How to open guides in Photoshop. Using guides, grids, rulers. Binding. Lasso Tool Group

The quality of the photographs may directly depend on how the master arranges the working objects: the curvature of photographic objects can spoil the photo and the quality of the photograph will decrease, accordingly, the master’s work will be considered in vain.

The simplest and most accessible means to avoid this problem is a drawn straight line, which is responsible for aligning the objects in the photograph and placing them along the entire composition of the photograph.

The Adobe Photoshop graphic editor offers many options for how to solve this problem, but the simplest are guide lines, which can be located both vertically and horizontally.

You can determine the presence of this auxiliary tool using illuminated blue stripes. In order for the functionality of this tool to be accessible to the eye, it is necessary through the menu "View" press the button "New Guide".In the dialog box that opens immediately after clicking, you should select the desired direction for the line and its coordinates.

The left and top part of the workspace has a ruler with a scale, the measurements of which are displayed in pixels, so the number of pixels must also be specified in the open window. After these measures are taken, a highlighted line will appear on the photo in a certain direction specified earlier.

There is another way to enable guides in Photoshop. To do this, you need to click, hold down the left mouse button and drag it by hand in the required direction. Immediately after this, a blue guide will appear on the image.

The created guide gives the master a lot of possibilities, which, to one degree or another, can positively affect the quality of the image. Here are some of them:

Snap objects to guides using the snap function - this function will be useful if you need to align objects and snap them relative to the blue line.

As soon as the object approaches the line, it will be attracted like a magnet. To activate this feature, you must go to the menu "View" and select a function "Snaps to Guides".

Once the object is aligned with the blue line, it will be possible to move it along. If your goals do not include snapping objects to guides, you should hold down the object with the left mouse button and place it at a further distance from the guide; after this measure, snapping will stop working.

In order to visually compare the result before and after, you can temporarily remove the guides in Photoshop, a set of hot keys CTRL+H will allow you to do this quickly and efficiently, which is important when working with a large volume of images. To return it again, hold down similar keys: the guiding lines will return to their places.

In order to get rid of an unnecessary blue line, just drag it to the ruler area and it will disappear.

You can remove all guide lines using the function "View - Remove Guides".

Also in Adobe Photoshop, you can control the guides as you please: the function will help you cope with this task "Movements". You can find this function on the toolbar, which is located vertically. Having selected a tool, press and hold "V" on keyboard.

Once the operation is complete, the cursor will look like a double-headed arrow that can be used to move the blue lines in any direction.

Sometimes the work of aligning objects in an image requires quick results and does not tolerate creating guides manually. For such situations, the program allows you to use a grid.

This tool is created in the menu "View - Show - Grid". You can also press the combination CTRL+'.

In normal mode, the grid consists of guides, the distance between which is an inch, divided into four parts. You can change the distance between the guides in the menu "Editing - Preferences - Guides, Grids and Slices".

The grid can help out the Photoshop master if it is necessary to align a large number of objects, for example, text objects.

Smart Guides Mode

There is also a quick lines function that will significantly reduce the processing time of objects. These lines differ from any other in that after they are activated, they are displayed on the working role independently.

These guides show the space between objects in a composition. Such guides will change their position according to the trajectory of the object. To activate this useful and convenient feature, go to the menu "View - Display - Quick Guide Lines".

Guides are very helpful in the life of a Photoshopper - they help in the precise placement of objects, more clearly highlighting areas, and quick guides allow you to position elements relative to each other.

Lesson on using guides, grids, rulers. Binding. Lasso tool group.
Let's get acquainted with these interface elements as we work.

To begin, open the orange.jpg image in Photoshop.

Guides are called auxiliary non-printing lines designed to align everything that can be aligned. You can enable guides as follows:

On the menu View there is a checkbox Rulers(rulers). When this checkbox is enabled, rulers are visible at the top and left borders of the window. If it is turned off, they are therefore not visible. The guide is “pulled out” from the rulers (press the left mouse button and drag it to the center of the window with the document. When you release the mouse button, a blue line will remain in the drawing - the guide). If the line is pulled out from the top ruler, the guide will be horizontal; if from the left ruler, then the guide will be vertical. But guides wouldn't be called that if they didn't have the ability to attract selections and other Photoshop objects to themselves. By default, the selection you draw will be drawn to the guides. (When a selection path is in close proximity to a guide, it will "jump" onto that guide.) Guides have several settings, located in the View menu:

Checkbox View > Show > Guides controls the display of guides. If it is turned on, then they are visible in the image; if it is turned off, the guides are not displayed.
Checkbox View > Snap to > Guides turns on and off the attraction to the guides.
Checkbox Lock Guides- a command that prohibits the movement of guides.
Clear Guides- remove all guides.

