Hand and Zoom tools in Photoshop

We explain two Photoshop tools, the hand to move around an image and the zoom to enlarge and reduce the view. Fundamentals for our day to day.

In this article we are going to look at two. These are two tools that have one thing in common and that differentiates them from others that we have seen before: they are used to change the view of the image and not to edit it. In other words, anything we do with the Zoom or the Hand tool will change how we see an image, but it will not change the image itself.

We explain the two together because they are, instead of just one, since they are quite simple to explain and understand by any type of user. In fact, it is very likely that at the time of reading this article you already know these tools or use them regularly. However, as one of the most fundamental Photoshop utilities, it is worth pausing to explain it, if only to comment on the hotkeys to operate with them. In addition, in any case, they are two utilities that we should not stop seeing in the .

Hand Tool in Photoshop

The Hand tool is used to move the visible area of ​​an image. If we open an image, Photoshop is smart enough to open it with the right zoom so that it fits entirely in the image window. But we can zoom in and what will happen is that, if the image does not fit in the Photoshop window, some vertical and lateral scroll bars will appear that we can move to move the visible area of ​​the image. The hand would be like a shortcut to avoid using the scrollbars, which are often quite awkward.

The use is very simple. We select the hand tool in the Photoshop button panel, then we move the image by clicking, with the left mouse button, anywhere on the image and dragging without releasing the click. When we see the area of ​​the desired image, we can release the left button and the image will be in that scroll position.

Only when scroll bars appear in the image window does it make sense to use your hand to scroll the area of ​​the image that can be seen.

Spacebar: The hotkey to momentarily select the hand is the spacebar. At any time, if we press the space key, we will see that the mouse cursor turns into a hand, so we can move the image by clicking and dragging to the position we want.

Photoshop Zoom Tool

Another of the fundamental tools in any design program is the zoom tool, with which we can enlarge and reduce the scale in which the image is displayed. Many times we will have to perform this action, zooming in to get more detail of the image pixels and zooming out to get a more general view of the graphic.

To start the zoom, we choose the tool on the button panel and then click anywhere on the image. With this we will be able to enlarge the view of the image by zooming in on that point.

If we want to zoom in on the contrary, to reduce the view of the image, we have to press the ALT key (Alternative) while we have the zoom tool selected. We can also zoom back, to reduce, if we right-click on the image with the selected tool.

CTRL +/-: There are a couple of hotkeys for the Zoom tool that everyone should know as well, so you don’t waste time when you need to zoom in or out with which the image is displayed. CTRL + “+” (Pressing the “+” key with the Control key held down) zooms in on the image. CTRL + “-” (Pressing the “-” key while holding down the Control key) zooms out of the image.

Both the hand tool and the zoom tool are almost never selected in the Photoshop toolbar, since the hotkeys are very useful and allow you to operate almost instantly, to be able to “navigate” the image without having to to change the tool that we have selected.