Use your editing app’s straighten or rotate tool to level the photo against a straight edge in the image, then crop away the angled white border left behind.
What you need
- The crooked scan
- Google Photos, Apple Photos, or Photoshop Elements — all have a straighten tool
- 5 to 10 minutes
Pick a straight reference line
It helps to pick a genuinely straight line in the photo to line up against — a horizon, a door frame, or the edge of a table — rather than guessing by eye, since guessing often leaves a photo looking almost, but not quite, straight.
How to straighten the scan
- Open the photo in your editing app and find the crop or straighten tool — in Google Photos this is under Edit, then Crop; in Apple Photos it is under Edit, then the crop icon; in Photoshop Elements it is the Straighten tool in the toolbar.
- Identify a straight line in the photo you can use as a reference — a horizon, wall, or door edge works well.
- Most apps show a grid overlay and a rotation slider or dial once you are in crop mode — drag it until your reference line sits parallel to the grid lines.
- In Photoshop Elements specifically, you can instead click and drag the Straighten tool directly along your reference line, and Elements will rotate the photo to match automatically.
- Once level, use the crop handles to trim away the angled white or grey border that rotating creates around the edges.
- Save the straightened, cropped version under a new file name.
Check the reference line is straight
Look at your reference line again in the finished photo — it should now run perfectly horizontal (or vertical, if that is what you used). Check the corners too, to make sure the crop removed all of the angled border without cutting into anyone in the photo.
If there’s no clear straight edge
If cropping to remove the border would cut off part of someone’s head or a corner detail you want to keep, you have two options: leave a very thin sliver of border in the final crop, or use a Content-Aware Fill/Clone Stamp approach (see Repair a torn corner in a family photo) to extend the photo slightly instead of cropping it away.
Next step
Even out a badly cropped scan from a photo-scanning service covers a related problem if a scanning service has sent back crooked or oddly cropped files.
Sources and date checked
Google Photos Help, Apple Photos Help and Adobe Photoshop Elements Help, all on straighten/crop tools. Checked 22 September 2026.