MY CARTHow to Use Guides in Photoshop: Video Lesson
This video lesson, titled “Learn How to Use Guides in Adobe Photoshop: A Training Tutorial,” shows you how to use guides in Photoshop. This video lesson is from our complete Photoshop tutorial, titled “Mastering Photoshop Made Easy.”
Overview:
What are Guides in Photoshop?
Guides in Photoshop help you place content in a Photoshop document. Guides are non-printing horizontal or vertical lines you can add to a Photoshop document. They help you accurately place content into desired locations and align it properly. Unlike the grid in Photoshop, guides are unique to each Photoshop document.
If desired, you can also use guides in conjunction with the “Snap” feature to easily snap content you move to the guides in the Photoshop document. Guides also work best in conjunction with the ruler in Photoshop, so it is best to use guides when the ruler is enabled. Remember that you can select “View| Rulers” from the Menu Bar in Photoshop to toggle the rulers on or off.
How to Add a Guide in Photoshop:
To add a guide to a Photoshop document, select “View| Guides| New Guide…” from the Menu Bar to open the “New guide” dialog box. Then select either the “Horizontal” or “Vertical” option button in the “Orientation” section of the dialog box.
To set the specific location of the guide on the ruler, enter its desired ruler location into the “Position” field. To set the color of the guide, select a color from the “Color” drop-down or click the color swatch to its right to set a custom color in the “Color picker (guides color)” dialog box that opens and click “OK.” Then click the “OK” button in the “New guide” dialog box to add the new guide.
Alternatively, to add a new horizontal guide, click and drag down into the Photoshop document, starting from the horizontal ruler. The new guide then appears at the location at which you release your mouse button.
Alternatively, to add a new vertical guide, click and drag to the right into the Photoshop document, starting from the vertical ruler. The new guide then appears at the location at which you release your mouse button.
Alternatively, to create a horizontal or vertical guide that snaps itself to the ticks in the horizontal or vertical ruler, follow the preceding steps, but simply hold down the “Shift” key on your keyboard as you drag the guides out from the rulers.
How to Move a Guide in Photoshop:
To move a guide in Photoshop, either click the Move Tool in the toolbar to activate it or hold down the “Ctrl” key (“Command” for Macs) to temporarily activate it. Then hover over the guide to move and click and drag in the directions of the arrows that appear when the mouse pointer turns into a double-pointed arrow bisected by double lines. Then release the mouse button when it is in the desired location. Alternatively, to snap a guide to the tick marks in the ruler while dragging it, release the “Ctrl” key, if needed, and hold down the “Shift” key instead. Then release the mouse button when it is in the desired location.
How to Select Multiple Guides at Once in Photoshop:
You can also select multiple guides at once in Photoshop to do things like move them simultaneously. To select multiple guides in Photoshop, click the Move Tool to activate it. While not absolutely required, doing this makes it much easier to perform other tasks related to selecting multiple guides, like moving them at the same time, without needing to also involve the “Ctrl” key to temporarily activate the Move Tool.
To then select the first guide, hover over it and click it when the double-pointed arrow icon appears. It should then turn a dark blue color to show it is selected. To then select other guides at the same time, hold down the “Shift” + “Alt” (“Option” for Macs) keys on your keyboard. Then hover over the other guides to select at the same time and click them when the double-pointed arrow icon appears to select them, too. They should all turn the same dark blue color to show they are selected.
How to Move Multiple Guides at Once in Photoshop:
To then move the multiple guides you selected in Photoshop at the same time, hold down the “Shift” + “Alt” (“Option” for Macs) keys on your keyboard and hover over one of the selected guides to move until the double-pointed cursor appears. Then click and drag to move the guides together as a single unit in the document.
Optionally, to snap the guides to the tick marks in the ruler after you begin to click and drag to move them, release the “Shift” + “Alt” (“Option” for Macs) keys on your keyboard, then hold down only the “Shift” key, and then continue to drag them to the desired location. After they are in the desired location, then release the mouse button to finish moving them.
How to Delete Multiple Selected Guides and Edit Multiple Selected Guides in Photoshop:
To delete multiple selected guides in Photoshop, either press the “Delete” key on your keyboard or select “View| Guides| Clear Selected Guides” from the Menu Bar. To edit the selected guides, select “View| Guides| Edit Selected Guides” from the Menu Bar to open the “Edit selected guides” dialog box, which has the same options as the “New guide” dialog box. Then make your desired changes to the selected guides in this dialog box and click the “OK” button to apply them.
How to Lock Guides in Photoshop:
After placing your guides into the desired locations in a Photoshop document, you can lock them into place so no one can accidentally move them. To toggle locking the guides in a Photoshop document on or off, select “View| Guides| Lock Guides” from the Menu Bar. Note that this does not prevent them from being cleared or deleted, however.
How to Snap Content to Guides in Photoshop:
When guides appear in a document, you can snap content you add to the guides by ensuring that there is a checkmark in front of the “Guides” command when you select “View| Snap To| Guides” from the Menu Bar. Snapping must also be enabled by selecting “View| Snap” from the Menu Bar to toggle it on and place a checkmark in front of the “Snap” command.
How to Show or Hide Guides in a Photoshop Document:
To toggle the display of guides on or off in a Photoshop document after adding them, select “View| Show| Guides” from the Menu Bar. If the “Guides” command appears grayed-out or unavailable, then there are no guides in the Photoshop document to show.
How to Delete a Guide in Photoshop or Delete All Guides in Photoshop:
To delete a single guide in Photoshop, either click the “Move” tool in the toolbar to activate it or hold down the “Ctrl” key (“Command” for Macs) to temporarily activate it. Then hover over the guide to delete and click and drag it back into its parallel ruler’s location and release it there. Alternatively, click the guide to select it and then press the “Delete” key on your keyboard. Alternatively, to delete all guides in a Photoshop document, select “View| Guides| Clear Guides” from the Menu Bar.
How to Clear All Guides from the Canvas or from an Artboard in Photoshop:
Additionally, if you added guides to both your canvas and to one or more artboards in the same Photoshop document, you can also separately clear the canvas guides and the artboard guides in Photoshop. To clear all guides from a selected artboard in Photoshop, click to select the desired artboard in the Photoshop document and then select “View| Guides| Clear Selected Artboard Guides” from the Menu Bar. Separately, to clear all guides from only the canvas, select “View| Guides| Clear Canvas Guides” from the Menu Bar.
