Shortcut for moving a selection along an orthogonal axis?

[wes]

Hi there. First post from me. I've read the rules, and done some searches too, but I'm still none the wiser. There seems to be a really good atmosphere on this forum, so hope you can help or point me in the right direction.

So: Can you move a selection along an orthogonal axis as I'm trying to create multiples that are in line up.

Setting an X or Y Pan value in the Rotate/Zoom tool (Ctrl+Shift+Z) is one way of achieving it, but is there a way of achieving this result quickly, "on the fly"?

I'm thinking along the lines of the 15degs rotation constraint that kicks in with Ctrl+RightClick on a selection. I think holding down shift whilst moving is the way you lock on to orthogonal 90 deg axes (and 45 deg axes too) in Photoshop. I'm used to using AutoCAD and having ORTHO turned on for fixed movement along the x and y axes, y'see?

Really getting into PdN tho as a good alternative to Photoshop and MS Photo Editor, all rolled into one. Came across it via the comments to a post about open source alternatives to commonly used software, on The Simple Dollar website. I'm currently using it to design badges to for a modest fledgling ebay shop). I've never really got to grips with Illustrator but Inkscape looks to be good for doing the things that PdN is not designed for so i'll be playing around with that too.

Cheers,

-wes

PS: I haven't really looked into it so feel free to ignore this bit, but mastering text manipulation will be my next priority as I found the letter/word/line spacing to be really useful in Photoshop. And it's a shame that text is non-editable once entered. Any tips/pointers?

[david.atwell]

I'm not sure about the orthogonal axis. Are you trying to do it without changing the size of the image?

Re-editable text is on the roadmap for v4.0. Right now, the best workaround is just to type the text on a new layer.

[wes]

Thanks for a swift reply...

"Are you trying to do it without changing the size of the image?"

Yup.

As I mentioned above (in amongst my sprawling post), and as far as I recall Photoshop uses the shift key to constrain movement to the x and y axes and the 45deg diagonals. And Ctrl+Shift and drag creates a copy who's movement is constrained as described.

Re: Editable Text. It'll be great to see it in v4.0. But in the meantime, I'm happy to have come across PdN (i'll be sure to recommend it to friends and family) and I'll use the workarounds in the meantime.

:-)

-wes

[david.atwell]

Well, you can use the arrow key to move it one pixel at a time, or ctrl+arrow to move it ten pixels at a time. That will keep it on the same axis.

[MadJik]

/.../

Setting an X or Y Pan value in the Rotate/Zoom tool (Ctrl+Shift+Z) is one way of achieving it, but is there a way of achieving this result quickly, "on the fly"?

/.../

-wes

That's a work for the panelling plugin:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3074

and Ctrl+F to repeat the same effect later on...

[wes]

"ctrl+arrow to move it ten pixels at a time".

A-ha! That'd be a shortcut or alternative to the X and Y Pan in Rotate/Zoom (Ctrl+Shift+Z).

It's not quite what I was after. But in some ways it's better!

Might not be as fast as eye-ing it in with a quick-and-dirty drag of the mouse whilst holding Shift. But it's ultimately more accurate, cos it gives 10px/1px increments.

Many thanks for the heads-up. :-)

Thanks also to MadJik for the Panelling Effect Plugin tipoff. It'll allow me to achieve exactly what I was after, better than I had hoped for! (An array of 5x7, or 7x5, 35mm circles on an A4 sheet - that'd be a template for printing of the aforementioned badges, y'see).

For anyone familiar with AutoCAD the Panelling Effect Plugin is analagous to the the Rectangular Array command (there's a Polar Array command too). In fact I previously did long-winded workaround where I did the accurate array in CAD and saved it as a pdf, opened it in PShop and then saved as a png.

To the Panelling Effect Plugin...

Meanwhile... Do you think there's a place for an orthoganally constrained move/move selection command (via Ctrl or Shift) in a future version? And if so, where's the best place to make the suggestion? It's not in the "popular feature requests" 'no-go-suggestions' list.

I like the idea. And intuitive too, as it'd tie in quite well with with the use of Shift+mouse for constraining elliptical and rectangular selections (to circles and squares respectively).

-wes

[david.atwell]

You could add "Feature Request" to the title of this thread. While you're in Edit mode, go ahead and put "EDIT: My feature request is..." blah blah blah.

Or you could just make a new thread. Either one works. :-)

[wes]

Thanks for the help so far, peeps.

But i'd like to rewind if I may.

I want to start with a blank A4 size image, draw a 35mm diameter circle, select that circle and end up with grid of 7x5 or 5x7 circles.

I've had a chance to play with the Panelling effect plugin. As I see it, it'd probably be dead good for seamless texture mapping on 3D models, but unfortunately it's not quite what I thought it was.

There are plenty of workarounds (Ctrl+cursor=10px movement is handy), but an array tool (offsets and selection copys in one go) would be most useful. The Photo Flood Fill plugin comes close, but requires a 'starter image'. I'm looking to make an arbitrary selection and 'flood' (i.e. repeat) that

Further to that, a Shift+mouse option as part of the move selected pixels/move selections that constrains movement to x-axis/y-axis/45deg would be nice.

I'll let this thread settle for a little to see if any solutions pop up.

If not i'll edit it into a feature request.

Thanks once again for the help. This post took 3 or four hours to write because I kept getting distracted whilst investigating the suggestions put forward so far. :-)

Cheers,

-wes