In this tutorial in our series on Photoshop layers, we'll learn how to easily and automatically align and distribute layers in a document using the Move Tool and some handy options in the Options Bar. At the end of the tutorial, we'll see how layer groups, which we looked at in the previous tutorial, can help us center multiple layers at once with the document itself!

Here's a document I have open on my screen displaying some wooden blocks.

At the moment, the blocks are scattered all over the place, but what I'd like to do is arrange them in more of a 3x3 grid pattern. If we look in my Layers panel, we see that each block is sitting on its own layer above the Background layer. I've gone ahead and renamed each layer based on where I want each block to appear in the grid ("Top Left", "Top Right", "Bottom Right", etc.):

So how can I re-arrange the blocks inside the document and line them up with each other? Well, I could try to drag them into place manually using the Move Tool, but that would take time and I doubt I'd be able to get them all lined up perfectly just by "eyeballing" it. A better way, and a much easier way, would be to let Photoshop do the work for me automatically using its Align and Distribute options!

To access the Align and Distribute options, we need to have the Move Tool selected, so I'll select it from the top of the Tools panel:

With the Move Tool selected, the Align and Distribute options appear as a series of icons in the Options Bar along the top of the screen. At the moment, the icons are grayed out and unavailable because I only have one layer selected in my Layers panel, and there's not much point trying to align or distribute a layer with itself:

Let's see what happens if I select multiple layers. I already have the Top Left layer selected at the top of the layer stack:

I'll select the Top Center and Top Right layers as well by holding down my Shift key and clicking on the Top Right layer. This keeps the Top Left layer selected, adds the Top Right layer to the selection, and also selects the Top Center layer in between them, so now all three layers are selected at once: