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Shiny's Photoshop tips

Thu Jan 18, 2007, 7:23 AM
So I'm bored again, waiting for some files to turn up. So I thought I would just post a bunch of Photoshop tips and shortcuts off the top of my head, as there are hundreds of ways to improve your productivity in PS of which these are a good selection. So in no particular order, here are a random bunch of these tips (WRITTEN FOR CS2, SOME MIGHT NOT WORK IN OTHER VERSIONS)

Holding down ALT while using the move key will create a copy of the layer which you then move.

Holding down ALT + SHIFT on a thumbnail while opening a .psd from within Photoshop will open a flattened version of the file, useful for big files when you only want the flat version.

Holding down ALT while cicking on a thumbnail of a layer mask will show you the mask in the main view window.

Holding down CTRL before using the move tool and then clicking on an object will automatically select the layer that that object is in. However Photoshop can get confused if a lot of blending modes/opacities are being used and it might not be able to work out the layer you actually want.

Holding down CTRL + SHIFT before using the move tool and clicking on multiple layers will select all of the layers that you click on.

Clicking inbetween letters while using the Type tool, then holding down ALT and using the left and right cursor keys allow you to adjust the kerning between letters precisely.

You can move layer masks from one layer to another just by clicking and dragging their thumbnails between layers. Holding down ALT while doing it will copy the mask rather than move it.

To complete a transformation, just double click inside the transform box area, or press enter if the box is too small. Pressing escape will get you out of transformation mode and revert you to the original version.

Holding down ALT and clicking on the eye next to a layers thumbnail will turn off the visibility of all other layers. Clicking it again returns it to the previous state.

Holding down SHIFT while using the move tool locks the movement to the x or y axis.

Holding down ALT while using the polygon lasso tool then clicking and moving the mouse switches to normal lasso until you release the mouse button.

Change layer opacity quickly by using the number keys. Pressing 5 will set it to 50%, 8 to 80% etc. Pressing 2 numbers quickly allows you to do inbetweens, eg pressing 4 and then 5 quickly sets it to 45%.

Double clicking within Photoshop, but outside of a canvas window opens the open dialogue.

Holding down ALT while using the brush tool temporarily selects the eye dropper tool.

Use multiple layer masks on one layer by putting it into an empty layer group and adding a mask to that. You can then stack up groups inside eachother and get even more.

Holding down ALT while adding a layer mask automatically makes it the opposite of whatever you have selected.

CTRL + SHIFT + F is the fade command, learn it, use it. One of the most important tools in PS.

phew enough for now I think, if you want to add your own I don't mind, but try and not make them completely obvious ones like ctrl + d being deselect or something, this ain't a noobie forum!

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thanks for the tips ;op
Heh, nice stuff... Im sure it will help me :)

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Søren Larsen Pedersen :trophy: Experimental photographer and Wise Ass!
holly crap, thats a lot of tips!! thanks :D

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im gonna need a montage....
hehe know most of these but some gems in there :D

one thing i use quite alot is composite layers. if you create a new layer then link it to a load of other layers and hold ctrl + alt + e then is merges all the linked layers onto the new one without deleting the old ones. also if you hold ctrl + alt + shift + e (a long one :P) then it merges the whole document onto a new layer, leaving all the old ones intact. :)

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cubicflow
Wow, thanks for nice tips, some of them were new to me!

Would like to add just one::D
Dragging in exact place - Hold down SHIFT key while dragging a object(s) in a layer, or a set of layers, between two open documents you can have it place itself in exactly the same/exact place in the target document. This may be a simple tip, but it’s quite useful many times.

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Musings

Accept no one's definition of your life; Define Yourself!
That a nice tip, I didn't knew that! Thanks!

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Musings

Accept no one's definition of your life; Define Yourself!
Yeah I use that one quite a lot too, sometimes you just have to flatten down to get certain effects. Something I hope one day will be resolved by more non destructive editing tools.

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Come to Shinyland. It's more fun than icecream.
I also forgot to say that in CS2 you don't need to do the linking. You can just select all the layers you want then do ctrl + alt + e and it will create a new layer with the merged contents of the layers you had selected.

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Come to Shinyland. It's more fun than icecream.
Can't think of any to add, mostly because they're just so automatic that you don't really think of them while you're doing them. I advise most people to just press Ctrl-Shift-Alt-K and make up their own. For example, I have gaussian blur on Ctrl-Alt-G, Sharpen on Ctrl-Alt-S, and Brightness&Contrast on Ctrl-Shift-Alt-B, which I'm suprised there isn't a shortcut for anyway - it's a very useful tool for layer masks, considering that Ctrl-U doesn't work on them.

A very good list of tips there, taught me a few useful things that will speed up my workflow. Although this one needs some amendments:


Change layer opacity quickly by using the number keys. Only works with the hand tool selected.Pressing 5 will set it to 50%, 8 to 80% etc. Pressing 2 numbers quickly allows you to do inbetweens, eg pressing 4 and then 5 quickly sets it to 45%.



One useful thing that I can think of is - you can change the layer mode of the layer you're on without using a mouse - just press Shift-Alt-X (where X represents any letter, different letters apply to different layer modes - S is screen, N is normal, M is multiply, D is color dodge, etc). Only works in Hand Tool mode.

Great journal dude. :thumbsup:

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Hehe, I knew all of that except that one with opening a flattened psd. Nice1 :]

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HelloColor!

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~MaccabreGFX:iconMaccabreGFX:
hi nik ! :D
Thu Dec 18, 2008, 10:12 AM
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peanuts
Tue Dec 16, 2008, 12:16 AM
=ZaHawK:iconZaHawK:
:wave:
Tue Nov 25, 2008, 12:27 PM
~bedonx:iconbedonx:
awesome
Thu Oct 2, 2008, 9:35 AM
~karsouny:iconkarsouny:
great dude!! thanks so much!
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:popcorn:
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=X4MHD:iconX4MHD:
Ï noticed you use fractals aswell. :thumbsup:
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:wave:
Mon Aug 20, 2007, 7:48 AM
~kaisergfx:iconkaisergfx:
As I told you allready, really cool. Is great when u make your own techniques
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Sat Jul 14, 2007, 1:03 AM

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