Help with Conflicting "level" needed.

[Ezookiel]

G'Day all.
Ignoring the other issues in this photo, there's still a lot to be done if it's even salvageable, but the first thing I always do is make sure I have the shot level, but I'm having trouble getting this one level.

If I level the water, then the horizon and building look wonky,


But it is massively worse if I make the building nice and level, because then the water looks decidedly wrong.


I've tried several compromises of somewhere in between the two.
I think the problem is, it was shot diagonally across a lake, so being diagonal to the building makes it look wrong when it probably isn't.

I've tried lens correction on and off and that doesn't seem to solve much of my problem.

Thanks for any advice on what you do when you have two conflicting items to both make level in an image.
And this really is what the sky looked like. All I've done is some fill light to try to bring up some detail in the buildings, which were just totally black silhouettes to begin with. It was a pretty impressive sky. Unfortunately, I was with friends crowded in with several thousand people waiting for some fireworks, so I couldn't do anything much at all about getting a better angle, better position, better framing etc, I was lucky to be able to stand up and use the tripod without blocking the view of the people behind me, so this shot won't ever be a winner, just a memory of the night, but I can live with that ... if I can get the darned thing straight!!!

[leanneqld]

Keep the horizon straight, the library is on an angle so appears "wrong" in the photo but if u look at the pillars on the library they are pretty much parallel to the sides of the photo and look even.

[Ezookiel]

Thanks.
In the end I made my other common mistake - I started processing them in the order I took them without looking ahead at the other shots - so after playing with that one for ages, I actually found a slightly better shot to work with further on anyway. I really do need to preview all of them and then only work on the better ones.



The level on the water still looks wrong, if I lay a grid over the water, it rises and dips in various places, even with lens distortion correction the water still isn't flat. It doesn't help the eye work out what's 'Level' though, at either side of the screen the water seems about level, but through the rest of the shot it rises and falls. I really do need to get some better glass (and get better at long distance shots at full zoom in low light).

Thanks for the help. Much appreciated.