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114

P: Custom Guides (groupable, colorable, nameable guides)

LEGEND ,
Apr 28, 2011 Apr 28, 2011

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Hi! I've been thinking this for quite a while, and I know most of the web designers out there have the same need... groupable, colorable, nameable guides.

It's important to use guides. But sometimes it gets a little messy.

What would be perfect is if guides had their own layer-style format. And each group, or layer, had an asigned color. You could turn on and off visibility of specific groups, or just turn them all off by hitting cmd + H, as we do today.

This would make photoshop THE perfect software for web design.

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Adobe Employee , Nov 30, 2015 Nov 30, 2015
The update for Photoshop CC 2015.1 that was released today features the ability to have artboard specific guides: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/usi...

Preferences> Guides, Grids & Slices

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LEGEND ,
May 21, 2014 May 21, 2014

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Hello guys
I’m working as a web designer and have often to deal with lots of layers. For the different Screen designs I usually use a lot of guidelines. In bigger project, there could be quite a lot of them. Often I lose the orientations which guideline belongs to which layer. That’s why I wish at least once a day, you could put in the next update the opportunity to define different (not only one) color per different guideline. Pleeeeeeeeeas include this function in your next version. It would make my day so much easier.

Thank you & Greats
Ivana

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 07, 2014 Sep 07, 2014

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Very Simple and useful for those who make diagramming albums.

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LEGEND ,
Sep 10, 2014 Sep 10, 2014

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The ability to change color of individual or multiple guides would be very nice/helpful. Currently most people create a layer and make lines, or shapes and work off of those, but I feel like that is a fix for what they feel is lacking in the ability of the guides.

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Explorer ,
Sep 22, 2014 Sep 22, 2014

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3 years- this post started 3 years ago- and nothing. And I know that this has been a request by users for well more than 3 years.

Illustrator has manageable guides- why can't Photoshop?

This is why Adobe really needs to start from scratch with the entire Creative Suite and have them all work in similar ways instead of continually patching Frankenstein code from programs they purchased or wrote decades ago.

SERIOUS REQUEST (almost a demand at this point):
1. Each guide either shows as a layer or in a separate "guides" panel.
2. Each guide, or group of guides, can be colored, labeled, etc.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 22, 2014 Sep 22, 2014

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»llustrator has manageable guides- why can't Photoshop? «
When comparing pixel and vector oriented applications one is likely to observe differences.
And in Illustrator at least one bug has been maintained for roughly 10 years – so it’s fine with me if the Photoshop team does not emulate everything going on at the Illustrator team.

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Explorer ,
Sep 23, 2014 Sep 23, 2014

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Christoph- um, what? This thread, and the statement you quoted, are about guides. You seem to have missed the point.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 23, 2014 Sep 23, 2014

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The 10-year-Illustrator-bug is indeed not relevant to the topic of this thread but the question
»llustrator has manageable guides- why can't Photoshop?«
does imply a comparison between a vector- and a pixel-oriented application and that those will exhibit inherent differences seemed worth pointing out.

»When an aeroplane does have an altimeter why doesn’t my car?«

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New Here ,
Nov 03, 2014 Nov 03, 2014

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If you want to have multiple layouts in one Photoshop file, it would be nice to arrange guidelines in groups.
Same as layergroups.

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LEGEND ,
Dec 31, 2014 Dec 31, 2014

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I would like a way to export the guides from a photoshop file to another.
Currently the only thing I can do is trace the guides and past the paths to the other file but I fear that some pixels are overlooked when I do this so a tool inside the program that would do this properly, like what we have iwth illustrator, would be nice

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Community Expert ,
Dec 31, 2014 Dec 31, 2014

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Its probably worth checking out Paul Riggott’s Script for Guide Sets here
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/93283...
and maybe this JavaScript could help:

// take guides from active document and add them to other open documents after removing their existing guides;
// 2013, use at your own risk;
#target photoshop
if (app.documents.length > 0 && app.activeDocument.guides.length > 0) {main()};
////// function //////
function main () {
// set to pixels;
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
var originalRulerUnits = app.preferences.rulerUnits;
app.preferences.rulerUnits = Units.PIXELS;
// collect guides;
var theArray = new Array;
for (var m = 0; m < myDocument.guides.length; m++) {
theArray.push([myDocument.guides[m].coordinate, myDocument.guides[m].direction])
};
app.preferences.rulerUnits = originalRulerUnits;
// get all open documents;
var theDocs = app.documents;
for (var o = 0; o < app.documents.length; o++) {
var thisDocument = app.documents[o];
// proceed if not original document;
if (thisDocument != myDocument) {
app.activeDocument = thisDocument;
var originalRulerUnits = app.preferences.rulerUnits;
app.preferences.rulerUnits = Units.PIXELS;
// remove existing guides;
for (var n = thisDocument.guides.length-1; n >=0; n--) {
thisDocument.guides[n].remove()
};
// add guides;
for (var p = 0; p < theArray.length; p++) {
thisDocument.guides.add(theArray[p][1], theArray[p][0]);
};
app.preferences.rulerUnits = originalRulerUnits;
};
};
};

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LEGEND ,
Jan 30, 2015 Jan 30, 2015

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LEGEND ,
Feb 09, 2015 Feb 09, 2015

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I would like to see an "guideline tool" In which you have arrow that selects only guides and manipulate it, and option that will make guide from path, so we don't have only straight lines for guides but also guide shapes. Also, great thing would be that guide lines can be placed in groups - that would be very helpfull if perheaps we want to make all website pages in one psd with groups.
One more thing, coloring guides would be perfect.

