Zoom Tool

In this tutorial we are going to see how to use zoom tool in photoshop cs4…… Of course some of the techniques works in older version of the photoshop too.

Zoom tool is one of the main tool inside Photoshop it is used to navigate images around in Photoshop by Zooming in you can see the close detailed work zooming out to see the back whole picture and panning around in the zoomed in images to see in different parts. In Adobe Photoshop cs4 the new OpenGL technology is introduced  it is built in Photoshop cs4 so by using this OpenGL technology we can Zoom and pan lot faster than ever before Now we will see how zooming works

Now I am going to open up the file inside Photoshop by going to file + open

You can use this Temple photo for your practice which is below

Click to enlarge the photo

Now after opening the image inside the Photoshop if we want to get closer to the photo we want to go to the tool box and select zoom tool or just press z on the keyboard to select the tool

Then after selecting the tool we have to click in the image and each time when we click it will zoom in little closer, now if we go all the way in close we can see a grid of pixel that is actually a building box that make up this image. Now to zoom back out from this same image we have to press alt key in pc if it is Mac press option key and click now it takes out in increments

Note: After pressing the alt key in pc or option key in Mac you can see the cursor changed from the + sign to – sign so from that itself we can understand that we are going to zoom out from the image. If  we don’t hold or leave the alt key or option key the symbol will change to + sign so that if you click now the image will zoom in.

Now here is the new exciting parts in the Photoshop cs4, if you have OpenGL capability on your computer to zoom in all you have to do is to select the zoom tool or just press z on the keyboard and then press down on your mouse and you get the continuous zooming all the way down then to zoom out continuous hold the alt key if you are using pc or hold the option key if you are using Mac as your pressing finger down on your mouse and you get the continuous zoom out.

when you zoom to an odd percentage like now I am zoomed to 71.1 percentages all the details in the image are pretty good you don’t see any jagged edges and that wasn’t true without the OpenGL technology

There are number of shortcuts when you are zooming, one is instead of going and selecting the zoom tool we can just press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl and + in pc or if you are using Mac press command and + to zoom in with the keyboard or Ctrl and – in pc or command and – in Mac to zoom back out

You can also access the zoom tool from the new application bar up here at the top of the screen it is one of the new feature added in Photoshop cs4

Now in case if you are zoomed in the image and if you want to see the part of the image that is not showing at the moment that’s were you need the hand tool to pan around the image we can select the hand tool in the tool box or you can simply press “h” in the keyboard

You can also switch temporarily to the hand tool by clicking and holding the space bar, there is also another new feature in the hand tool is called birds eyes zoom. Now I am going to press the h key and hold it then I am going to click and hold to see the box and then you can move the box around the photo wherever you want and after selecting the area which you want to zoom in release the mouse

Another new feature is to hold down the space bar to get down the hand tool back temporarily and then Click and drag with the mouse then the document window moves over to which ever direction you want

Next we will see how to zoom when we have multiple images opened at the same time, so I am going to open the another photo inside Photoshop by going to file + open

you can use this sunset in beach photo for your practice

Click to enlarge the photo

After opening the file we can find two documents but the problem here is we cannot see this document at the same time

There is an easy way and more quickly we can see this two document at the same time, so to do this  I am going to select the arrange documents tab in the new application bar and then select the 2up layout option

Now you can see the 2up view like this

Click to enlarge the photo

Now the left image is zoomed in 100% and the image on the right is zoomed at 66.7%

Next  I am going to take my hand tool by pressing the space bar and click in the left image (temple image) and then I am going to push the image up down like this

Now we can quickly match the position and the zoom level of the right image (zoom percentage 66.7) to the temple image. So to do this I am going to select the arrange documents menu and I am going to choose match zoom and location

Note: we have to select the right document window before choosing the Match zoom and location, so to select the right document window just simply click on the right document

After selecting the match zoom and location, you can see that the left document window resets back to 66.7 %

So you can see Panning and zooming plays a very important role inside Photoshop and you will be using this tools all the time as you work in the Photoshop.