I picked up this tip from one of the YouTube Photoshop videos by Unmesh Dinda (PixImperfect), if you have not watched him, I highly recommend you give him a look. This tip fixes a Photoshop behaviour that has annoyed me for a long time, so I thought it was worth repeating in an article.
We all know that using the Hand tool, or simply holding down the Spacebar, you can move the image around the workspace, however the behaviour when doing this is affected by one fairly obscure Photoshop preference setting called Overscroll, which can be found under Preferences / Tools (see Figure 1).
Fig 1 - Photoshop Tool preferences
With Overscroll unchecked (which I think is the default setting), when the image is at “Fit Screen” size, or zoomed in smaller than that, the image will not move. This can be annoying when you have a panel covering a part of the image you want to be able to see (for example, see Figure 2).
With Overscroll unchecked the image will only move when the image is zoomed in larger than “Fit Screen” size.
Fig 2 - With Overscroll not checked
With the Overscroll setting checked, the image will move irrespective of how far it is zoomed in or out (see Figure 3).
Fig 3 - With Overscroll checked
So, if this behaviour annoys you too, turn on Overscroll.
This article was first published in the November 2020 issue of Artists Down Under magazine.