Overview
It is time to discuss a beginner tool for which will be used in almost every project, picture editing rulers also known as photo editing rulers or simply just rulers.
Picture editing rulers are a must have feature for any photo editing program. Photopea has picture editing rulers included and they will be a significant part of the arsenal of tools used when editing digital pictures.
Learning how to utilize these picture editing rulers properly is a skillset all beginner skill level photo editors must learn.
Why Do I Need Picture Editing Rulers?
Picture or Photo editing rulers is the one tool that allows for aligning objects, ensuring accuracy for the edits and can be used to maintain consistency across all digital images should there be a combination of images.
The photo editing rulers allow for dragging guides onto the picture to ensure precise selections of objects. While the more modern photo editing software contains tools such as object selection tools, these are not always accurate and often do not function as well as we want them to work. They also require an intense amount of resources from the computer's video card to obtain the selection whereas the guides require a minimal amount of resources.
The photo editing ruler guides provide an exact alignment for other objects, such as text. The guides provide exactly where the object is located within the picture editing rulers space.
When Would I Use Picture Editing Rulers?
The easier question to answer would be when would I not use picture editing rulers. Picture editing rulers are a fundamental part of graphic design and picture editing. Anytime we desire to align a layered object within our project, we use the rulers and the guides. When we want to measure our object for size, we use the ruler. Let us use the Facebook groups banner, for example. The banner image that gets uploaded is cropped after uploading on the top, bottom and sides. If we choose not to use the picture editing rulers, we are guessing at where the image will be cropped. If we know how many pixels will be cropped all around, we can set our ruler guides to measure out from where the image will be cropped and we can design our banner inside the ruler guides.
When we want to select an object but don't want to spend the video card processing prower on the select object tool. Sometimes, it is easier and potentially faster to bring out 4 guides to precisely select an oval shaped object using the ellipse select tool rather than using the object selection tool.
Picture editing rulers are an essential tool used to enhance our projects, make our lives easier, align and position elements on the canvas within our project and act as a visual guide. Without the pictured editing rulers, we would not have the well designed image compositions that we have today. The rulers play a vital role in projects where symmetry and balance are a necessity to the project design.
Benefits of Utilizing Picture Editing Rulers.
One of many benefits of picture editing rulers is that it allows for easy creation of a template image. A good example of when a template image is necessary would be for Facebook or Twitter cards. Typically, we want portions of these images to be lined up and stay the same such as the company name. We can use the picture editing ruler guides to line up the areas in the image we desire to be static. We can now update and use the guides to line up the dynamic area we desire to change from image to image.
Resizing objects is another benefit of the rulers. We can use a combination of the photo editing rulers and the keyboard to ensure the object within the image layer is properly proportioned after the resizing is completed. It is quick and easy, but necessary, especially if we are creating a design based on specific ratios or dimensions.
How Do I Access the Photo Editing Rulers?
There are several methods in which to show the rulers on the canvas. We can show the rules via the menu or by using the keyboard shortcut.
After an image has been opened in Photopea, then
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Menu:
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Keyboard Shortcut:
Navigate to and click the view menu header. A dropdown menu will appear. From this choose the option Rulers in the middle of the menu.
ORHold down the CTRL key (CMD for Mac) on the keyboard and press the R key 1 time.
The rulers will now appear around the top and left side of the canvas.
How Do I Use the Photo Editing Rulers?
For such a simple feature, there are a few options related to the photo editing rulers and their guides.
Units:
A unit is a mathematical measurement between two points. What does that mean in non-technical terms? It means that we can change what units the ruler displays to us. If we want to see the image in pixels, inches, centimeters, millimeters or percent. The most common unit is pixel but this can be changed based on the needs of the project for which we are working at the time.
To change the units shown on the ruler, right click directly on the ruler and a context menu will appear. Click the unit that is desired to be shown. The ruler will not change its values.
Guides
We have talked about photo editing ruler guides and their benefits quite a bit already. After an image has been opened in Photopea, click and hold the left mouse button down on top of the ruler. Now drag the mouse either down or to the right depending on whether the top or left ruler was clicked on during those instructions. The guide appears and now we can drop it on the desired location on the image. If we want to move the guide, we hover the mouse over it until our cursor changes to an arrow pointing up and down or left and right and click and hold our left mouse button down and drag the guide back to the ruler or somewhere else on the image.
Tip: It helps to get the ruler in the general area and then hold the CTRL (CMD for Mac) down and push the + key to zoom in until you can see the pixels of the image. This will assist with ensuring the guide is accurately placed.
Snap to Guides
The Snap to Guides feature works both when moving an object in its own layer towards the guides or moving the guides towards that object. This will cause either to jump to the edge of the guide or the object being moved.
This is helpful when precision is a must. This feature can become annoying when precision is not necessary.