The point aroused some curiosity Lock Guides. If you can prevent the movement of guides, then they can be moved. But as? To move anything that can move, there is a special tool - Move(movement). You turn on the tool and point it at the guide. The cursor takes the following form: After this, press the left mouse button and drag the guide to the destination, where we release the mouse button. Paragraph Clear Guides deletes all guides, but if you want to delete one guide, you just need to drag it back onto the ruler. Set two guides as tangents to the outline of the orange. Select a tool Elliptical Marquee(Oval selection) in the Tools palette. Place the cursor approximately at the intersection of the tangents drawn to the top and left points of the orange outline. Move the mouse to the right and down until the selection outline (blinking) covers the entire outline of the orange. If you did not get a sufficiently precise selection of the selected area, then try building a circular selection from the center. Place the cursor in the center of the orange. Press the keys simultaneously Alt And Shift. The first switches the tool to center selection mode, and the second makes the sides of the selected area equal, i.e. makes the selection round. If the selection does not match, you can move it. To move a selection, any selection tool must be selected. Then, when the cursor is inside the selected area, it will take the following form: If all the above conditions are met, when you press the left mouse button, you will be able to move the selection. If the shape of the selection does not fit, then the shape of the selection can be changed. This will be discussed below. Now about the grid. Grid is a grid (sorry for the tautology:), as if consisting of guides. It can also be turned on/off with the command View > Show > Grid. Can be pulled to the net by command View > Snap to > Grid.

Free-form selection: Lasso tool group.

The objects that Photoshop works with, namely the objects depicted in photographs, tend to have irregular shapes. Photoshop provides special tools for selecting irregularly shaped objects. Open the Ducky.psd file. (C:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Photoshop 5.5\\Goodis\\Samples\\Ducky.psd). Select a tool Lasso (Lasso). Pressing the left mouse button, slowly, try to trace the outline of the duckling. When the cursor returns to the starting point, release the button. It is highly doubtful that you got an accurate selection. This is normal because the mouse is not the most precise tool for freehand drawing. World famous author of Photoshop tutorials Dick McClelland says that drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a bar of soap tied to a rope. Therefore, if you have achieved a fairly accurate selection, then you can be congratulated, because this task is indeed not easy. A special feature of using the Lasso tool is that when you release the mouse, the selection outline automatically closes along the shortest straight line.

To achieve more accurate results when selecting, I recommend using the tool Polygonal Lasso. First of all, deselect the command Deselect Select(Emphasis). Select a tool Polygonal Lasso(Polygonal Lasso) in the Tools palette. Again, place the cursor at the right edge of the document, on the border of the duckling image and the background. Left click. Move the cursor along the outline of the duckling. A thin line will follow the cursor, connecting the point where you clicked and the current position of the cursor. Move the cursor along the path until the line describes it well. At the first bend of the contour, click with the mouse. This will fix the first segment of the selection outline. Now the point of reference will be the place of the last mouse click, and the tool will be ready to construct the next segment. Move the mouse along the outline of the duckling until the second segment describes it well. Make a mouse click. The second segment is completed, and you can move on to the next one. Repeat these operations until the entire selection outline has been created. When the cursor returns to the beginning of the first fragment, a small circle will appear next to it. This means that a mouse click will now close the outline of the selected area. Do this, and the thin line of the selection outline will turn into the familiar shimmering dotted line. The selected area is built. If during the construction of the selection outline you want to stop this operation, then simply click Esc. You can close a contour anywhere double click(the outline will close with the shortest straight line between the place where you clicked 2 times and the starting point of the selection.) Now the outline is described more accurately. To make your outline even more thorough, use a large display scale in the document window. When the cursor leaves the document window when creating a selection, the image in it will automatically scroll. The cube shown in the image is ideal for making selections using the Polygonal Lasso.

