The Hand Tool allows you to pan around your image, while you are zoomed in, or move the image on screen. The Hand Tool is an essential and useful tool, but I very rarely access it from the Toolbar. Instead I use the keyboard shortcut of holding the spacebar, which turns any tool temporarily into the Hand tool while the spacebar is pressed. When the spacebar is released the tool reverts back to the original tool. I thoroughly recommend using the keyboard shortcut. This is one of the best keyboard shortcuts and it will make you more productive.
The other buttons, 100% and Fit Screen, I also never use because I used keyboard shortcuts instead that are even faster. Instead of the 100% button, press Ctrl+1. Instead of the Fit Screen button, press Ctrl+0. You can create and save a Tool Preset for any tool. This will remember settings that you choose. Presets for brushes are much more useful than for some tools. If you wish to use presets, you have the option of either creating a tool preset or a brush preset.
The 100% setting is an important one. It arranges the size of the image on screen, so that one image pixel = 1 screen pixel. The Fit Screen button is useful for making your image immediately fit, as large as possible on the screen, while showing the whole image. Fill Screen is very similar to Fit Screen, except that, depending on the shape of the image, it will fill the screen, but that may result in parts of the image not being visible. If you have a keyboard, you don't need to select the Hand Tool from the Toolbar. When the Spacebar is released, the tool reverts immediately to the tool you were using. This is one first keyboard shortcuts I teach pupils in a classroom.
Select the Hand Tool on the Toolbar, it shares the button with the Rotate Tool. Click on your image and drag. If you are zoomed out and can see the whole image, you can move the image around the screen. That's it. An alternative method of panning around a zoomed in image, would be to use the Navigator Panel. Even if you used the Hand tool to pan around your image, if you have the Navigator Panel open, you can see whereabouts you are in the image, in the red box in the Navigator Panel.
If you have a keyboard and mouse, the last 3 buttons are not really needed as you can do their actions quicker with a keyboard and mouse. 100% View the image at 100% zoom. One image pixel = 1 screen pixel. Fit Screen Fits the whole image in the screen. Fill Screen Fits the image to fill the screen. Some of the image may not be visible. No keyboard shortcut, so use the scroll wheel. If you have multiple windows open, tick the box to "Scroll All Windows" to pan around all of them simultaneously. I have 4 images open, with the tiger image visible. Note that all 4 images here are fully visible, but that may not be what you see, at first.
The Hand Tool is an essential and very useful Photoshop tool that allows us to pan around an image. This is crucial for high quality work, when you will often need to be very zoomed in to see the detail clearly. If you have a keyboard, I strongly recommend the keyboard shortcut mentioned several times above (press and hold the Spacebar). When it comes to navigating around your image, there are two tools and one palette that will come in really handy.
This video will walk you through how to use the Navigator Palette, Hand Tool, and Zoom Tool. These are some of the most basic items in Photoshop, and they are really easy to use. Except maybe the Zoom Tool (otherwise known as the Magnification Tool). At the bottom part of your tool palette, you will see an icon that looks like a magnifying glass. As you may have guessed, this is referred to as the Zoom tool or the magnification tool. Zooming In - Notice that on the top bar on the zoom tool’s options, there is a checkbox that says “Scrubby Zoom”. This means that when you click and hold down on your mouse cursor, Photoshop is going to keep zooming in on your photo until you let go. You can also click and drag on your image to zoom it in and bring the image closer to you until you stop dragging. To me, it feels like I am on some roller coaster. What happens now is that when you click and drag on your photo, it’s going to create a marquee and zoom in only on that particular part of the image that you want, instead of zooming in forever upon dragging the mouse. Zooming out is just as easy. You can either click on the icon on the options bar that shows a zoom lens with a minus sign on it, or, with your magnifying glass icon set to the plus sign, you can simply hold down the Alt key. Often when we zoom into something, we’d like to get a little bit of a handle on it, so being able to move the image around is a big plus. The hand tool helps you do just that. If you want to go a step further, you can go to Window - Navigator. This opens up a palette that shows you the whole image you’re working on with a small red rectangle inside, telling you where you are in an image.
And that’s it for now! This is a super simple class, designed to give good information, to anyone who has been intimidated by Photoshop. It’s Free. This Adobe Photoshop Tutorial answers the question: How to use Photoshop Selective Color? If you would like to learn more about Photo Enhancement from a Professional Retoucher, I offer Adobe Photoshop Classes. Please contact me today, and I will be able to add you to the schedule too.
