Photoshop 101 Tips & Secrets

« Photoshop Bulk Processing Video | Home | Photoshop Free Scripts »

By Photoshop Consultant | July 23, 2007

Submited: by Nicholas Hall

Photoshop - 101 Hidden Tips & Secrets Hope it
helps some of you out, as it did for me!

Hope it helps some of you out, as it did for me! Print thse out and leave them beside your computer.

1. Press Tab will hide
tool bar and palette, Shift+Tab will hide only palette.

2. Hold Shift +
click the top blue bar for toolbar and palette will move them to the nearest
edge.

3. Double click the top blue bar, on any palette window, to
minimize it.

4. Double click the gray background will bring up open file
option, Hold Shift+double click will open up the browser.

5. Sick of the
default gray background around your image? Select paint bucket, hold shift and
click on the gray background, it will change to whatever color you have in your
foreground color box.

6. In Photoshop, all “Cancel” buttons in a window
can be changed to a “Reset” button by holding Alt.

7. Caps lock will
switch your cursor for accuracy.

8. Press F button, it will switch
between 3 different screen modes and give you more working area.

9. To
draw a straight line, click then move to the end point and hold shift +
click.

10. Hold Ctrl will temporary make any tool into move tool until
you release Ctrl.

11. Ctrl + Alt and click drag the image, it will make a
duplication of the current image over lay on top.

12. Hold Space bar, it
will make any tool into “Hand Tool” until you release Space bar.

13.
While in Zoom Tool, Ctrl+space = zoom in, alt+space = zoom out.

14. Hold
Ctrl and press “+” or “-” it will change the % for image in navigator
window.

15. When Using eyedropper tool to capture foreground color, hold
Alt and click, it will instantly capture the color for background.

16.
With Measure Tool, draw a line then hold Alt and draw another line from the end
of the first line, it will measure the angle.

17. Ctrl+Alt+Z and
Ctrl+Shift+Z will go back and forth in the history.

18. Alt+Backspace and
Ctrl+Backspace will fill in the whole screen with foreground color or background
color, Shift+backspace will bring up option window, Alt+Shift+Backspace and
Ctrl+Shift+Backspace, will fill the image with foreground or background color
but will leave the alpha transparent area alone.

19. When free
transforming with Ctrl+T, hold Alt to keep the original image and then to
transform a duplicated layer of it. Ctrl+Shift+T to repeat whatever you did in
the last transform.

20. To make sure your Crop is on the edge of the
image, hold Ctrl while cropping.

21. Ctrl+J will duplicate the current
layer.

22. Ctrl+Shift+E will merge all visible layers to one layer,
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E will make a copy of the original and merge all visible
layers.

23. While using Marquee Tools, hold Alt it will make the starting
point as a center of the selection.

24. Ctrl + D to deselect,
Ctrl+Shift+D to reselect what you deselected.

25. While selecting with
Marquee tool, pressing the space bar can allow you to move the
selection.

26. Hold Shift and press “+” or “-” it will switch between the
layer mode:

N = Normal
I = Dissolve
M = Multiply
S = Screen
O
= Overlay
F = Soft Light
H = Hard Light
D = Color Dodge
B = Color
Burn
K = Darken
G = Lighten
E = Difference
X = Exclusion
U =
Hue
T = Saturation
C = Color
Y = Luminosity
Q = Behind 1
L =
Threshold 2
R = Clear 3
W = Shadow 4
V = Midtones 4
Z = Highlights
4

***The shortcut works even for following situation:

***Alpha
turned off, Indexed Mode, Line tool, Bucket Tools, Dodge and Burn
Tools

27. While using Brush or any other tools, change the opacity by
typing the number.

*** type one number for % of it’s ten times
[4=40%]

***type two number for exact % [press 7 then 2 will get
72%]

28. Hold Alt while clicking on the eye icon beside the layer, it
will hide all other layers.

29. Hold Alt while clicking the pen icon
beside the layer, it will unchain this layer from all layers.

30. Select
a layer, hold Alt and click the top edge of another layer, it will group
them.

31. Hold Alt and click the button “Create a new layer”, it will
create a new adjustment layer.

32. Select a layer and hold Alt, then
click on the garbage can button. It will instantly delete the layer, marquee
where you want alpha and Ctrl+click the “Create new channel” button, it will
create an alpha only on the area you marquee.

33. File> Automate >
Contact Sheet: this can create a small thumbnail for every file, this can save
you some time from searching.

34. When Move Tool is selected, toolbox on
top can be useful from time to time, these are “Auto select layer” and “Show
bounding box”.

35. While Move Tool is selected, hold Shift
(Alt+Shift+Right click) and allow whether or not to make a current layer chain
with your upper layer.

36. With grid on, click the top left corner of the
grid and drag to anywhere on the image to set the pivot, double clicking on the
icon again reset the pivot.

37. After, draw a path on the image with pen
tool, Ctrl+shift+H can hide/show it.

38. Control Navigator with keyboard
sometimes can be more time efficient than mouse.

***

Home = move
to top left corner
End = move to right bottom corner
PageUp = move up one
page
PageDown = move down one page
Ctrl+PageUp = move left one
page
Ctrl+PageDown = move right one page
Shift+PageUp = move up 10
pixel
Shift+PageDown = move down 10 pixel
Ctrl+Shift+PageUp = move left 10
pixel
Ctrl+Shift+PageDown = move right 10 pixel

39. Ctrl+Tab
allows you to switch between different image files you are working
on.

40. F12 = Revert to how the file was the last time you saved
it.

41. Shortcuts for Channel: RGB, CMYK, indexed
color…

***

Ctrl+”~” = RGB
Ctrl+1 = red
Ctrl+2 =
green
Ctrl+3 = blue
Ctrl+4 = other path
Ctrl+9 = other path
Ctrl+”~”
= CMYK
Ctrl+1 = light green
Ctrl+2 = pink red
Ctrl+3 = yellow
Ctrl+4
= black
Ctrl+5 = other path
Ctrl+9 = other path
Ctrl+1 =
Indexed
Ctrl+2 = other path
Ctrl+9 = other path

42. Hold Ctrl then
you can draw a red box in the Navigator thumbnail for viewing.

43. Hold
Alt and click on any of the history steps, that step will be copied and become
the most recent one.

44. Alt drag a step from a serial action can copy it
to another action.

45. Alt-click the flare preview thumb, and you can
fill in numerical co-ordinates for lens flare.

46. Holding Shift + Alt
while transforming an object will do it proportionally, from the
center.

47. If you have the move tool selected and you want something
duplicated just hold the alt key and move the image, holding the Shift + Alt
while doing this, it will move it along one axis.

48. If you want to
straighten an image that is crooked (maybe from scanning), click on the
eyedropper tool or hit the I key 3 times to get the ruler. Click on the left
side of the straight edge, then the right side of the straight (but crooked)
edge. The choose Image> Rotate Canvas> Arbitrary, Photoshop will give you
the degrees of rotation you just click ok.

49. If you create something in
Illustrator, copy and paste it in Photoshop, it will ask you if you want this to
be a pixel, path, or shape layer.

50. If you have a mask on a layer and
you want to place a image in there and keep the mask. Simply open the image, say
copy, and then Ctrl click on the layer to select the mask and use Shift + Ctrl +
V to paste it into the mask which will also put it on a new layer as
well.

51. To center an image, Ctrl + A , Ctrl + X, Ctrl + V, I think it
also puts that image on a new layer.

52. Ctrl+E will merge the
highlighted layer down to the next

53. When you have a brush selected,
using [ or ] will scroll up or down that brush list.

54. Double clicking
the zoom tool will make the image 100%, double clicking the hand tool will fit
the image to your screen resolution.
55. Typing Content:

Ctrl + H will
hide the highlight on your selected type.

If you click once while your
type is selected on the font list, you can use your arrows to scroll up and down
and see the fonts change on the fly!

Alt + Left or Right arrows will
change your tracking in increments of 10
Ctrl + Alt + Left or Right arrows
will change your tracking in increments of 100
Ctrl + Alt + Up or Down arrows
will change your leading in increments of 10 pts
Shift + Ctrl with < or
> will change your font size in increments of 2 pts

56. Ctrl + Alt + T
to make a copy of the layer in which you want to transform.

57. Ctrl +
Alt + Right arrow. duplicates the layer you are on.

58. Change the active
layer : Alt + [ or ].

59. Move the active layer up and down : Ctrl + [ or
].

60. Link 2 layers: with move tool click in the first layer hold Shift
and click in the second one.

61. Ctrl+[plus key] will let you zoom in on
an image anytime while Ctrl+[minus key] zooms out. Ctrl+Alt+[plus key] will zoom
in AND RESIZE the window to fit the image size… same for Ctrl+Alt+[minus key]
as well.

