Skip to main content
Known Participant
March 7, 2023
Answered

How to export guides? Is it possible??

  • March 7, 2023
  • 7 replies
  • 14339 views

Is it possible to export guides from photoshop to use in other Adobe programs?

I need to draw guides with some gutters in Illustrator and can't figure out how without doing manually.....

Any advice?

 

Thanks in advance

 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer jane-e

Open the new Illustrator file. Drag the Direct Selection Tool over your document to locate and select the paths, one by one. With snapping on, drag your guide from the ruler to each path.

By @Lumigraphics

 

In Illustrator you don't need to work nearly that hard. 😊 Instead, select all of the paths then use Cmd+5 (Ctrl+5 for Windows) to convert all the paths to guides.

 

Jane

 

7 replies

Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 11, 2024

Going off at a wee tangent, Bert Monroy used Illustrator to create guidlines for where the shadows would fall in his mamouth Times Square illustration, and transfered them to Photoshop.  These would obviously be angled lines, and not suitable for converting to Photoshop Guides, but's interesting trivia if you like that sort of thing.

jane-e
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 11, 2024

Guides in Illustrator work differently from those in Photoshop, Trevor. Any path can be converted to a guide (Cmd+5) and any guide can be converted to a path. In addition to angled, guides can be circles, squares, stars, etc. I would love to see PS guides get a remake!

Jane

Participant
June 11, 2024

One simple way to place Photoshop guides into AfterEffects. Create your guides in Photoshop > Save the .psd file > Import the .psd file into After Effects as a Composite > Guides are now in your After Effects file.
You can now View > Export Guides .... to save them, and re-use them in other Comps.
There may other ways, but this does work (Although if your Guides are coloured, this won't transfer to After Effects, yet)

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 13, 2023

@S01200 

 

You have been given multiple workable options to achieve your goal, can you please mark one or more replies as correct?

Legend
March 8, 2023

Don't bother with all that.

Create a new Photoshop document. Drag out your guides to where you want them. Turn on snapping and draw a short path with the line tool, snapped to each guide. Once you have them all, File->Export->Paths to Illustrator.

Open the new Illustrator file. Drag the Direct Selection Tool over your document to locate and select the paths, one by one. With snapping on, drag your guide from the ruler to each path.

Its much faster than it sounds, you can recreate a complex guide layout in just a couple of minutes.

jane-e
Community Expert
jane-eCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
March 8, 2023

Open the new Illustrator file. Drag the Direct Selection Tool over your document to locate and select the paths, one by one. With snapping on, drag your guide from the ruler to each path.

By @Lumigraphics

 

In Illustrator you don't need to work nearly that hard. 😊 Instead, select all of the paths then use Cmd+5 (Ctrl+5 for Windows) to convert all the paths to guides.

 

Jane

 

Legend
March 9, 2023

Even better!

c.pfaffenbichler
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 7, 2023

One can use a Script to output a txt-file with the numbers (and whatever) to use with a Script in another application (if that application offers Scripting functionality). 

For Illustrator and Indesign one could even use BridgeTalk to address them in the same Script that works in Photoshop. 

 

But without some experience with JavaScript and the involved DOMs it would seem difficult. 

 

What are you actually trying to do? 

Please post screenshots/sketches to clarify. 

S01200Author
Known Participant
March 7, 2023

Thanks. I'm designing editorial grids like the image attached. It's just a part of the sequence design I'm working on in Photoshop. The file gonna be imported into AE for animation. I'll probably design everything in Photoshop just to simplify the process for now.

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 7, 2023

Not directly, however, paths can be exported to Illustrator and Illustrator can convert paths to guides. But this is a bit convoluted.


I'm not aware of a script to convert guides to paths in Photoshop, only guides to raster lines.

 

You can draw lines, rectangles, ellipses and other more complex paths directly in Illustrator and create guides from them.

 

I'd look into Illustrator native features or scripts.

S01200Author
Known Participant
March 7, 2023

Thank you. I'll look into 3rd party scripts to save time. 

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 7, 2023

Before Photoshop had the guide layout command, people used actions or scripts such as:

 

https://guideguide.me

There appears to be an Illustrator version.

 

Here is another option:

 

https://o2creative.co.nz/shop/Guides_PowerScript


If you search the Illustrator forum you'll likely find other scripts.

Ranjisha Sengupta
Legend
March 7, 2023

Hi @S01200 

 

Thanks for reaching out.

It is not possible to export guides from Photoshop and use them in other programs.

For Adobe Illustrator, you can use the grids and guides in the application. Check this: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/rulers-grids-guides-crop-marks.html.

 

Let us know if it helps.

 

Ranjisha

S01200Author
Known Participant
March 7, 2023

Thank you. I wish Illustrator has a function like Photoshop to create guides easily, though.