TechDuke

The hand tool is simply a tool for panning around on your images. Select the Hand Tool, its next to the magnifying glass (Zoom Tool). The Location of Hand Tool is shown below.

 
Now go on to the image, hold Mouse left click and drag. Note that this tool will only work if your image is bigger than the document window i.e. you have zoomed in your image. More simple, Your document have scroll bars. Scroll bars and Pan tool do the same work, but pan tool is more easy to use.

Pan tool is a wonderful way for moving around an image. One thing more which I didn’t tell you in the previous lessons. Turn on your navigator palette if its not already on. To do this go to the ‘Window’ Menu then ‘Navigator’, shown below.

 
It will activate the palette shown below.

 
Its a car in the Navigator palette because I have opened a car image in the document. Note a Red Outlined Box in the Image in Navigator palette shown above. It tells the exact location of the region which I am viewing in the Document window. If I pan around in the Document then this red box will move in accordance. If you are viewing complete image in the document window, more simply you don’t have any scroll bars in the document window then this red out lined box in the navigator palette will be equal to the size of the image.

Another thing we can do with the hand tool is we can fit the document window and image by double clicking on the hand tool.

Now lets see the options bar, it looks like this. (Make sure Hand tool is selected).

 
These are exactly the same buttons we discussed in the previous tutorial The Zoom Tool. I will not discuss them again, you can check the working of these by yourself or go to the previous tutorial to see the details.

Now Select any other tool except Hand Tool and move your cursor over the document. I selected the Brush Tool. Now when your cursor is on the Document Window press and Hold ‘Space Bar’ on your keyboard. This will temporarily covert your current tool to the Pan tool. You can pan around in the image by holding the left click button on mouse and moving around, Now release the Space Bar on your keyboard, your hand tool will again be converted into brush tool. This is a very useful shortcut.