62. When using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, click backspace to undo
a lasso step.

63. Pressing X will switch the selected foreground and
background colors.

64. Pressing D will reset the foreground and
backgrounds colors to black and white.

65. If your image has multiple
layers, create a Marquee selection and press Ctrl+Shift+Cit won’t work if you
selected a hidden layer) will copy the image into memory as if they were
flattened! Paste it on a new document to see the result.

66. Ctrl+Alt+Z
will do multiple undo, versus just one.

67. Ctrl+click a layer thumbnail
to select the layer transparency

68. To see what your layer mask looks
like (and edit it), Alt+click its thumbnail in the layers palette

69.
Press and hold Ctrl+Alt and click the Help bar with your mouse, drag it down and
highlight “About Photoshop” and let go of the left mouse button for a different
About Photoshop splash/screen.

70. When using Polygon lasso tool hold
Shift to make a perfect line, it goes every 30 degrees

71.Photoshop CS2:
Group many layers by clicking the layers you want to group by clicking it while
holding the Shift key down, and then press Ctrl+G to group them into a folder
for means of better organization.

72. Ctrl+Shift+N creates a new layer
with a dialog box; Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N gets you a new layer without the
hassle.

73. Back to brush, [ and ] will increase/decrease your brush
size, Shift + [ or ] will soften or harden your brush edge.

74. Still in
[ and ], Ctrl + [ or ] will move your currently selected layer up and down the
hierarchy and Shift + [ or ] will select upper layer or lower layer.

75.
Stamp Tool (s) is used to copy an area of image (defined by alt+clicking and
area) and paint it somewhere else (cloning). It also works when you have
multiple images open at the same time. Alt click an area of any opened file
image and paint it anywhere else.

76. After you created a text you can
click on font type tab and tap “down” key over and over to scroll through the
font list and see the changes in (relatively) real time. A feature that I am
tired of waiting to happen in illustrator.

77. Still in text mode, a
trick from Microsoft word to apply hi-light to your text hit Ctrl+Shift+ < or
> to resize your text, to your preferred font size. Pressing Ctrl key while
you are typing also gives you a free transform box temporarily and will go if
you release it. Resizing text also works by pressing Ctrl+T (on selected layer,
not when you are typing). It still retains as an editable text layer
after.

78. And remember, pressing enter when you type will take you to a
new line just like typing a letter but pressing Ctrl+Enter or Enter on numeric
key will finish what you type.

79. You can drag a layer on to any other
opened images in Photoshop and it will copy it as a layer (better than copy and
paste image). Holding down Shift while moving it will snap the image right on
the center of the other opened image

80. If you are working with
sets….

Click on the set, in the blending mode it shows pass through by
default… if you have an adjustment layer within a set and you want that
adjustment layer to effect those layers underneath it within the set only, set
the blending mode of the set to “normal”
instead.

CODE

Mentioned before with more explanation:

-
Pressed F to switch to 3 different viewing mode… when I first try it I said
“wtf? what it’s for?” Well, if you are sick of painting your image on the
corners just to find yourself resizing your current image window, with F you can
pan way outside your image. Happy corner painting!!

- Create a new
file, 500×500 px, create a new layer, get a standard brush and paint a dot on
the top center of your image (like the number 12 position on a clock). Press
Ctrl+Alt+T, it will duplicate your original layer and free transform the new
one. Move the pivot point (the circle with little dot in it found when you are
free transforming something) to the center of your image, rotate your image 30
degrees to the right and hit OK to confirm the
transform

now………

Be excited……….

Hit
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T 10 times and see what happens!

81. When using the “move
tool” you can select any layer by holding down the CTL key(CMD on a Mac) and
clicking on the part of the layer on the canvas with your mouse. This way you
won’t have to go to the Layers palette every time and you don’t have to keep
checking on or off the auto select options for the move tool.

82. You can
link up layers without going into the layers palette, by selecting the layer
(how I just mentioned above) and holding down CTL + Shift(CMD + SHIT on a Mac)
for each additional layer you want to link up. You can unlink them by clicking
on the layer again.

