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Using the Zoom Tool and Navigator Palette

The Zoom  tool, which appears next to the Pan  tool on the toolbox, lets you zoom into and out of an image:

1. Click the Zoom tool on the toolbox.
2. On the Options bar, select either the Zoom In  or Zoom Out  option:

3. Click on the image, in the area where you want to center the view. Or, you can click and drag a marquee around the area you want to magnify.

The Options bar provides some additional options for handling zooming. When you select Resize Windows To Fit, the image window is resized to accommodate the new magnification, up to the point that it bumps into the floating palettes:

If you select Ignore Palettes on the Options bar, then the image window is resized to the right edge of the Photoshop window:

Selecting Zoom All Windows applies the magnification to all the open image windows.

To quickly restore a 100% magnification, click the Actual Pixels button on the Options bar:

The Fit On Screen button displays the image at the largest magnification that allows it to fit on the screen. The Print Size button displays the image at the size at which it will print.

When you choose a different tool, the Zoom tool retains its settings, so if you last used it to zoom into an image, the next time you select the tool, you can immediately use it to zoom in again.

The Navigator palette can be used for scrolling around images that extend beyond the screen. It displays a thumbnail of the entire image, with a square view box showing the area currently displayed on-screen:

Note:

To show the Navigator palette, select Navigator from the Window menu.

If you zoom into an image, the thumbnail and view box are updated to show what area of the image you’re viewing:

You can drag the view box around the thumbnail to change the area being displayed:

Or, you can hold down the Ctrl key (or the Command key for Mac users) and click and drag the borders of the view box to zoom into or out of the image using the current Zoom tool settings.

The horizontal slider at the bottom of the Navigator resizes the view box, effectively changing the magnification of the image:

You can also enter a magnification directly into the box to the left of the slider.

The buttons on the left and right sides of the slider also let you zoom in and out. Click the button on the left  to zoom out once using the current Zoom tool settings. Click the button on the right  to zoom in using the current settings.

If you want to change the color of the view box, click the right arrow button in the upper-right corner of the palette. From the options menu, select Palette Options. In the Palette Options dialog, select a new color and click OK.