Photoshop is the most used photo editing and retouching program in the world. Millions of users use it every day, both personally and professionally, to carry out all kinds of jobs. This Adobe software is very complex, and therefore has a large number of different options and settings. And, therefore, it is very easy to find that, due to a change that we do not know what it is, we have difficulties to work comfortably with it. These are some of the most common failures that can drive us crazy.
Most of the errors and problems that we can find when editing photos with Photoshop are due to a bad configuration of Photoshop or a bad way of working with the program. In both cases, we will see how to solve them easily.
Where is the ruler in Photoshop?
Like any drawing program, the Adobe tool offers us a ruler that we can use to measure distances between elements or between two points in a photo. In addition, these rules allow us to know the total and relative location of an object with respect to the entire canvas.
It may happen that when you open an image, the Photoshop ruler has disappeared. This is probably due to the fact that we have modified the configuration of the program or (more likely) that we have pressed the keyboard shortcut to show or hide it.
To show the rule again, all we have to do is press the keyboard shortcut Control + R. We can automatically see how this rule appears or disappears.
In addition to the ruler, Photoshop has other elements that can help us draw better, such as guides or grids. These, if we want to use or customize them, we can do so by opening the program’s preferences menu with the shortcut Control + K, and going to the ” Guides, grids and sectors ” section.
Inches, spades, points … Where are the centimeters?
Photoshop is a universal program, and as such we can configure it in many use in many different units. Depending on the project or document that we open, it is possible that the configuration will be changed to a different unit, such as inches. And working with this unit can be hell.
To return to our preferred unit, such as centimeters or pixels, all we have to do is open the Photoshop settings panel (Control + K) and go to the ” Units and rulers ” section. There we can change the units we want to use in the program.
We can also take advantage of the fact that we are here to change the size of the ruler, in case it appears smaller than normal.
Rotate, rotate, or flip images in Photoshop quickly
One of the most basic tasks that we may want to do with a photo, and one of the most difficult things Photoshop makes for us, is to resize an image, rotate it, or rotate it. To do this, we usually have to dig into the long tool menus, which are often also difficult to understand.
There is a trick that allows us to carry out these tasks much faster. What we must do is select the layer on which we want to work, and press the keyboard shortcut Control + T. We will automatically see how the object in question is selected.
Now we can do two things. The first, use the corner boxes to change their size (keeping proportions, in addition), and the second, right-click to open a contextual menu and quickly access the options to rotate, flip and other modifications.
See the whole image without changing the zoom
If we are one of those who usually work in detail, surely we have a very large zoom set that allows us to see the smallest details of the canvas well. But, if we want to see the whole image, it is necessary to change the zoom by hand, which is totally counterproductive.
There is a trick in Photoshop, unknown above all by users who have been working on this program for less time, which allows us to activate a kind of “bird’s eye view” from which to see the entire canvas at once. We just have to press the H key and click anywhere on the canvas. We can see that it adjusts to the size of the window in order to see the full image. When you release the mouse, it will zoom back as we had it before.
If while we hold down the H and the click we move the mouse, we can move directly to another part of the canvas, another very useful and valuable trick.