User Guide Cancel

Grid and guides

Position with guides and the grid

Adobe Photoshop deeplink

Try it in the app
Learn to position your image and elements precisely using grids and guides in a few simple steps.

Guides and the grid help in positioning images or elements precisely.

Guides appear as nonprinting lines that float over the image that can be moved or removed. You can also lock them so that you don’t move them by accident.

Smart Guides help you align shapes, slices, and selections. They appear automatically when you create a shape, selection, or slide. You can hide Smart Guides if necessary.

The grid is useful for laying out elements symmetrically. The grid appears by default as nonprinting lines but can also be displayed as dots.

Guides and grids behave in similar ways:

  • Selections, selection borders, and tools snap to a guide or the grid when dragged within 8 screen (not image) pixels. Guides also snap to the grid when moved. You can turn this feature on and off.

  • Guide spacing, along with guide and grid visibility and snapping, is specific to an image.

  • Grid spacing, along with guide style, is the same for all images. The guide color is now specific to images. 

Show or hide a grid, guides, or Smart Guides

  1. Do one of the following:
    • Choose View > Show > Grid.

    • Choose View > Show > Guides.

    • Choose View > Show > Smart Guides.

    • Choose View > Extras. This command also shows or hides layer edges, selection edges, target paths, and slices.

View a guide

  1. If the rulers are not visible, choose View > Rulers.

    Note:

    For the most accurate readings, view the image at 100% magnification or use the Info panel.

  2. Do one of the following to create a guide:
    • In the View > GuidesNew Guide submenu, select Horizontal or Vertical orientation in the dialog box, enter a position and color, and click OK.

    • Drag from the horizontal ruler to create a horizontal guide.

    Photoshop Guides and grids
    Dragging to create a horizontal guide

    • Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) and drag from the vertical ruler to create a horizontal guide.

    • Drag from the vertical ruler to create a vertical guide.

    • Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) and drag from the horizontal ruler to create a vertical guide.

    • Hold down Shift and drag from the horizontal or vertical ruler to create a guide that snaps to the ruler ticks. The pointer changes to a double-headed arrow when you drag a guide.

  3. (Optional) If you want to lock all guides, choose View > Guides > Lock Guides submenu.

Move a guide

  1. Select the Move tool , or hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS) to activate the Move tool and select or move multiple guides.

  2. Position the pointer over the guide (the pointer turns into a double-headed arrow).
  3. Move the guide in any of the following ways:
    • Drag the guide to move it.

    • Change the guide from horizontal to vertical, or vice versa, by holding down Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) as you click or drag the guide.

    • Align the guide with the ruler ticks by holding down Shift as you drag the guide. The guide snaps to the grid if the grid is visible and View > Snap To > Grid is selected.

  4. You can now select guides (single or multiple) to edit them. Click on the guide to select, and the double-headed arrow will appear. 

    • To select a single guide, click it until the double-headed arrow appears. Edit it by going to View > Guides > Edit Selected Guides. You can also right-click on your selection to view the context-sensitive menu. 
    • To select multiple guides, click one guide and hit Shift + Alt (Win) and Shift + Option (Mac) to make more selections. After selecting multiple guides, you can perform other actions, including move, right-click, double-click, and view options. The keyboard shortcut to multi-select guides is Shift + Alt-click
      • To move a single guide, select and drag it across your canvas to move. 
      • To move multiple guides, select your guides that need to be moved and press Shift + Alt (Win) or Shift + Option (Mac) until the double-headed arrow appears. Now you click the guides and drag them across the canvas. 
        • Release the keys and continue to drag the guides across the canvas. 
        • Press the Shift key and move the guide to let it snap to the ruler ticks. With shapes or selections, multi-select guides (vertical and horizontal) and snap them to the edge of the shape. To know more about snapping, read about rulers in Photoshop

Place a guide

You can also add a specific location to place your guide. Once placed on the canvas, this can be moved or adjusted for color and orientation. 

Add a specific location for a guide
Add a specific location for a guide

Remove guides from the image

  1. Do one of the following:
     
    • To remove a single guide, drag the guide outside the image window.
    • To remove all guides, choose View > GuidesClear Guides.
    • To remove selected guides, choose View > Guides > Clear selected guides.

