7 Measure Tool
Used for measuring
distances or lengths
Found at #26 in the Toolbar diagram at left
The measure tool is grouped with the eyedropper,
and color sampler tools in the toolbar.
To access it, click on whichever of those is visible, and choose the tool
you want from the pop-up menu.
This tool gives precise measurements between any two points in an image. To use it, select it in the toolbox, click at the first point, and drag to the second point. A non-printing line will be drawn in the image, and the measurements, and coordinates of that line will be shown on the tool’s options bar and in the Info palette [see below].
You can also create a protractor from an existing line by Alt dragging from one end of that line. The angle measured will be shown on the tool’s options bar and in the Info palette.
To edit an existing measurement line, click the measure tool in the toolbox and drag one end of a line to resize. Move the line be dragging on any part other than an end. To remove a line from the image, drag it off the image.
The measure tool can be used for straightening crooked scans or in any
instance where you wish to rotate the canvas to a line which you know
should be horizontal or vertical. With the measure tool, drag a line parallel
to, or tracing the edge that you wish to rotate. Then select Image >
Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary. The angle necessary to rotate your drawn
line to be either vertical or horizontal will already be entered in the
dialog box. (If the line drawn with the measure tool is greater than 45°
from horizontal, the line and canvas will be rotated to be vertical. If
less than that, it will be rotated to be horizontal.) For example, using
the same line for which the data was displayed in the first options bar
at the bottom of the page, I chose the Arbitrary command. It opened with
the line’s angle already entered in the angle text box (it’s even more
accurate than the measure tool’s own display).
Units of measurement are set in the Preferences. Find them at Edit >
Preferences > Units & Rulers. Or you can click on the little plus
sign next to the x/y coordinates display in the Info palette to get a
menu of available units.
The keyboard shortcut for this tool is the letter I. To cycle through the eyedropper tools, and the measure tool, hold down the Shift key while pressing the shortcut letter.
The first illustration below is the measure tool’s options bar. It shows the same information that you will find in the Info palette, which is shown also.
You can see the x, and y coordinates of the starting point. The W value represents the distance traveled along the x (horizontal) axis from the origin (starting click). The H value is the distance traveled in the vertical direction (along the y axis) from the beginning to the end of the line. Next you see the angle (A) of the line relative to the positive x axis and then the the total distance traveled, or length of the line (D1).
If a protractor had been created by Alt dragging from one end of the line, the distance of the second line would be shown as D2, after the D1 entry. A protractor line display is shown in the second options bar. I used two new lines, not the same line from the first options bar. Had I used the same line, the D1 entry would have remained the same. The x and y display for a protractor represents the common end point of the two protractor arms. As I’m sure you know, a protractor measures the angle between the two lines.
If you have doodled with a tool’s options and want to get back to the default settings, right-click that tool’s icon at the far left end of its options bar (in Photoshop 6, left-click). Choose either Reset Tool to reset only the current tool, or Reset All Tools to restore default settings to every tool.
Please note that all descriptions, and illustrations featured refer to files which are in Photoshop’s .psd format, and which are in RGB color mode. Other file formats, and color modes may generate different options. Some Photoshop features are not available for images not in .psd format, or RGB color mode. To find what color mode your image is in, choose Image > Mode.
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