How do I fix a crooked horizon in a video?
Turn the clip by a small angle with Fine angle in the tool above until the horizon is level. Choose Fill to get rid of the empty corners, then export the straightened copy.
Straighten a tilted video
Quick answer: open the clip in the tool above, click Fine in the Rotation row and drag the Fine angle slider until the horizon looks level. Then set Canvas to Fill so the frame has no empty corners, and export.
A tilted handheld shot usually needs a turn of just a few degrees. The catch is that turning a rectangle by anything other than a quarter turn uncovers wedge-shaped gaps at the corners. Every choice on this page comes down to what you do with those gaps.
How to straighten a crooked video
-
Open the video
Drop the file onto the tool, or click to choose it. Pause on a frame with a clear line that ought to be level or upright, such as the sea, a roofline or a door frame.
-
Switch to Fine
Click Fine in the Rotation row. From an unrotated clip the angle starts at 1°, which shows you which way the picture moves.
-
Find the angle
Drag the Fine angle slider, which moves in tenths of a degree, or type a value into the box beside it. Positive numbers turn the picture clockwise, negative numbers counterclockwise.
-
Pick a canvas
Choose Fill to zoom in until the corners vanish, Crop to keep the original scale with filled corners, or Expand to keep the whole frame on a slightly larger canvas.
-
Choose a corner style
With Crop or Expand, set Corners to Black, White or Blur. Fill leaves no corners to colour, so the option is hidden.
-
Export
Click Export video and then Download video. A fine angle redraws every frame, so expect it to take longer than a quarter turn.
Which way to turn, and how far
Find a line that should be level, then see which end sits lower. A horizon that runs downhill to the right means the picture leans clockwise, so it needs a negative angle. When it runs downhill to the left, use a positive one.
Upright lines near the middle of the frame are often a better guide than the horizon. Wide-angle lenses bend straight lines towards the edges, so a horizon close to the top or bottom of a wide shot may curve. A lamp post or doorway near the centre gives a truer reading.
The slider reaches 45° either side of the nearest quarter turn, which is more than any handheld wobble needs. For an exact figure, type it into the number box rather than dragging.
Fill, Crop or Expand for a tilted shot
Fill: no corners, slightly zoomed
Fill enlarges the picture until the turned frame covers the whole canvas. The output keeps the original dimensions, such as 1920 × 1080, so it drops into an edit or a social app like any other clip. In return, a thin strip is lost from every edge.
Crop: original scale, filled corners
Crop holds the picture at its recorded size within an identical canvas. Four small triangles appear at the corners, painted in your chosen colour or with Blur. Nothing is enlarged, so detail stays as sharp as the source allows.
Expand: every pixel, bigger canvas
Expand grows the canvas so none of the turned frame is cut off. Straightening a 1920 × 1080 clip by 2° gives 1958 × 1148, again with filled triangles at the corners. That size is no longer exactly 16:9, which may not suit an editing timeline or a platform that expects standard dimensions.
The trade-off between zoom and resolution
The larger the angle, the further Fill has to zoom. For a 1920 × 1080 landscape clip, the tool's geometry works out like this:
- 1°: about 3% zoom, keeping roughly 1862 × 1048 of the original frame.
- 2°: about 6% zoom, keeping roughly 1809 × 1017.
- 5°: about 15% zoom, keeping roughly 1668 × 938.
- 10°: about 29% zoom, keeping roughly 1484 × 835.
That kept area is scaled back up to fill the output, so a large correction looks softer than the source. A 4K recording gives you headroom: even after a 10° Fill it still holds more detail than a 1080p frame, and choosing 1080p under Export settings then gives a crisp result.
For a bigger tilt, Crop with Blur corners can look better than a heavy zoom, because the picture keeps its full sharpness and only the corners change.
Blur corners for a softer edge
Blur paints the empty triangles with an enlarged, blurred and slightly darkened copy of the same frame. Because the colours come from the scene itself, small corners blend in and are easy to miss on a phone screen.
Black corners suit a deliberate, framed look, and White suits a clip that will sit on a white slide or web page. For most footage, Blur is the least noticeable of the three.
Sideways and tilted at the same time
The Fine slider works around whichever quarter turn is closest. You can click Right and then nudge the angle to 92° or 88°, and with Expand that is a single export.
Neither Crop nor Fill changes the proportions of the frame, which is right for a level fix but wrong for a clip that also has to go from landscape to portrait. In that case, export a plain quarter turn with Expand first, which is lossless, then open the new file and straighten it with Fill.
Photos on iPhone has a straighten control of its own, described in how to rotate a video on iPhone. Premiere Pro accepts any rotation value as well.
Straightening a tilted video: FAQ
How many degrees should I rotate a tilted video?
As many as it takes for a line that should be level to look level, which for a handheld shot is usually a few degrees. Nudge the slider in 0.1° steps and judge it against a building edge or door frame near the centre.
Why do black triangles appear after straightening?
A rectangle turned by a small angle no longer reaches the corners of its canvas. Choose Fill to zoom past the gaps, or set Corners to Blur so they show a soft copy of the scene instead.
Does straightening a video reduce quality?
A little. A fine angle redraws and re-encodes every frame at a high bitrate, and Fill also enlarges the picture. Pick High under Quality and keep the angle as small as the shot allows. Rotating without losing quality explains why only quarter turns avoid a re-encode.
Can I straighten just one part of a video?
No. One angle covers the whole clip, or the trimmed section you keep. If the tilt drifts during the shot, a video editor with keyframes will handle it better.
Can I straighten a clip that is also upside down?
Yes. Choose 180° first, then drag the Fine angle slider, which now works either side of the half turn.
Will the straightened video keep its dimensions?
With Fill or Crop, yes: the output matches the original width and height. Expand makes it slightly larger in both directions so that the whole tilted frame fits.