Learn how to place guides in exact positions in Photoshop CC using two very easy techniques, and save yourself so much time and energy putting the guides in the precise place you want them.
Veteran Photoshoppers like myself will be all too familiar with those times spent painstakingly eyeballing each guide into position by hand. With this tutorial, you can say goodbye to those moments forever!
Video Tutorial
Follow along with the video tutorial above as I demonstrate two techniques to add pixel perfect guides to your document, saving you plenty of time and doing away with the need to fiddle around with guides by hand.
Step-by-Step Tutorial
Add New Guides
Step 1 – Double check your document size by going to image > image size.
Step 2 – Make note of the width and height of the document, then click ok.
Step 3 – Go to view > guides > new guide.
Step 4 – In this example, I want to add a 20px guide around the four sides of the document. I will set my first guide as vertical, set its position to 0+20 (so just 20px) as I’m working from left to right, set my guide color, then click ok.
My first guide will now be created in the document.
Step 5 – Repeat the process to add a second guide. This time, I want my guide on the opposite side, so I will work backward. Set the guide to vertical, then set its position to 1080-20, because 1080 is the width of the document, set the color, and click ok.
I will now have a second guide on the opposite side of the document, again set as a 20px margin.
Step 6 – Repeat this as many times as you like for as many guides as you like. You would repeat the same process for the horizontal guides, set at 20 and 1080-20. Here, I’m setting a center point guide by setting the position to 1080/2 (half of 1080).
This will create a vertical guide in the center of the document.
Add New Guide Layout
Step 7 – If you want to add more than one guide at a time, go to view > guides > new guide layout.
Step 8 – In the new guide layout box, you can adjust your settings accordingly. Turn on preview to see the guide preview on the canvas in the background.
Here I have set a 4-column and 3-row guide. If you leave the width blank, it will space the guides equally from the start and end of both the horizontal and vertical axis of the document. You can also change color, set gutter, and add margins to your guide layout.
Step 9 – If you want to add guides at specific points, add a value to the width and height boxes. Here I have added 100px to the width; hence, my 4 columns arrange every 100px four times.
Step 10 – Use the presets menu to load default guides, save your current guide as a preset, and load any presets you have saved previously. Once happy, click ok.
When you are ready to start designing, go to view > guides > lock guides so that the guides cannot be selected. You can unlock at any time by returning to this option.
It really is that simple to set pixel-perfect guides, either manually one at a time, or through using an entire guide layout.
Say goodbye to the days of eyeballing guides and spending precious time trying to line them up to the pixel, and instead use Photoshop’s guide options and some quick math to get your document design ready in a matter of minutes, even seconds.