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Blog Grid tips for Photoshop users

A bit more serious: Grids greatly improve your layout. They add a level of consistency. Imagine the front page of the New York Times without a grid… It would be a mess, impossible to easily scan.

I always make sure the number of columns I use is dividable with 3 or more numbers. Probable I’ll go for 9, 12 or 16. (depending on the complexity of the layout)

But I’m not the guy to teach you how to implement grids, here are a couple of great resources:

• Khoi Vinh has some great articles on design and grids.
• Mark Boulton has an excellent series of articles about designing grid systems. Be sure to check out his book when it launches. It covers design essentials like ideas and research, typography, grid systems, colour, layout and form.

So, let’s get to the tips, shall we?

Use a shortcut

Photoshop doesn’t have a default shortcut for adding guides. Fix this by going to “Window”, “Workspace”, “Keyboard Shortcuts & Menus” and add it. I use the key-combination cmd + shift + r, but that’s a personal preference.

Now you can quickly add guides with just one combination! Too bad I haven’t found a nice solution to quickly switch between horizontal and vertical guides…

Use the Marquee Tool

Yes, that’s correct, the Marquee Tool. The reason for this is this tool is pixel-precise. When you draw a guide by hand (while looking at the info-panel to know your coordinates), there’s a chance you end up drawing one somewhere between two pixels.

Example

Say, you’ve done your calculations, and you’ll go with columns with a width of 50 pixels, and a space of 10 pixels.

1. Select the Marquee Tool (m)
2. Place your cursor at the left side of your blank canvas
3. Draw a new selection with the width of 50 pixels
4. Go to your ruler on the left
5. Click and drag two guides, one on the left of your selection, and on on the right
6. Press shift + right arrow once
7. Drag another guide to the right of your selection
8. Press shift + right arrow 5 times
9. Repeat

Use the shift-key

If you’re looking at your canvas in 100%, you can hold the shift-key while you’re dragging a new guide. This will make your guide jump 5 pixels at a time, and guaranties you will not end up somewhere between 2 pixels.

If you zoom in a bit more, this jumping will change to 2 pixels at a time, and if you zoom in even more, 1 pixel at a time.

Extra: If you press the alt-key while dragging a new guide, it will switch from horizontal to vertical, and visa versa.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all the knowledge I can share with you. If you have some cool grid-related tips for Photoshop, leave them in the comments!

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