83. You can delete more than one layer at a
time…….by linking up all the layer you want to delete, and holding down
CTL(CMD on a Mac) while you click on the garbage icon to delete the
layer.

84. When using the type tool you can ok it by pressing CTL +
Enter(CMD + Enter on a Mac) instead of clicking on the check mark on the
options.

85. If you have more than one type layer, and want to make any
of the following changes color/font/size/alignment/initializing to all of the
type layers at the same time…..All you have to do is link up the type layer,
hold down the Shift key and in the options for the type tool make your change
i.e. color, size, etc.

86. You can use your number pad to change opacity
for a layer.… I.e. type 5 and the opacity will be 50; type 55 and the opacity
will be 55. You can use the number pad for any tool that uses opacity…like the
airbrush tool, stamp tool, brush, gradient, etc.

87. Pressing Tab key
will hide the Tools palette and any other palette that you have on the stage.
Pressing “F” will change between Full Screen modes. Using these two tips you can
view your work Full Screen without any palettes.(You can press CTL+Alt+0 to fit
your work to the screen, or you can press CTL+0 to zoom to 100%)

88.
Pressing the “+” and “-” keys while holding down CTL+Alt will resize the whole
document window, not just the work area.

89. You can delete a layer by
holding down the “Alt” key and pressing “L” twice……actually now with
Photoshop 7 you got to press “L” three times. It’s not actually a keyboard
shortcut, but it’s a quick way to do it….don’t know if it works on a
MAC.

90. Pan documents with the space bar.

91. Ctrl+click a layer
(in layers palette) to select it’s transparency.

92. Ctrl+Alt+click
between 2 layers in the palette to group them.

93. Alt + click in “add
layer mask” button to add a black layer mask (instead of a white
one).

94. When you select something, pressing Ctrl+J will copy the
selected area and add another layer with the copied area - opposing copying the
layer, making a new layer, and pasting it.

95. To glue the palettes
together (all palettes combined into one strip), you just drag & drop a
palette onto the end of another palette (watch the rectangle that indicates
where the palette will get attached to).

96. Hold down Alt while Burning
to Dodge instead, and vice versa.

97. Ctrl-click a layer to select an
objects; alternatively, you may select more than one object/s in more than 1
layer by holding Shift while using the method just mentioned (Ctrl-click). To
deselect, just press Ctrl+D.

98. If you have a mini scroll on your mouse,
you may use that to zoom in (scroll up) or zoom out (scroll down).

99.
Need to locate a layer quick? Use the Move Tool (V) and right click on the area
the object lays. There should now be a “cursor-menu” with all the layers that is
in that particular area. Now take a good guess and see which one of them fits
the shoe; select a layer and Ctrl-Click the layer in the Layer Palette - see if
the selection traces the object you desired to edit/find. Useful for those messy
people (i.e. me!).

100. Need to get rid of a background quick? Assuming
you at least know how to crop around an object, do so. Now press Ctrl+I or
Shift+Ctrl+I for Inverse Selection. Press Ctrl+X to %@#!* that part out, and you
should be left with the object!

101. Want to save the time from
loading All your Photoshop brushes, when your Photoshop accidentally forgets to
load them up (happens to me sometimes)? Select the brush tool, and click the
little arrow pointing right (located at the top toolbar), next to the Master
Diameter tick. Go down to Preset Manager and now there should be a menu of all
the brushes currently loaded. Click on the first brush (top left) and scroll
down to the bottom. Now hold Shift and click the last brush (bottom right). This
should highlight all the brushes. See the “Save Set” to the right in the menu?
Click that and name your brush set whatever you want, for this matter I just
name it All (so I remember that this brush set contains all the brushes I
currently have loaded, and is located near the top when loading the brushes up).

And my all time favorite is use the magnetic lassoo for extracting pictures.

Enjoy

The staff at MSI Photoshop
http://www.msiphotoshop.com

—————————————–

HI FI Audio Stream
is built on the same foundation as MP3 Sound Stream however it has theautomation removed for those who want more control over the compression of their files like muscians and professional audio compilers. HI FI Audio stream is mainly for those wanting high quality stereo streaming and are delivering mainly to a broadband audience however it will also
compresss very tightly. It uses your original mp3 or wav file so anunderstanding of mp3 production and compression is helpful though not necessary. More Information