How did you distinguish the selected object from the background when constructing a selection outline? Obviously, by the difference in the colors of the object and background. The program is also able to “notice” this color difference, but cannot determine which pixel belongs to the background and which to the object. If you combine your ability to distinguish objects in a raster image with the accuracy of color determination by the program itself, the work will be significantly simplified and speeded up. Apparently, these are the considerations that Photoshop developers were guided by when creating the tool. Magnetic Lasso. It is able to determine the places of greatest color contrast and draw the border of the selected area along them. But the tool itself cannot determine whether the contrasting area is the boundary of the object and background or entirely belongs to one of them. Therefore, your task when using the tool will be to guide it approximately along the boundary of the object, and it itself will refine this boundary. Deselect the current selection with the command Deselect(Deselect) from the menu Select(Emphasis). Select a tool from the tool palette Magnetic Lasso(Magnetic lasso). Place the cursor on the border between the duckling image and the background. Left click. This will set the first control point (node). It looks like a small black square. Move the tool along the path. A thin line will follow the tool, marking the future border of the selected area. The tool itself calculates its position based on the greatest color contrast. New control points will appear on the line at regular intervals. From the last control point, you can change the path of the contour by moving the tool cursor. Move the tool until it satisfactorily describes the outline of the duck. If the contour line moves to the side, then immediately try to return it to its place by moving the cursor. If you cannot direct the line along the contour by moving the cursor, then move the cursor to the last successful point of the contour and click the mouse. This way you will create a new control point and fix a successful fragment of the curve. Repeat until the entire outline is described. When the tool cursor is at the point where you started making the selection, a small circle will appear next to it, prompting you to close the path. Close the path with a mouse click, and a flickering border of the selected area will appear in place of the path line. The dog shown in the picture can be easily identified with the Magnetic Lasso, since it differs from the background in color. This selection method is much faster, isn't it? However, you may be frustrated by this constant struggle with an instrument that won't listen to your "instructions." Working with Magnetic Lasso will become much more effective if the tool is configured correctly.
Palette type Options(Options) for the Magnetic Lasso tool:

You can call it by double-clicking on a tool in the tool palette. Parameter Lasso Width(Lasso Width) specifies the area that is taken into account when calculating color contrast. The smaller it is, the more precise the selection will be, but you will have to trace the outline more carefully. Checkpoints are set by the program at the interval specified in the field Frequency(Frequency). The more often the control points are located, the more accurately the object will be selected, but the amount of manual work will also increase. The last parameter Edge Contrast(Edge Contrast), defines the minimum value of contrast between adjacent pixels that is sufficient to be considered a contour line. The general recommendation can be expressed as follows. If you want to select a large object with a simple outline, increase the Lasso Width and Edge Contrast parameters, and decrease the Frequency parameter value. For small and complex pieces, do the opposite.

Quite a large number of operations performed in graphics programs require preliminary visual selection of a fragment of an image, dividing a photograph into zones or drawing a stimulating straight line to place objects. Guides in Photoshop exist precisely for this. These lines make working in the program much easier, increase the speed of work, and make it more accurate.

What does the guide look like?

In any version of Photoshop, guide lines are thin and straight vertical and horizontal lines, the color of which can be adjusted. By default they are blue. They can be installed manually in any arbitrary location in the image and in any quantity.

Enabling guides, first method

There are at least two ways to enable guides in Photoshop. In the first case, you need to work with the “Rulers” mode turned on. Next we proceed like this:

Before making guides in Photoshop, select the “View” menu item and click on the “Rulers” option.
After this, measuring rulers will appear on the inner borders of the image window.
Their parameters can be set by right-clicking on them. This mode can also be activated by pressing the Ctrl + R key combination. This combination, like many others, works on the “Turn on - Off” principle. That is, if you press the corresponding keys again, the rulers will no longer appear.

To turn on the guides, you need to place the mouse pointer on one of the rulers, left-click and, without pressing, drag in the direction of the drawing.
As soon as the pointer leaves the ruler, a thin line will be visible: horizontal if the pointer was on the horizontal ruler and you pulled down, and vertical if the pointer was on the vertical ruler and you pulled to the right.

You can set a guide in Photoshop both on the image itself and on the work area (the gray area between the image and the window borders). In this case, you can focus both on the image itself and on the rulers - for greater accuracy.

Enabling guides - second method

For absolute precision in setting the guide in Photoshop, you can use the second method, setting exact values for the lines:

In the main menu, you need to select “View” again and then “New Guide”.
This opens the corresponding dialog box. In it you need to choose which line you want to create - vertical or horizontal.
Then in the “Value” option window you need to enter the required number. Let's say it's "Horizontal, 1.2 cm." In this case, a horizontal line will appear at a distance of 1.2 cm from the top edge of the drawing. Or “Vertical, -1.2 cm”. This way you can draw a vertical guide on the work area, at a distance of 1.2 cm from the left edge of the image.

Further work with guides in Photoshop

The program allows you to carry out further work with drawn lines:

They can be moved. To do this, place the mouse pointer on the guide, press the left mouse button and drag the line in the desired direction.
They can be removed. In this case, you need to extend the line onto the ruler in the same way - the guide will disappear. You can delete all lines by selecting the “Delete Guides” command in the “View” menu item.
They can be temporarily disabled. This is necessary when they interfere with the evaluation of the image. If necessary, press Ctrl + ; and the guides will no longer appear. Pressing the same keys again will bring up the previously drawn guides again. They will also appear again if you draw a new line using any of the methods described above.

Setting Color and Type

As mentioned above, the color of these lines can be customized. To do this, in the “Edit” menu, select the “Settings” sub-item and then “Guides, grid, etc.” In the “Guides” section, select one of the suggested colors and, if necessary, change the “Style”: the developers offer either a solid line or a dotted line.

Indeed, when processing some types of images, blue or pink lines can interfere with visual perception, but dotted gray or black lines can be both useful and almost invisible.

Cases when guides are necessary

The most popular case when it is necessary to use guides in Photoshop is to separate an area of a drawing before selecting it with the appropriate tool for the purpose of cropping or copying the selected part. For example, if you need to cut out one of the portraits from a group photograph, then it is easier to first “adjust” the borders with guides and then cut them out.

In addition, the guides are very helpful in determining the composition of the drawing. So, when creating a book cover, these lines can easily indicate future areas of the cover: the title of the book, the publishing house logo, decorative elements, illustrations.

These lines are also useful for aligning objects relative to each other or to parts of the illustration.

Finally, any drawing tool can be snapped to such a horizontal or vertical line to draw precise straight lines (“View - Snap to - Guides”). For example, if you need to draw a straight vertical line with a decorative brush, you can select the Brushes tool, turn on the snap mode and move the mouse pointer along the guide. Even if your movements are not precise, the line will snap to it and be geometrically accurate.

Thus, each guide in Photoshop can perform its own task, and the use of these lines can be multifaceted and meet a wide variety of image processing purposes.

Let's look at the auxiliary tools that are used to create and edit images in Adobe Photoshop CS5. These are rulers, guides and a grid.

Rulers in Photoshop

Rulers can be seen on the left and top outside the image borders. Rulers are turned on and off using the menu View - Rulers.

The ruler's measurement units can be changed in the settings. To change, go to Editor - Settings - Units of measurement and rulers, and choose what you need in the top item.

The default reference point for rulers is the top corner. You can change the starting point if you click on the intersection of the rulers with the left mouse button and drag it onto the drawing. to the place where you plan the origin of coordinates. Then release the mouse button.

To return the starting point to its place, double-click at the intersection of the rulers.

Guides in Photoshop

Guides are lines to which you can snap certain objects and selections. To create guides, left-click on the ruler and, without releasing, drag while clicking on the drawing. A guide appears that will be parallel to this ruler. Using rulers, you can accurately position the guides in the drawing, at a predetermined distance from the edge.

For example, you want to select a round or oval object. To do this, make four guides: two horizontal and two vertical, in order to limit the desired object with them. After that, choose a tool oval area, and diagonally from the first intersection of the guides to the second intersection, make a selection. The selection will stick exactly to the guides.

