker and easier to use.)

GIMP is a long-standing disappointment. It's over 20 years
old now and always under construction. Last version I
tried (2.8?) still couldn't even handle a proper MDI (multiple
document interface) window. The toolbars all float around.
It's ridiculous. And like most other such software these days,
it's bloated. But for anyone who needs the functionality
and has more patience than money, it might be worthwhile.

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 09:21:02 -0800, Bill Bradshaw wrote:

Ask your question on alt.comp.freeware.

I could also ask on rec.photos but I figured the Windows users knew how to
manipulate pictures on Windows.

I'm curious why you feel Windows users don't know anything about photo
rotation programs on Windows?

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On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 18:59:43 +0100, Good Guy wrote:

But make sure you don't cross post it to this or other Windows
newsgroups. We don't need any crackpots to start posting rubbish here.

This Japanese guy is known to spam other newsgroups.

Your post has zero value.
That makes you a troll.

The proof that your post has zero value is that it has no bearing on the
question whatsoever.
Absolutely none.

All you can do is deprecate a user when a valid question is asked.

1. This is a valid question
2. It's asked of a value newsgroup.

For you to say otherwise, merely indicates that you are a troll.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 16:26:46 +0000 (UTC), Tatsuki Takahashi wrote:

I scan with Irfanview but sometimes the photos are crooked.
I can straighten with Paint.NET but it's a guessing game on the degrees of
rotation.

Googling I find too many choices, most of which is software I don't have
installed (and don't really want to install an entire photo package just to
straighten a photo).

I guess I'll install "The GIMP", but is there a dedicated freeware
straightening program for Windows?

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---


Why not use Irfanview to straighten??

ctrl+u brings up the custom/fine rotation dialog.

In the menu: Image- Custom / fine rotation.

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:21:50 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

Not that I know of, but XnView's Rotate is IME much easier to use than
Irfanview's.

I had already tried XnView for Windows version 2.36.

There is a XNVIEWS Tools JPEG Lossless Transformations Dialog
selection but it only has basic transformations.

I also tried XNVIEW Image Rotate Auto deskew.

And I tried XNVIEW Image Rotate Custom.

The Custom option will do the work, but what I want is what everyone wants,
which is simply to draw a straight line and align the picture *to* that
reference line.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On 15/07/2016 21:13, Tatsuki Takahashi wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 09:21:02 -0800, Bill Bradshaw wrote:

Ask your question on alt.comp.freeware.
I could also ask on rec.photos but I figured the Windows users knew how to
manipulate pictures on Windows.

I'm curious why you feel Windows users don't know anything about photo
rotation programs on Windows?


Because you didn't tell us what's your level of expertise is. In
Windows 10, there is a program called Photos and it can do wonders but
some idiots and nuteers aren't using Windows 10 because that Canadian
"Small Boys Abuser" has told them that Microsoft is spying on users. In
Win 10 when you launch Photos, you will get something like this:

Photos-Rotate https://s31.postimg.org/yxftv54q3/2016_07_15_2117.png

The above picture is the toolbar from which you can rotate your image
and it is free to use.




--
With over 350 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 20:21:09 +0000 (UTC), Tatsuki Takahashi wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:21:50 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

Not that I know of, but XnView's Rotate is IME much easier to use than
Irfanview's.

I had already tried XnView for Windows version 2.36.

There is a XNVIEWS Tools JPEG Lossless Transformations Dialog
selection but it only has basic transformations.

I also tried XNVIEW Image Rotate Auto deskew.

And I tried XNVIEW Image Rotate Custom.

The Custom option will do the work, but what I want is what everyone wants,
which is simply to draw a straight line and align the picture *to* that
reference line.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Install the irfanview plugin package, then press f12, which will bring up the "paint" dialog. One of the
tools in Irfanview Paint, is exactly what you are asking for.

On 15/07/2016 21:15, Tatsuki Takahashi wrote:
Your post has zero value. That makes you a troll. The proof that your
post has zero value is that it has no bearing on the question
whatsoever. Absolutely none. All you can do is deprecate a user when a
valid question is asked. 1. This is a valid question 2. It's asked of
a value newsgroup. For you to say otherwise, merely indicates that you
are a troll. ---

Now let me guess. Do you look like an orangutan
http://savetheorangutan.org/?gclid=CKCmkpin9s0CFQWfGwodhVULwQ? If the
answer is yes then we can save you.

Orangutan
http://files.webbuilder.meebox.net/meebox525/image/jossy-webb-1250.png



--
With over 350 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 20:29:10 +0000, Stormin' Norman wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 20:21:09 +0000 (UTC), Tatsuki Takahashi wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:21:50 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

Not that I know of, but XnView's Rotate is IME much easier to use than
Irfanview's.

I had already tried XnView for Windows version 2.36.

There is a XNVIEWS Tools JPEG Lossless Transformations Dialog
selection but it only has basic transformations.

I also tried XNVIEW Image Rotate Auto deskew.

And I tried XNVIEW Image Rotate Custom.

The Custom option will do the work, but what I want is what everyone wants,
which is simply to draw a straight line and align the picture *to* that
reference line.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Install the irfanview plugin package, then press f12, which will bring up the "paint" dialog. One of the
tools in Irfanview Paint, is exactly what you are asking for.

This video demonstrates how to use the straighten tool in Irfanview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TMNV9STsPE

Mayayana wrote:
|I scan with Irfanview but sometimes the photos are crooked.
| I can straighten with Paint.NET but it's a guessing game on the degrees of
| rotation.
|

It's always going to be a guessing game because
there's no reference for what's straight.

As long as the error is systematic, follows some
rule of math, you can "attempt" or "test" transforms
until you find the correct one by accident. So if
you don't know what fisheye effect is or don't
know what barrel distortion is, you can always try
the tool until you get a decent match.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/us...ion-noise.html

*******

Some scanners rotate the scanned result for you,
in the plugin. (My scanner is too old to be this
fancy - all mine has is antialiasing for medias
printed with half-tone dots.)

*******

Some things cannot be corrected, such as scans
from plain paper, where various parts of the paper
shrunk or stretched in a non-systematic way. Nobody
offers a transform for that.

*******

If the purpose of rotating multiple scanner pages, is
as a first step for gluing them together in a panorama,
you can use Microsoft ICE to do all the gluing for you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micros...mposite_Editor

After the panorama is in hand, you can apply one final
global rotate, to give the best overall alignment.

*******

And the GIMP may have something - but it might not
be in the menu already. Apparently the effort
was nearly lost, and this person saved the plugin
for later. Deskew attempts to align to the axis,
by noting features that seem to be linearly
arranged.

https://github.com/prokoudine/gimp-deskew-plugin

Paul

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 14:40:22 -0400, Mayayana wrote:

It's always going to be a guessing game because
there's no reference for what's straight.

The use model is to draw a reference line, and the software rotates the
picture to match that reference line.

But also because once you rotate it you need to clean
up the edges so that you still have a rectangular image.

This can be accomplished in the better programs with pixel padding, or,
manually, by cropping.

In other words, the problem is not the software. It's
just a tricky job getting an image perfectly straight.

I've used software that does a good job but it has been years and I forget
what software it was that I used.

Why wouldn't you want to have a graphic editor, anyway?

I never edit pictures, that's why.
I just need to rotate a few dozen scans.

If Paint.Net isn't adequate you might look into Paint
Shop Pro.

I installed the latest Gimp but it is crashing every time.
Maybe it's a GTK thing?

So I'm installing The Gimp from 2007 now, and I have an archive from 2011
(that's how often I use it) that I can try also.

I originally paid $100 for PSP5 and $50 for PSP 16. Oldapps.com
has older copies for download. V 5.03 is called psp503ev.exe.
Maybe that's only an "evaluation" copy? I don't know. I know
that some versions were given away free with modems and such.
So you may be able to get it free.

Paying $100 or even $50 to straighten a few photos is overkill.

The nice thing about the older versions is that most basic
functions are there but the program is small and simple. (PSP5
was written for Win9x, but runs fine on NT systems.)

Yup. In general, there's little that's very useful in the newer versions of
much of the popular software. The basics are all I need, which is why the
2007 version of The Gimp may serve my needs.

If you don't need professional editing functions, like turning
an average model into a more shapely woman with perfect
skin or working with RAW images, then you don't need the
newer, bloated versions. (I mainly use PSP 16 for advanced
sharpening functions and working with RAW format. For web
graphics, simple image editing and work diagrams, PSP5 is
quicker and easier to use.)

All I want is photo rotation to straighten crooked scans for a few dozen
pictures.

GIMP is a long-standing disappointment. It's over 20 years
old now and always under construction. Last version I
tried (2.8?) still couldn't even handle a proper MDI (multiple
document interface) window. The toolbars all float around.
It's ridiculous. And like most other such software these days,
it's bloated. But for anyone who needs the functionality
and has more patience than money, it might be worthwhile.

The latest version crashed every time on me.
I have 2.6.6 from 2009 in my archive.
And I have 2.4.2 from 2007.
And a version from 2013.

Hopefully one of them will work.

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