Elements (PSE)

Do you like things centered and lined up neatly, or do you have an out-of-the-lines personality?

I find myself vacillating between these two characteristics, depending upon the situation.

One thing I definitely want centered and lined up neatly is my background paper before I start working on a scrapbook page.  Whether that is just one paper, or a composite of papers, I want it centered.

A while back, Steph (Scrappy Cocoa) wrote a tutorial for us on aligning multiple objects.  If you missed that, you can read it here:  Line it Up   Today I want to talk about centering just one layer on your work canvas.

In the image below I have flood-filled the first layer with green, just for easy viewing.  I next dragged a transparency onto the green layer, but you can see that it is not centered.

With the Selection Tool active, I clicked on the Show Transform Controls in the top Menu Bar.  A selection is created around the active layer. You can see that the selection has little squares in the corner, as well as in the middle of each document side.   I need to click on one of the corner squares now.

When  I click on one of the little squares, the options in the Menu Bar will change, giving me the exact “X” and “Y” coordinates of my layer.  In the image below you will see that my X coordinate is 1545.00 pixels and the Y coordinate is 1934.00 pixels.

Since my background (flood filled green) layer is 3600 x 3600 pixels, in order for the transparency to be perfectly centered, the coordinates need to be 1800 x 1800. (Your X and Y coordinates will be half of your document size.) So I type in 1800 in the X coordinates box, and 1800 in the Y coordinates box.  Then a quick double-check that the transparency is 12 inches by 12 inches, and I know that my transparency is perfectly centered!

Click the check mark (menu bar, far right), to accept the change, and you’re done. (Uncheck Show Transform Controls if you prefer not to have those visible at this point.)

Tip:  if you are not seeing the Inches measurement in the W and H boxes, right click on the box to access a drop-down box where you can change the measurement options.

Here is a keyboard shortcut:  Control+ T    will bring up the X and Y coordinates menu options immediately.

This technique can be helpful in so many instances, but especially helpful when you are working with transparent or semi-transparent items that are difficult to see. I used it without fail when creating my new Grungy Transparencies! You can find them in in my Commercial Use store at SnickerdoodleDesigns.

Thanks to Tracy (Ambowife) for teaching this to me and to Jill Schwegel for telling me about the Keyboard Shortcut.

To my knowledge, this feature is not available in Photoshop Elements. A work-around would be to flood fill a layer, place the layer you want to center on a layer above the flood fill, use the Align and Distribute tools to center both layers, then just delete the flood fill layer when you are finished centering.

Do you know that you can change the canvas size in Photoshop? Or perhaps you are aware that you can do it, but wonder why you would want to? Let’s take a look!

I am working in CS6, but I believe this works the same in most Photoshop versions.

To change your canvas size, go to the top menu bar and select:  Image > Canvas Size

(Alternatively, you can right click on the top of your document window to access the Canvas Size window.)

Once you do, you will see this Canvas Size Window open for you:

In the Canvas Size window, you can see that the canvas I am working on is 11.7 inches by 3.86 inches.

I have a flourish on my canvas and would like to apply a style to it.  Because the style I want to apply has a drop shadow, and because the flourish is closely cropped on it’s layer, I am worried that part of the shadow might be cut off.  (In some cases, with some styles, part of the style might actually be cut off as well.)  The answer to my worry is to make my canvas size just a tad larger prior to applying the style.

I can do this in two ways:

1. I can type the new, desired dimensions in the Width and Height boxes; or
2. I can tick the Relative box (this will clear the Width and Height boxes), then enter the amount that I would like to add to the current canvas size.

Here’s something else you can do in this window:  Select an anchor square in the Anchor box to selectively position your image on the canvas.  In most circumstances, we would want to center our element in the middle of the canvas.  But try clicking in the corners, just as an experiment, to see what happens.

You can also resize your canvas in Photoshop Elements. The path is:  Image > Resize > Canvas Size.

Now there is plenty of space to apply any style without worry!  Expanding your canvas can also be helpful when you are working with a large brush along your document edges.  Have you ever had a large brush “disappear” when it came too close to the edge of your document?  Just increase your canvas size, and you won’t have that problem.

In the Canvas Size window, you also have the option of choosing the canvas extension color.  If you are working with a file on a transparent background, this option will not be available, which is why it is grayed out in the image above.

Once you apply your Style, just remember to trim away the extra pixels.  This saves space on your hard drive, which is a good thing.

I hope you find this little tip helpful!