After selection, you can do whatever you want with the selected area, for example, make it more contrasting, or brighter, or change the color.

To move an existing guide, press and hold Ctrl, and move the guide to a new location. You can also use the tool Moving.

When installing guides in Photoshop, to make them more precise, use zoom.

Snapping of objects and selections to guides can be disabled or enabled using the menu View - Link. You can also select different anchor elements using the selection View - Snap to. At this point you can snap to guides, grid lines, layers, document borders.

To remove guides, go to the menu View - Delete Guides. You can also remove guides by dragging them outside the image.

In addition, a new guide in Photoshop can be created using the menu View - New guide. When creating, a dialog box appears in which you select the guide's orientation and position. This method is good when you know exactly where the guide should be.

You can also change the orientation of the guide, from vertical to horizontal, or vice versa. To do this, press and hold the key Alt, then click on the guide in the place where you expect it to rotate 90 degrees.

Grid in Photoshop

The grid is another useful tool in Photoshop for creating collages, montages, and other cases where you need precise placement of objects.

In order for the grid to appear, select from the menu View - Show - Grid. The grid size is adjusted in the settings of Adobe Photoshop CS5. To go to settings. choose from the menu Editing - Settings - Guides, grid and fragments. In the settings you can specify. how often the grid lines will be placed, using the points Line through every, and Internal division by, which regulate the frequency of the main and auxiliary grid lines.

Now, if you pull the guide out of the ruler, it will automatically stick to the grid lines. If you create a selection, it will also snap to the lines and nodes of the grid. Linking can be disabled using the menu View - Snap To - Grid Lines.

To remove the grid, go to View - Show, and uncheck the box Net.

Today we'll talk about what it is ruler, guides and grid in photoshop. All of these tools help us align objects relative to each other on the canvas.

In order for us to start creating guides in photoshop, necessary turn on the ruler. Go to the menu item "View -> Rulers" or press the key combination "Ctrl+R".

On the top and left we have rulers with divisions. The markings on the rulers are customizable. To do this, just right-click on the ruler.

Now let's look at how to create guide lines. They come in two types: vertical and horizontal. In order to create a guide, it is quite simple, with the Move tool turned on, drag the ruler down or to the right with the left mouse button. Guides can be created without restrictions.

Also, guides can be created through the "View -> New Guide" menu.

A new window appears in which we just need to specify the orientation of the line and its position relative to the top or bottom border of the image. After clicking "Ok", a new guide appears on the photo.

Also, the guide can be changed in orientation from horizontal to vertical and vice versa. To do this, simply click on it while holding down the Alt key on your keyboard.

Now let's look at how to remove the guides. You can remove them either temporarily or completely. To temporarily disable their display or turn them back on, press the key combination “Ctrl+;”. To remove them completely, go to the menu item “View -> Remove Guides”.

Let's consider two more points that we may need. The first is “View -> Freeze Guides” or the keyboard shortcut “Alt+Ctrl+;”. This item allows you to prohibit the movement of lines. The second is "Binding". To enable it, you need to go to the "View -> Snap" menu. This item is responsible for sticking the image to the guides or the guides to the image. For example, you move a layer towards a guide and as soon as it gets as close to it as possible, the edge of the image will stick. Likewise, when you drag a guide, it will stick to the edge of the photo as soon as it gets as close as possible.

Now let's go through the settings a little. You can access them by selecting the menu item "Edit -> Settings -> Guides, Grid and Fragments" or double-clicking the left mouse button on the guide itself. A window opens in which we can customize the color and style of our lines.

Let's go further and next we have quick guides - these are temporary lines that serve to align objects. They help place an object relative to existing objects or the entire canvas. You can enable them through the menu item "View -> Show -> Quick Guides".

If we start to zoom in on a layer and position it relative to something, then we will have special lines that will help us place the layers relative to each other.

Next, let's look at the Grid tool. You can enable it in the "View -> Show -> Grid" menu or the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+". You can also configure it in the "Edit -> Settings -> Guides, Grid and Fragments" section. You can configure the gap through which the the main lines, as well as how these spaces will be divided.

This tool allows us to align objects relative to each other and is especially useful when there are a lot of them.

If you still have questions, you can watch a video tutorial on this topic below.

Video tutorial: