Align to Canvas

WF
Posted By
Will_Ferrell
Nov 21, 2008
Views
1066
Replies
11
Status
Closed
Hello all,

In Illustrator it’s possible to align your objects to the artboard. I was wondering if there is something similar in Photoshop… possibly aligning an object to the canvas?

Thanks much!

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Phosphor
Nov 21, 2008
Yes, there is.

Move Tool.

CTRL + A.

Activate the appropriate button on the Options Bar.

Please see the Help Files or PDF manual for further info. In fact, I suggest you might learn a lot by doing that anyway. It sure helped me when I was just getting up and running with Photoshop, and I still refer to those resources.
SU
Sergei_Urlof
Nov 22, 2008
To generalize Will’s original question, how to move an object to specific coordinates in Photoshop? Specifically, in Illustrator (and Fireworks) there are (X, Y) coordinate fields into which one may enter numbers. I cannot seem to find, nor enable any coordinate fields, if they exist.

regards
JJ
John Joslin
Nov 22, 2008
You have to remember that Photoshop is primarily an image editing program to which the good folk at Adobe have added some basic, limited features like text, vectors and page positioning.

To get professional level work in these disciplines requires the appropriate programs in the suite.
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Phosphor
Nov 22, 2008
"how to move an object to specific coordinates in Photoshop?"

Yeah, it’s pretty easy. But like many things in Photoshop you have to do a little digging and studying to discover how. The following may look daunting, but the concepts are simple. I just want to be thorough in my descriptions, and it’s written with the assumption that you’ve not worked with these functions before.

First, let’s remind ourselves that every Layer’s object(s) in Photoshop has a pxW × PxH size as defined by an optimally sized invisible rectangle just big enough to surround it (or them). Let’s make it visible.

• Create a new document, say 600pxW × 600pxH, RGB/8bits/channel, White Background. • Make sure your rulers are displayed (CTRL + R)
• Create a new blank layer above your Background.
• Use your Lasso Tool (L) to create a oddly shaped blob of a selection. • Fill this selection with a color, then deactivate the selection (CTRL + D) • Select your Move Tool (V).
• Look at the Options Bar and click to put a checkmark in the little box next to "Show Transform Controls." (You may already have this feature enabled).

See the dotted-line rectangle that surrounds your blob? That’s the Transform Bounding Box (which I like to abbreviate as ‘TBB’). This TBB will define the width and height boundaries of the objects on any layer(s) you have highlighted and active in the Layers Palette.

• Create another blank layer.
• Make another blob like you did above, somewhere else in the document window. • Switch to the Move Tool. See, that layer’s pixels have their own TBB. • Click to highlight the first layer you created. See how the TBB changes to surround the first blob?
• Hold your Shift key and click on your second layer in the Layers Palette to make it active simultaneously with the first layer. See how the TBB now surrounds the pixels on both layers?

OK, now you should understand the concept of the TBB. I’m sure you noticed that the TBB has 8 little boxes around its perimeter, and a little "bull’s eye" target in the center. These are control and reference points.

Return to having just your first layer highlighted and active in the Layers Palette.

With your Move Tool selected, invoke the Free Transform function (CTRL + T, or go to PS Menus—>Edit—>Free Transform). Notice that the TBB perimeter switches from a dotted line to a solid line. That tells you that you’re ready to change the size & orientation of the active layer’s pixels. Notice also how the Options Bar changes.
Look at the left side of the Options Bar. See that little 3 × 3 "tic-tac-toe"-style matrix of dots? Each dot in that matrix is representative of the control/reference points in the TBB. By default, the center point will be selected as your reference point. It will be black and the other 8 points will be white.

To the right of the reference point matrix you’ll see two numerical display fields—one for the x-axis position and one for the y-axis position. The values in these fields display the position of the reference point selected in the matrix. Select a different reference point—say, the top-left one, for example—and you’ll see the x and y values change to reflect the position of that reference point.

See the little triangle shape in the button between the x and y fields? This is the "Relative Positioning" (RP) toggle. Clicking on it will change the values displayed in the x and y fields to 0, 0. This doesn’t change your document’s ruler’s settings, it just pretends that the selected matrix reference point is sitting at the origin point of 0, 0. Deactivate the RP button so the x and y fields once again show their actual values.

Now, by manually entering numerical values in the x and y fields, you cause the selected control point in the TBB to move to the position you specify. With the RP toggle enabled, you can enter values which tell the TBB to move—left or right, and up or down—by a specific amount.

Understand that you may enter negative values in the x and y fields. By putting a ‘minus sign’ (hyphen or dash) before the numerical value, the position of the TBB will move up and/or to the left. Positive values will move the TBB down and/or to the right.

Hey! What’s this!? This stuff behaves just like that Cartesian Planes business you learned about in your first ‘Introduction to Algebra’ class! 🙂 The only difference you have to remember is that it all behaves a little differently than it does in Illustrator. In Illustrator, the 0, 0, origin point is at the bottom left corner of your document (this is actually more mathematically correct), but in Photoshop, the 0, 0 origin point is at the top left corner.

If you made it through all of that, and I did my job well, you should now know all you need to about accurately positioning layer objects in Photoshop.

Cheers!
Phos….
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Phosphor
Nov 24, 2008
Float for Sergei.

I don’t write this shit out for my health!

🙂
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Freeagent
Nov 24, 2008
Don’t worry about the OP, Phos. Lots of people read it and take note. Look at it this way: you’re contributing to the general public education.

BTW, I’d be interested to know the lurkers : active posters ratio here…
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Phosphor
Nov 24, 2008
No worries about the O.P., F.A.

Will buzzes around here pretty regularly.

I floated it for Sergei, who asked a more specific question (despite saying he was generalizing on Will’s question).
F
Freeagent
Nov 24, 2008
Got that, Phos. That’s why you see I edited my post before your reply.
P
Phosphor
Nov 24, 2008
Heh, and so I edited mine, as well, to maintain the chronology.

🙂
F
Freeagent
Nov 24, 2008
Bet we have everyone pretty confused now 🙂
P
Phosphor
Nov 24, 2008
No more so than if they had read only my long post in this thread.

😉 XD

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