Duration: 2:43

6,044 views

9

Learn guitar chords for FREE through our new game Chord Master: http://bit.ly/ChordMasterYT
In this video, Mahalo expert Justin Z. gives a brief walk-through of the capabilities of the Ruler Tool for Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Ruler Tool
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Ruler tool is a measure and straightening tool that allows you to take direct measurements of your image and use the tool to straighten and crop your image. This will come in handy in two ways, either when you're looking to straighten out an image or when you're taking measurements of your image to scale.
1. On the tool bar, click and hold the Eyedropper tool, then click on the Ruler tool in the sub menu. You can also press and hold Shift+I until the tool cycles to the Ruler.2. Click and drag the area on your image that you want to straighten. If you're clicking and dragging horizontally, it's best to use the horizon if you have one. If not, try to find a straight, horizontal edge. If you're straightening vertically, try to find a vertical edge, like a building.3. To make your operations more precise, click and drag the markers at either end of the ruler you created, and when you're ready click the Straighten button in the top ruler panel.4. The image will not only straighten, but it will automatically crop as well. If you don't like the way it crops, simply go to the History panel and click one step back. You can also press Ctrl+Z (Command+Z for Mac) to go one step back. You will be given a straightened but un-cropped image.5. If you want to take measurements, it's a little more complicated. At the top menu, click Window -- Measurements Log near the bottom. This will open a new window. Now you want to determine how long your measurements are.6. In the top menu, click Analysis -- Set Measurement Scale -- Custom. A dialogue box will pop up and ask you to input data into fields. Change the number in the Pixel Length field to whatever you want (but for the example it's 1). The second field Logical Length refers to the amount the first length is equal to (in the example it's 5). So this means 1 pixel equals 5. Logical Units refers to the conversion from pixels. So, if you type "inches," then 1 pixel equals 5 inches. You can type inches, meters, centimeters, etc.7. If you click and drag on the image, you create custom measurements. Click Record Measurements on the bottom to make a recording and the info will display in the window below.

Read more by visiting our page at:
http://www.mahalo.com/learn-adobe-photoshop-ruler-tool/