Blurry Guides in Photoshop CS5
I just started using Adobe’s CS5 this week at work. When ever I install a new version of any software I usually run into a lot of bug and configuration issues, and Photoshop is no exception. If you are a web designer and use Photoshop then pixel perfect precision is a must. When you first use CS5 on your next web mockup you may notice that the guides you set up are blurry. They are about 2 pixels wide and pretty much useless for web layouts.
What’s the fix?
The fix is quite simple and surprising. I was figuring it would be a graphics glitch or OS setting or something along those lines. It’s not though, there is actually a setting for blurry (Anti-aliased) guides in Photoshop CS5 and it’s the default setting.
Go to Photoshop Preferences / Performance. Click Advanced Settings… located below Enable OpenGL Drawing. In the dialogue deselect Anti-alias Guides and Paths. You should now have sharp one pixel guides.
This setting was performed on the Mac version of Photoshop CS5. I don’t know if the same applies to the Windows version. If it does please post in the comments.
Nukinuki November 23, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Thank you! That what i was looking for! 😀
By the way, may be you know how to fix that weird selection border which is not in sync with pixel grid? Really annoying thing…
Sanders November 29, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Thank you! This is so critical when designing websites. I don’t understand why they hide it from us.
Iain Norman January 6, 2011 at 6:50 am
Yes it’s the same in Windows as well.
Chich February 8, 2011 at 11:44 pm
Thanks Ian, would never have found that.
donbull April 27, 2011 at 9:32 am
Thanks Ian. Just wondering if there is a similar fix for CS4? And, I second the question from @Nukinuki about the selection tool not aligning with the underlying grid.
Geofff May 31, 2011 at 11:20 am
Nice one!
I was looking in prefs for about 10mins and gave up!
Pauline August 23, 2011 at 3:45 am
Top tip – thanks!
3dZiggy October 16, 2011 at 3:31 am
Thanx a lot!! this issue has been bothering me for a while, I am very happy to have found your tip! it was plain stupid to have guides that are 2px wide! Finally I started searching to see if there was a way to resize the guides, and there it was!!
sarah November 14, 2011 at 10:37 pm
THANK YOUUUU! this has been annoying me for MONTHS i thought it was just my monitor or something!
Oğuz Çelikdemir December 31, 2011 at 10:40 am
Extra Tips & Tricks for ATI Radeon based graphic cards owner :
If you enabled “advanced features” from catalyst control center, like, Smoothvision HD Anti-Aliasing, just to be sure “Anti-alias Guides and Paths” trick will not work. Disable “Smoothvision HD Anti-Aliasing” from catalyst control center then un-check “Anti-alias Guides and Paths”.
Josh June 20, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Thank you so much! This was driving me crazy!