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F
flutterer
Participant
November 23, 2009
Question

How to disable annoying "snap to"- "magnetic" feature?

  • November 23, 2009
  • 7 replies
  • 150771 views

With PSE 6 on OS X , I have the problem that whenever I want to  alter the crop feature selection, it annoyingly wants to know better than me and snaps to the borders of the picture - but I just want to cut off some pixels. Which is simply impossible. This had not been the case with PSE 2. 

Is there any way to turn off this "snap to"-feature? "Snap to grid" and "Snap to guides" are disabled. 

Ah, and another one: How can I make an automatic selection of the complete content of a specific layer? Under PSE 2, this worked well in the Layer preview screen, now the feature has vanished.

Thanks for any help!

    7 replies

    M
    Monty220985287zu9
    Participant
    December 5, 2021

    I know this thread is old, but I thought I would post my solution/workaround in case it would help someone.

    None of the recommendations here worked for me.  In the end, it had nothing to do with "Snap to" features and grid for me.  Here is what worked for me:

    1) Selected the crop tool and selected the entire image

    2) Zoomed in (View -> Zoom In) on the photo to 200%

    3) Now, I dragged the crop tool adjuster square for what I wanted to slightly adjust, and no annoying snapping and was able to place the crop exaactly where I wanted it.

      J
      JeanAdobe108
      Participant
      March 12, 2018

      Agreed, this is super annoying. My workaround... For example, let's say you want to crop a fine line off the top of the image.

      1. With crop tool, select entire image
      2. Using the keyboard down arrow, nudge the crop area down to where you want the top crop to be
      3. Grab bottom "handle" to snap up to bottom of image

      Hope that's helpful.

      A
      aundrear94732208
      Participant
      December 17, 2019

      Interesting that none of these answers resolved the problem for me.

       

      To disable the snapping feature in Illustrator, I opened the 'view' tab and unchecked the 'smart guides' feature.

       

      I will never understand software engineering's obsession with autoformattng features. They are ridiculously unhelpful and strangely difficult to disable.

       

      Hope this helps!

      S
      Sangeun Park
      Participant
      December 22, 2020

      Sorry. Still doesn't work.. the same problem still exists.

      S
      samorab25496675
      Participant
      October 23, 2017

      THis has been really annoying me too!!!

      It is a bug that needs to be fixed, but for the time being you can go into the second full screen mode and it doesn't happen. Just press 'TAB' and your tools will come back to the screen and you can work normally.

        Jeff Arola
        Community Expert
        Jeff ArolaCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        October 24, 2017

        What are you having trouble with?

        Which version of photoshop elements and operating system are you using?

        A
        Anonymous
        December 11, 2010

        I take it that your taking about the Select Layer Transparency command

        in the pse2 layers palette?

        To illustrate the points Terri and Barbara wrote:

        Command-Click (on a two button mouse, thats left -click) on the layer thumbnail

        in the layers palette to load the layers transparency (selection).

        Holding down the command key while cropping should override the snap to edges.

        MTSTUNER

          C
          chambourcin
          Participant
          December 10, 2010

          I'm using PSE8 with OS 10.6, and I experience the exact same problem.  I've disabled "snap to," but to no avail.  I did not experience this with an older version of PSE.  It is immensely frustrating. In a similar manner PSE8 often will not allow me to position things precisely where I want them, instead it will "auto-align" them.  Very annoying.  Thus far I have discovered no setting or preference to overcome this.

          B
          Barbara_B_
          Inspiring
          December 10, 2009

          First enable viewing the grid in View>Grid, then you can uncheck Snap to Grid.

            F
            fluttererAuthor
            Participant
            December 10, 2009

            Sorry, still no change. It snaps right before the border of the available space to the border.

            B
            Barbara_B_
            Inspiring
            December 10, 2009

            Well, I don't know why it's not working for you, but you can also fix it by setting the grid to a very tiny size so that it can't jump very far.

            A
            Anonymous
            November 23, 2009

            Try holding in the Command key as you move near the edge of a document while cropping.

            Edit: Not sure what you mean about the layer preview screen. I have PSE2 on my old XP...just relooked and didn't see any feature like that.

            Edit: If you mean that you can't load a layer's selection by command clicking on the layer's name in the layers palette, you now have to command click on the layer's thumbnail in the layers palette.

              F
              fluttererAuthor
              Participant
              November 24, 2009

              Sorry, Command wouldn't work; it snaps anyway.

              As for selection (I meant the layer palette, sorry) I will try that.

              Thanks for the quick answer!

                F
                fluttererAuthor
                Participant
                December 10, 2009

                Sorry, selction doesn't work with key combinations either. I must say I am quite upset that adobe cut down essential, though simple, functions they had already integrated in PSE2.

                Not such a good product promotion indeed.

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