How do you rotate an image in Photoshop without rotating the entire canvas"

You are rotating the layer only instead of the entire canvas.

let say you have a horizontal image that you want to rotate as a portrait mode for example, just go to IMAGE > ROTATE CANVAS and everything should rotate. If you have a layer and use EDIT > TRANSFORM > ROTATE you will get the result you get right now.

I think that I know that you mean. You have an image with a white background. Use the Rectangulay Marquee tool to isolate the image. I would copy this to a new layer. Layor/new/image via copy. Then use the transform tool Edit/transform to do what you want. Fill the lower area with white if needed.

Errol

What Errol said. Using image/rotate canvas as suggested above will rotate the whole canvas, which is not what you want Select just the image area then use edit/transform as Errol suggests.

strange it seem im the only one that have read;

<...I don't want to get the white around the image....>

Maria will tell us what work for her hopefully : )

Using image/rotate canvas as suggested above will rotate the whole canvas, which is not what you want Select just the image area then use edit/transform as Errol said.