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LEGEND ,
Apr 29, 2015 Apr 29, 2015

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Create a "layers like" tool, only for guides. With the possibility of angle then and add a "layer" color with different colored guides

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New Here ,
Jun 25, 2015 Jun 25, 2015

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It would really be helpful if you could include a diagonal "guide" feature. Or some sort of perspective guide. I'm trying to draw a 3D frame in Photoshop, and it'd just be so helpful if you could draw guides the way you use the line tool (sometimes I'm forced to draw a line and use that as a guide, rather than dragging an actual guide into the work area, so that I can have a diagonal to work from).

Having only vertical and horizontal guides can be ineffective when you're working on a 3D image.

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New Here ,
Aug 26, 2015 Aug 26, 2015

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I generally use photoshop for compositing images into a single believable work of art. One of my primary considerations is light and depth of field. When compositing the latter is of great importance and often tough to layout. I generally use rulers to provide dof markers keeping foreground middle ground and background of planes as close a s possible. I was thinking it would be great if I could determine ruler color before bringing them into the image. I.E. foreground focus area determined by blue, middle DOF red and background DOF green. This way when bringing an image in I have a reference point to how deep the focus should be and where it picks up. I suppose I could to this with a blank layer and different color lines but I thought a multiple color ruler option would be awesome and simple to implement

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New Here ,
Sep 15, 2015 Sep 15, 2015

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Would be great to give guidlines multiple colors for multiple purpose, especially needed while working with Artboards. Would be great to be able to managed/see them as layers like in Illustrator. So you can simply make a group of guidelines and be able to hide them, and make and show another group of guidelines in the same document.

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LEGEND ,
Nov 29, 2015 Nov 29, 2015

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It'd be great if we could change the colour of guides, or add labels to them if they want to - this would be really helpful for building UI/Web - you could keep a set of guidelines for breakpoints/fold lines etc. whilst other guides could be used for aligning content.

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Adobe Employee ,
Nov 30, 2015 Nov 30, 2015

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The update for Photoshop CC 2015.1 that was released today features the ability to have artboard specific guides: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/usi...

Preferences> Guides, Grids & Slices

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LEGEND ,
Dec 01, 2015 Dec 01, 2015

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Cool feature added for sure.

But do you know if Adobe is planning on adding the feature everyone is asking for on this thread? (Group sets and custom colors for grids)

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Adobe Employee ,
Dec 01, 2015 Dec 01, 2015

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It's a top request so it's certainly possible. (Sorry, can't give a definitive answer)

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LEGEND ,
Dec 01, 2015 Dec 01, 2015

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Thank you for the response.
I see you're also fighting fires on the El Capitan front, which is definitely a priority.

I'm having the same issues with my new computer. It's frustrating.
Even After Effects is having trouble keeping pace with the simplest animations

Thanks again

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LEGEND ,
Apr 11, 2016 Apr 11, 2016

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I agree with selectively locking guides, either individual or by group. This would help a ton on responsive website designs. Make it happen Adobe!

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LEGEND ,
Oct 05, 2016 Oct 05, 2016

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YO!

Couple quick suggestions.

How about the guide rulers in Photoshop having a transparency value, would make life easier when you have a lot of em, working on designing a very symmetrical lineart logo and I can barely see the image even with the rulers that's just dots. =p



Being able to go between multiple different 'sets' of rulers and guides
would be pretty sweet too. Screen can get pretty crowded. Might make life a bit easier being able to attach sets of rulers and guides to layers or something. So you can easily display just the rulers that are relevant to what your working on.

Being able to set diagonal rulers of various angles would be pretty shweet. IE being able to set 'this ruler should be at 37 degrees' or whatever would be cool.

Perhaps even being able to fine tune the little 'distance marks' on the ruler on rulers on the side, how far apart each one is, being able to 'snap to' on a custom amount of pixels, or a custom amount of pixels from your starting position, would be some pretty handy options to have, especially in the initial stages of plotting something out.

Being able to set a 'symmetrical snap to' option from a 'starting ruler' would be pretty great too.

Was a couple things I noticed while working, and a couple things I just brainstormed. Hope I was able to help. =D

❤️ U BAI.

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New Here ,
Dec 05, 2016 Dec 05, 2016

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I would love to see the ability to set up different color guide lines for different layers in Photoshop as well. Lots of times I end up with too many guidelines and getting mixed up between them.

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Adobe Employee ,
Dec 08, 2016 Dec 08, 2016

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Moving to Photoshop,

Regards

Rajashree

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