Elements Basics

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Quick Mask
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Elements Tutorials
Elements Basics
Reference: Elements Tools
Reference: Elements Palettes
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Pre-Beginner
Pre-Beginner II
Why Layers?
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Playing With Styles
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Redeye Removal
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Displacing Textures

The Zoom In, Zoom Out, Fit on Screen, Actual Pixels, and Print Size commands all affect magnification and should be self-explanatory.

When you make a selection in Elements, the selection outline shows up as a animated dotted line usually referred to as the “marching ants.” If you can’t see what you’re doing because of them, choose Selection Edges from the view menu to toggle it off. When checked, the selection outlines are shown; when unchecked, the marching ants will not be shown.
      Do be sure and turn these on most of the time, otherwise you will have no way of telling when something is selected without the visual reminder of the marching ants.

If you choose Show Rulers you will see rulers across the top and left sides of your image. To change the ruler origin, drag on the little square in the top left corner.
     If you choose Show Grid, you will see a mesh of regular rules superimposed on your image. These are useful when trying to position items precisely. You can change the color of the lines, and the increments by choosing Edit > Preferences > Grid. I chose a green color in the illustration below, in hopes it would show up better on this page.

When the rulers or grid are showing, the View menu item will change to Hide Rulers, and Hide Grid. Click either to hide the option. You can use the ruler icon on the Shortcut bar to toggle rulers off and on.

The Snap command, in the View menu is the one I find most annoying. When turned on, as it is by default, selection outlines, including crop outlines will snap to the grid, and to edges, including the image edge. This makes it almost impossible to shave off small amounts when cropping. I keep this turned off (unchecked) almost all the time.
     When used in conjunction with the grid, Snap can be useful for fast, precise positioning.
find out about Help, and Preferences, next

Copyright © 2004 by Jay Arraich.
All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright ©2004 by Jay Arraich
jay@arraich.com