Set guide and grid preferences

  1. Do one of the following:
    • (Windows) Choose Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid, & Slices.

    • (macOS) Choose Photoshop > Preferences > Guides, Grid, & Slices.

  2. For Color, choose a color for the guides, the grid, or both. If you choose Custom, click the color box, choose a color, and click OK.

  3. For Style, choose a display option for guides or the grid, or both.

  4. For Gridline Every, enter a value for the grid spacing. For Subdivisions, enter a value by which to subdivide the grid.

    If desired, change the units for this option. The Percent option creates a grid that divides the image into even sections. For example, choosing 25 for the Percent option creates an evenly divided 4‑by‑4 grid.

  5. Click OK.

Enhancements to Guides

Updated in Photoshop 23.4 (June 2022)

The latest enhancements to the Guides feature let you customize the functionality of your guides at the document level to improve your creative work.

This includes the ability to colorize and edit guides via new keyboard shortcuts and a new context menu.

You can also delete guides with the Delete key and multi-select guides to edit and move them. 

Get the latest version of Photoshop to try out this cool enhancement!

Customize Guides properties at your document level

Colorize guides

New dialog boxes (as shown below) include the option to colorize individual or multi-selected guides, making identification and visual isolation of guides much easier.

View > Guides > New guide layout
View > Guides > New guide layout

View > Guides > New guide
View > Guides > New guide

Edit selected guides dialog box
Edit selected guides dialog box

  1. To choose color options for your guides, go to View > Guides > New Guide Layout.

  2. Choose from the default color options or create your custom colors. You can always go back and change the colors after creating the guide layout. 

    Choose from default color options in New guide layout dialog box
    Choose from default color options in New guide layout dialog box

    Create custom colors in Color picker (guides color)
    Create custom colors in Color picker (guides color)

    Note:

    You can also create different guide layout colors per artboard.

Edit guides 

  1. To edit guides, multi-select by clicking option + shift (Mac) or Alt + Shift (Win). Right-click and select Edit Selected Guides from the context menu. 

    Edit Selected Guides context menu in Photoshop
    Edit Selected Guides context menu in Photoshop

  2. Adjust Orientation and Color settings and click OK

    Edit Selected Guides dialog box in Photoshop
    Edit Selected Guides dialog box in Photoshop

  3. You can also go to View > Guides to view the Edit Selected Guides dialog box.

    Note:

    Select the Move tool and use the mouse pointer to point to the guide. Then use the keyboard shortcuts option + shift double click on your Mac or Alt + Shift double click on your Windows system to open the Edit selected guides dialog box. 

Delete guides

  1. Select your guides (single or multiple) as mentioned in Move a guide

  2. To delete guides, go to View > Guides and select Clear selected guides. You can also select guides and hit right-click to delete them from the context-sensitive menu that appears.

    Alternatively, you can multi-select guides by clicking option + shift (Mac) or Alt + Shift (Win) and hitting the Delete key. 

Work efficiently with Smart Guides

Smart Guides come in handy in several scenarios, such as the following:

  • Option (Mac) / Alt (Windows) + drag a layer: When you drag a layer while keeping the Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) key pressed, Photoshop displays reference measurement guides showing the distance between the original layer and the duplicate layer. This feature works with both the Move and Path Selection tools.
Photoshop Distance between the layers: original and duplicate
Distance between the layers: original and duplicate

  • Path measurements: Photoshop displays measurement guides while you're working with paths. Measurement guides are also displayed when you select the Path Selection tool and then drag a path within the same layer.
Photoshop Path measurements
Path measurements

  • Matched spacing: When you duplicate or move an object, Photoshop displays measurement guides to visually indicate spacing between other objects that match the spacing between the selected object and its immediate neighbors.
  • Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (Windows) + hover over a layer: You can view measurement guides while working with layers. With one layer selected, hover over another layer with the Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) key pressed. You can use arrow keys in conjunction with this feature to nudge the selected layer.
Photoshop Measurement guides while working with layers
Measurement guides while working with layers

  • Distances from the canvas: When you hold down the Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) key while hovering outside a shape, Photoshop displays distances from the canvas.
Photoshop Distances of a shape from the canvas
Distances of a shape from the canvas

Photoshop Spacing between matched objects
Spacing between matched objects


Get help faster and easier

New user?