How to use the Navigator Panel in Photoshop

You can proceed by opening any image in Photoshop. Here is the image I will be using (lighthouse image from Adobe Stock):

Open the Navigator panel

As we learned in, Photoshop uses workspaces to decide which of its many panels are displayed on your screen. It is known as the default workspace Basics . If you've only used the Essentials workspace, you've probably never heard of the Navigator panel. That's because the Navigator panel isn't included in the Essentials workspace, which means that, by default at least, it can't be found anywhere on your screen. That's okay, because Photoshop allows us to open any panel we need at any time we need it. All Photoshop panels can be opened from the Window menu in the menu bar along the top of the screen. To open the Navigator panel, go to List Window And choose Navigator from the list. If you see a checkmark next to the board name, the board is already open. In my case, there is no checkmark next to the Navigator panel, so I'll select it to open it:

The open panels in Photoshop are located in columns along the right side of the interface. By default, Photoshop docks the Navigator panel in the small, narrow column on the left, where the panels appear as icons only. The Navigator panel icon looks like a ship's steering wheel. you can open ( expansion ) or close ( Folding ) panel by clicking on its icon:

Resize the explorer panel

At its default size, the Navigator panel isn't very informative, but we could easily make it bigger. To change the size of the panel, click bottom left corner and pull it out. You can make the Navigator panel as large as you want, but of course you'll want to leave room to see your image in the document window. If you're working with two screens, you can move the Navigator panel to the second screen and resize it to fill the entire screen. In my case, I would make it large enough that my image inside would be easy to see:

Preview area and display box

The most obvious feature of the Navigator panel is preview area Image . The preview area shows us the entire image, even when we zoom in. We'll see why this is important in a moment. Note that the preview area is surrounded by a thin red border. This is known as display box . The View box represents the section of the image we currently see in the document window. When we first open an image, Photoshop fits the entire image onto the screen. So, since we can see the entire image, the entire image in the Navigator panel is surrounded by the View box:

Displays the current zoom level

Just as we can display the current zoom level of an image in the lower left corner of the document window, we can also display it in the lower left part of the Navigator panel. Here, the box shows that I see my image on the screen at a magnification of 33.33%. We'll come back to this zoom level box later:

Change the zoom level using the slider

Let's see what happens with the display box in the preview area when we change the zoom level of the image. One way to change the zoom level from the Navigator panel is to use Slider . You will find the scroll bar at the bottom of the panel. Drag the slider to the right to zoom in, or to the left to zoom out:

Here, I zoom in by dragging the slider to the right. We can see that I have enlarged my image in the document window. But, notice that the preview area in the Navigator panel still shows the entire image, as if I hadn't zoomed it in at all:

Closer look at the display box

The way the Navigator panel works is that the preview area displays the image in its entirety Always on, regardless of the zoom level. On the other hand, the display box is different. It shows us which part of the image we see in the document window at the zoom level Present . Earlier, when the entire image was visible on the screen, the display box surrounded the entire image. But now that I've zoomed in, the image is now bigger To fit the screen, the display box has been resized. It now encloses only a smaller section in the center of the image. The area inside the display box is the area visible in the document window at the current zoom level. Everything outside the display box now extends off the screen:

Move the image using the display box

The view box in the explorer panel makes it easy to see what part of the image we're looking at when we zoom in on the image. But there is more than that in the presentation box. We can also use it to change any part of the image that we see. To move or move a different part of the image, simply click inside the view box and drag it to a new location. The new location becomes the area you see in the document window. I'm going to drag the box to the right, away from the lighthouse, so that the ship is on the far right of the image within the bounds of the rendering box:

After moving the display box, the ship is now visible in the document window, while the lighthouse has been moved to the side:

Zoom in and Zoom out buttons

We saw that we can zoom in and out of the image using the slider at the bottom of the Navigator panel. Another way to zoom in and out is by using despicable Zoom In و Zoom Out on either side of the scroll bar. Click the Zoom In button on the right to zoom in, or the Zoom Out button on the left to zoom out. Clicking the same button repeatedly will make you zoom in or out further in incremental steps. Again, the view box is resized to show the area that is now visible in the document window. You can click and drag the view box to examine different areas of the image at the new zoom level:

Change the zoom level from the current zoom level box

Earlier, we knew that we can view the current zoom level in the box in the lower left corner of the Navigator panel. We can too A change Zoom level of the same box. Click inside the box to highlight the current value. Type in your new value, then press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) on the keyboard to accept it. If you press and hold a key Shift while pressing Enter (Win) / Return (Mac), it will keep the value distinct after accepting it. This allows you to quickly enter a different magnification value without having to first click inside the box to highlight it again. Photoshop will automatically add the % symbol, so you don't have to write it yourself:

Change the zoom level using the Scrubby slider

For more granular control over the zoom level in the Navigator panel, use Scrubby Slider . Hover over the current zoom level in the lower left corner. Then press and hold Ctrl . key (Win) / Command (Mac) on the keyboard. The pointer will change to a hand shape with directional arrows pointing left and right. This is the Scrubby Slider icon in Photoshop. Click and hold the mouse button, then drag left or right to change the zoom level in 1% increments. Swipe right to increase the zoom level, or left to decrease it. If you press and hold a key Shift As you drag (hold Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac)), you will change the zoom level in 10% increments:

Manually select an area to enlarge

The quickest and easiest way to enlarge a portion of your image using the Navigator panel is to simply drag a selection around the area you want. Move the mouse pointer over the preview area, then press and hold Ctrl . key (Win) / Command (Mac) on the keyboard. The cursor will turn into a magnifying glass, similar to the cursor of the Zoom tool. While holding down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac), click and drag the display box around the area you want to enlarge. Here, I drag around the lighthouse:

When you release the mouse button, Photoshop immediately enlarges that part of the image in the document window. In my case, the beacon is now front and center:

Change the color of the display box

Finally, let's learn how to change the color of the view box. The default color is bright red, but depending on your photo, the bright red may not be easy to see. To change the color, click menu icon Top right of the Navigator panel:

Then choose painting options From the list:

In the Panel Options dialog box, click light red Default and choose a different color for the display box from the list. or click Custom At the top to open Color picker in Photoshop where you can choose any color you want. Click OK when finished to accept it and close the dialog: