How to Navigate and Pan a Zoomed Image
Zooming and Navigating Documents in GIMP
In this article, I'm going to focus on the tools that allow you to zoom and navigate documents in GIMP. GIMP is one of those applications that offer multiple ways to carry out some operations and so even if you've been using the app for some time, you may find that there are alternative ways to zoom and move around your documents when viewing at higher zoom levels.
Perhaps the most obvious way to zoom in and out of your files in GIMP is to use the various options in the View menu item.
There you'll find a Zoom item that displays the current zoom level in parentheses and if you mouse over this, a new sub menu of zoom options is displayed. This offers a number of preset zoom options that you can select from as well the ability to zoom in and out in incremental steps.
While this is a straightforward and intuitive way to zoom your documents, it can be a little obstructive to a smooth work flow. However if you take a closer look at the sub-menu, you'll see that almost all of the entries have a keyboard shortcut listed next to them and using these can make your working style much more fluent. I personally get by with just using the + key to zoom in, the – key to zoom out and the combination of Shift+Ctrl+J to fit the image to the available space in the window.
You may be happy enough using keyboard shortcuts for zooming, but there are also some more options, including the Zoom Tool and the Navigation dialog.
The Zoom Tool
If you're the type of GIMP user who feels most comfortable using the Tools palette whenever possible, then the Zoom Tool may be your favored option for zooming your documents.
The Zoom Tool is represented by the magnifying glass icon and when active, there is a tool options palette displayed below, with just three options. The Auto-resize window option is meant to allow the canvas to resize if the zoom level dictates it, but in practice, with several different window sizes, I couldn't detect any difference in behavior with this turned on or off.
More important for zooming are the two radio buttons that control whether to zoom in or out. These default to Zoom in and you can click on a radio button to choose that action, however it may be easier to leave these set to Zoom in and hold the Ctrl key down while clicking in order to zoom out.
Finally, before looking at the Navigation dialog for zooming, I will mention two other ways to zoom, regardless of which tool is selected. In the Statusbar below the canvas, you'll see that there is a drop down menu that allows you to select from a range of preset zoom levels. If you can't see the Statusbar in your version of GIMP, just go to the View menu and select Show Statusbar to turn it on.
The other option relies on you having a central scroll wheel on your mouse. If you've got a wheel, you can hold down the Ctrl key and zoom in and out by scrolling the wheel.
If you can't see the Navigation dialog, go to Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Navigation to open it.
This dialog shows a preview of the image that is currently being worked upon and below that are a number of controls. The first is a slider that allows you zoom in and out and to the right of that, the current zoom level is displayed.
Below that are six small buttons. Moving from left to right, the first three zoom out, zoom in and zoom the image to real size so that one pixel fills one pixel of the screen.
Next up is a button that zooms the image so that it is as large as possible in the available space. Following that, the button zooms the image so that all of the available canvas space is filled with the image and some of the image may be cropped as a result. Finally, if you are looking at an image that does not fill the canvas, you can click the final button to reduce the size of the GIMP window.
Related: How to Use the Display Navigation Dialog in GIMP
There are several ways to pan and move around an image when you have zoomed in. The most obvious is to use the scroll bars to the right and below the image, but this is a little restrictive as you can only pan in one direction at a time. Thankfully there are some other ways to move around an image in two directions simultaneously.
The previous page presented the Navigation dialog as a way to zoom in and out of your images, but it also allows you to pan around an image when you are zoomed in.
When you zoom in, you will see that a frame that represents the borders of the canvas is over laid on the preview and you can click and drag this to position the image in the window.
If you like the idea of dragging a frame around a preview to pan your image, but don't want to keep the Navigation dialog visible, there is another option. In the small space below the right hand scroll bar and to the right of the bottom scroll bar, you should see a little cross with four arrowheads that is the move icon. If you click on this, a small preview opens and you can move a frame around this to pan your image.
Finally there is also a keyboard shortcut that allows you to drag your image directly. You need to be focused on your image, which you can do quite simply by clicking on it or the space surrounding it. You can then press the space bar and you should see your cursor changes to the move icon. You just need to move your mouse, without clicking, to pan the image. Do note that if you're focused on another part of the interface, you may have unexpected results.
For example, if you're focused on the Layers palette, pressing the space bar may hide the current layer, though pressing the space bar again will make it visible once more.
Zooming in and out of your images and then panning around them is a very important aspect of working with images in GIMP and as I hope this has demonstrated, there are many different ways to carry these actions out. Only by trying them out will you find which ones fit into your work flow best.
In this article, I'm going to focus on the tools that allow you to zoom and navigate documents in GIMP. GIMP is one of those applications that offer multiple ways to carry out some operations and so even if you've been using the app for some time, you may find that there are alternative ways to zoom and move around your documents when viewing at higher zoom levels.
Perhaps the most obvious way to zoom in and out of your files in GIMP is to use the various options in the View menu item.
There you'll find a Zoom item that displays the current zoom level in parentheses and if you mouse over this, a new sub menu of zoom options is displayed. This offers a number of preset zoom options that you can select from as well the ability to zoom in and out in incremental steps.
While this is a straightforward and intuitive way to zoom your documents, it can be a little obstructive to a smooth work flow. However if you take a closer look at the sub-menu, you'll see that almost all of the entries have a keyboard shortcut listed next to them and using these can make your working style much more fluent. I personally get by with just using the + key to zoom in, the – key to zoom out and the combination of Shift+Ctrl+J to fit the image to the available space in the window.
You may be happy enough using keyboard shortcuts for zooming, but there are also some more options, including the Zoom Tool and the Navigation dialog.
The Zoom Tool
If you're the type of GIMP user who feels most comfortable using the Tools palette whenever possible, then the Zoom Tool may be your favored option for zooming your documents.
The Zoom Tool is represented by the magnifying glass icon and when active, there is a tool options palette displayed below, with just three options. The Auto-resize window option is meant to allow the canvas to resize if the zoom level dictates it, but in practice, with several different window sizes, I couldn't detect any difference in behavior with this turned on or off.
More important for zooming are the two radio buttons that control whether to zoom in or out. These default to Zoom in and you can click on a radio button to choose that action, however it may be easier to leave these set to Zoom in and hold the Ctrl key down while clicking in order to zoom out.
Finally, before looking at the Navigation dialog for zooming, I will mention two other ways to zoom, regardless of which tool is selected. In the Statusbar below the canvas, you'll see that there is a drop down menu that allows you to select from a range of preset zoom levels. If you can't see the Statusbar in your version of GIMP, just go to the View menu and select Show Statusbar to turn it on.
The other option relies on you having a central scroll wheel on your mouse. If you've got a wheel, you can hold down the Ctrl key and zoom in and out by scrolling the wheel.
If you can't see the Navigation dialog, go to Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Navigation to open it.
This dialog shows a preview of the image that is currently being worked upon and below that are a number of controls. The first is a slider that allows you zoom in and out and to the right of that, the current zoom level is displayed.
Below that are six small buttons. Moving from left to right, the first three zoom out, zoom in and zoom the image to real size so that one pixel fills one pixel of the screen.
Next up is a button that zooms the image so that it is as large as possible in the available space. Following that, the button zooms the image so that all of the available canvas space is filled with the image and some of the image may be cropped as a result. Finally, if you are looking at an image that does not fill the canvas, you can click the final button to reduce the size of the GIMP window.
Related: How to Use the Display Navigation Dialog in GIMP
There are several ways to pan and move around an image when you have zoomed in. The most obvious is to use the scroll bars to the right and below the image, but this is a little restrictive as you can only pan in one direction at a time. Thankfully there are some other ways to move around an image in two directions simultaneously.
The previous page presented the Navigation dialog as a way to zoom in and out of your images, but it also allows you to pan around an image when you are zoomed in.
When you zoom in, you will see that a frame that represents the borders of the canvas is over laid on the preview and you can click and drag this to position the image in the window.
If you like the idea of dragging a frame around a preview to pan your image, but don't want to keep the Navigation dialog visible, there is another option. In the small space below the right hand scroll bar and to the right of the bottom scroll bar, you should see a little cross with four arrowheads that is the move icon. If you click on this, a small preview opens and you can move a frame around this to pan your image.
Finally there is also a keyboard shortcut that allows you to drag your image directly. You need to be focused on your image, which you can do quite simply by clicking on it or the space surrounding it. You can then press the space bar and you should see your cursor changes to the move icon. You just need to move your mouse, without clicking, to pan the image. Do note that if you're focused on another part of the interface, you may have unexpected results.
For example, if you're focused on the Layers palette, pressing the space bar may hide the current layer, though pressing the space bar again will make it visible once more.
Zooming in and out of your images and then panning around them is a very important aspect of working with images in GIMP and as I hope this has demonstrated, there are many different ways to carry these actions out. Only by trying them out will you find which ones fit into your work flow best.
