I just want to draw a 1 cm line. Sheesh.

[Greenstone]

Hey everyone. Just joined up today because I can't find the answer to a ridiculously simple question. Plus I wanted to hang out with the cool kids! :devious:

I'm creating a poster with a timeline that needs to have a key: 1 cm = 1 million years. I need a horizontal line that equals 1 cm long, and then to end caps that are short vertical lines (|—| but where the lines are touching).

I've been using Photoshop since it was invented ... literally ... but on CS4 I can't for the life of me figure out how to do this.

OR ... I have that symbol on a previous version of the poster but it's shorter than 1 cm and I need to make it longer. In previous versions I could draw a rect marquee around it, then free transform, hold down the command key and stretch it. CS4 won't let me do that, and besides, it won't measure 1 cm for me.

Please help an old lady out without laughing too hard ...

Thanks!:sigh:

[HalfDog]

Well, if you bring up the ruler (command+r) and make guides that equal 1 cm apart, the make a rectangle with the marque tool inside those guides, then fill it with color, you'd have a 1 cm mark.

I use CS4 and CS5 and I cant seem to replicate your problem with the transform not working. Is the layer locked? Are you merely trying to scale a mask? If you select the layer and hit command+t does it have the transform anchors?

If not, you probably altered a setting or the layer is locked. Try doing it the long way and going into edit/transform.


Side note-
If you have Illustrator you can make the 1 cm rectangle quickly there and paste it into PS.

[logger]

You can also just make a new canvas in Photoshop at 1cm width with no background, make your lines + end caps and copy those over.

What HalfDog said about the scaling sounds about right, does that fix anything?

[TheCanadian]

If you know the resolution of your project you can easily convert between pixels and centimetres.