A clear view of your image or the relevant area of your image is essential. Sometimes you will want to see the whole image (eg when you crop), whereas other times you will want to see only a small portion of your image. Photoshop offers many ways to zoom in and out of your image.
Menu Bar
The View menu offers a selection of zoom settings. I recommend that you ignore these completely as there are quicker and easier ways to zoom.
The Magnifier tool
This is found on the toolbar. It allows you to zoom in on any area of your image. Click and hold the left mouse button and then pull or push the mouse and the image will enlarge or reduce.
There are several settings in the Magnifier Tool Options bar which allow you to select preset zooms or to modify how the magnifier works. I suggest you check the ‘Scrubby Zoom‘ box.
Right-clicking the image while the magnifier is active will open a dropdown menu with several zoom options.
The Mouse scroll wheel
If you use a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can use this to zoom in and out very easily. You must check the ‘Zoom with Scroll Wheel‘ box in the Preferences Tools tab for this to work.
Keyboard shortcuts
This is my preferred method as it is very quick. The following options are available:
- CTRL 0 (zero): fit image to screen
- CTRL 1: view 1:1 ie full size : use the scroll bars to move around
- CTRL +/-: zoom in/out