Miscellaneous Tools Arrow Tool When you increase the magnification of an image for detail work, the entire image may no longer fit in the image window. When you want to work on a part of the image that is not in the window, you can move the image with the Arrow tool. Click on the Arrow key and then hold down the left mouse button (the arrow will turn into a hand) and drag your image. Zoom Tool When you are working on an image, frequently you will want to zoom in on your work for greater accuracy. Using the Zoom tool is the easiest way to increase or decrease the magnification of an image. To Zoom in on an image, click on the Zoom tool and left click on top of the area you want to magnify. To Zoom out (reduce magnification) click with the right mouse button. If you have zoomed in on an image to the individual pixel level and you want to return to normal viewing, use the menu choice View>Normal Viewing to quickly get back to where you started. The Deform Tool The Deformation tool allows you to Rotate, Resize, Skew and Distort a floating selection on an image. To deform a selection, use the selection tool, then choose Selections>Float. Keep in mind that you are now working on a copy of your image with the underlying image still intact. Your selection will now have handles in the corner and a handle in the middle as illustrated in the following graphic. When you hover the cursor over the right handle on the middle bar, the cursor turns into two curved arrows in opposite directions. When you are in this state of the Deform tool, you can rotate your graphic by moving your mouse up or down. The handles on the Deform tool can be manipulated in three ways. The first is by clicking on any handle with the left mouse button. This will turn the cursor into a "cross hair" with a rectangle box (example on left below). This allows you to make an image wider, narrower, shorter or taller. Just grab a handle and push or pull. The second option you invoke by holding down the Shift key while clicking on a handle. This will turn the box next to the cursor into an angled box (see example in the middle below). This option allows you to slant your graphic to the right or to the left. The last option you invoke by holding down the Ctrl key when you click on a handle. This will turn the box next to the cursor into a box with the top handles proportionally inward (see example on the right below). This option allows you to proportionally distort the sides of the graphic inward or outward. A very practical use for the Deform Tool is to use it to resize a graphic. To resize your graphic proportionally, grab on to the lower right handle with the right mouse button depressed and press inward to scale the graphic down and pull outward to scale the graphic up. The advantage to this method of resizing a graphic (rather than using the Image>Resize feature) is that you can see your graphic resize interactively and can better judge when you have the image the correct size. The Deform tool for Perspective The Deform tool works very well for giving a graphic perspective. The following tutorial will teach you how to create an "open door" effect on a graphic. Download the door graphic above to your hard drive. Open the door graphic. Use the selection tool to select the "door" part of the image. Choose Selections>Promote to Layer. With your selection still active, click back on the door layer and choose Edit>Clear. This will clear the "door" portion of the door graphic, leaving the outlying areas of the graphic intact. Turn off all layers except for the promoted door layer. Click on the promoted door layer and make a selection for the right half the door. Choose Selections>Promote to layer. Click back on the layer that has the whole door and choose Selections>Invert. Choose Selections>Promote to layer. You should now have the two halves of the door on separate layers. Delete the layer with the whole door and turn the remaining layers back on. Click on the Deform tool then on your selection. Click on the right half of the door layer. Select the door with the rectangle selection tool. Click on the deform tool then on the layer with the right half of the door. Hold down the Ctrl key and grab the top left corner handle. Pull the handles inward. Repeat with the left side of the door. Drag the sides of the door to the right and to the left a few pixels and shave off the outside edges to align with the inside door panel on the bottom graphic. To have your doors open outward, rather than inward, repeat the above process except you will want to pull outward rather than inward in step 15. The Crop Tool The Crop tool only has one purpose in my opinion. I rarely use it to crop an image. I choose to use Image>Crop to Selection (Shift-R) to crop a selection. But, the one real use for this tool is that it remembers the last crop setting you used. This can come in quite handy if you need to crop a lot of images to the same size. To do this, make your first crop. Then, when you want to crop the next image, double click on the Crop tool. This will bring up the Crop Area box. Click OK, and you will have a crop area the exact size as your previous crop. You can move the crop selection by dragging it with the cursor. Double Click on the crop area and you will crop your second image to the exact same size as the first image.