18 Exceptionally Useful Photoshop Shortcuts
This guest post was submitted by Brian Auer from Epic Edits Weblog.
Working with Photoshop can be quite time consuming for both beginners and advanced users. Once you’ve worked with it for a while, you begin to find that you’re constantly going back and forth between the same menu items or palette buttons. If you’re anything like me, you’re switching tools so often that most of your time spent in Photoshop isn’t even on the photo — it’s messing with the vast array of editing tools. Fortunately there’s a way to help streamline your Photoshop workflow.
Keyboard commands, or shortcuts, are simply a way to bypass a few mouse clicks when doing tool changes or tool property adjustments. They’re a little awkward and cumbersome at first, but once you pick up a couple of commands on the keyboard you’ll never go back. The whole idea is that while one hand is running the mouse, the other hand might as well be doing something too. This method of working with Photoshop can really decrease your time spent on the computer and give you more time to get behind the camera.
The following are 18 of my most commonly used shortcuts, broken out into three groups: simple, intermediate, and advanced. The simple commands are pretty easy to pull off, and they’re heavily used. The advanced commands take a little coordination, and I don’t use them quite as often. The intermediate commands are somewhere between the two. Again, these are MY most used Photoshop shortcuts. I’m also only showing the commands for Photoshop CS3 (thought CS2 should be almost identical) on a PC (sorry Mac users). So if you want to learn more about this topic, read to the bottom of the article for additional resources.
Get More Tips like this by Subscribing to Digital Photography School
Simple Photoshop Shortcut Commands
- H (Hand Tool) — When zoomed in to a portion of your photo, this command brings up the hand tool which allows for quick panning. Also, if the hand tool is active and you hold down the Ctrl key, you can zoom in without changing to the zoom tool. Likewise, if you hold down the Alt key, you can zoom out without changing tools.
- Z (Zoom Tool) — This command just brings up the zoom tool, which allows you to zoom in. Like with the hand tool, if you hold down the Alt key, it temporarily switches to the zoom out mode.
- Ctrl + 0 (Fit on Screen) — This is a quick-and-dirty command to get the entire photo in front of your eyes. That’s Ctrl + zero, not the letter “O”.
- B (Brush Tool) — The brush is an extremely useful tool when working with masks, and I’m constantly using this command along with the hand and zoom tools.
- Ctrl + Z (Undo) — Very useful for the little mistakes we all make.
- Tab (Hide/Show Palettes) — Hiding the palettes gives you a little more working room, thus decreasing your need to pan and zoom while editing.
Intermediate Photoshop Shortcut Commands
- [ (Decrease Brush Size) — Quickly decrease your brush size to get into those tighter spots.
- ] (Increase Brush Size) — Quickly increase your brush size for the larger areas.
- Shift + [ (Decrease Brush Softness) — Decrease the softness of the brush by 25%.
- Shift + ] (Increase Brush Softness) — Increase the softness of the brush by 25%.
- 1->0 (Tool Opacity) — I usually run my brush opacity around 5% or 10%, but some things require a bit more opacity. Just press one of the numbers from 1 to 0 and your tool opacity will change from 10% up to 100%. If you want finer control, press a second number quickly after the first, and you can get any percentage you want. So pressing 4 will get you 40% opacity, while pressing 4 then 3 will give you 43% opacity.
- Shift + 1->0 (Tool Flow) — This works exactly like the opacity changer, but you just have to hold the Shift key down while you hit the numbers.
- Ctrl + Tab (Next Point on Curves Adjustment) — When using the curves adjustment dialog, you can place multiple points on the curve and adjust them accordingly. Sometimes you want to make very minor shifts in those points by nudging with the keyboard, but clicking on the point to activate it usually moves it to an undesired location. Use this command to switch focus from point to point without moving them around.
Advanced Photoshop Shortcut Commands
- Ctrl + Shift + N (New Layer) — This will bring up the new layer dialog box and place a new layer on top of the active layer.
- Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N (New Layer No Dialog) — This command skips the dialog box and just places a new layer on top of the active layer.
- Ctrl + Shift + C (Copy Merged) — This works basically like the copy command, except you get a merged copy of the composite image sent to the clipboard. This command only works if you’ve made a selection on the image first (use Ctrl+A to select all), otherwise you’ll get a copy of nothing. This is useful if you want to duplicate what you see on the screen into another image file or even another layer.
- Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E (Stamp Visible) — This is actually one of my favorite commands. First, I’ll create a new empty layer on top of the stack. Then I’ll select that new layer and use this command. It does basically the same thing as the copy merged command, except it places the copy right into the new layer. I use this for creating layer blends, sharpening, and any other type of editing that can’t be done non-destructively.
- Ctrl + Alt + Shift + K (Show Keyboard Commands) — If you forget any of these commands, or if you want to check on other commands, use this to bring up the help dialog on keyboard shortcuts.
These are only the Photoshop keyboard shortcuts that I commonly use during post-processing, but there are certainly a lot more of them that may be useful for you. Check out the Photoshop help topics for more information on this topic. In addition to that, I found a great resource at Trevor Morris Photographics where you can download PDF documents of all the shortcuts for each version of Photoshop all the way back to PS5, plus he has documents for Bridge and Camera Raw. I find that his documents are much easier to use than the Photoshop documentation.
So did I miss any critical photoshop shortcut commands? Which others do you find useful and use?
Update: We’ve added another 28 Exceptionally Useful Photoshop Shortcuts post to the blog.
Brian Auer is a photography enthusiast of four years, and he is the author of the Epic Edits Weblog which written to provide a photography resource for the aspiring hobbyist.
Get More Great Photoshop and Photography Tips like this by Subscribing to Digital Photography School
Read more posts like '18 Exceptionally Useful Photoshop Shortcuts'
July 24th, 2007 at 1:15 am
I think a very useful shortcut is the spacebar, which, when you hold, temporarily brings up the hand tool, and when you release the spacebar key, goes back to the last tool you were using.
Just hold down the spacebar key when you need to move around the picture instead of switching to the hand tool and then back to your previous tool.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:41 am
My personal favourite is Ctrl+Alt+Z which keeps undoing right up the history list (like Ctrl+Z in most other apps). In Photoshop, pressing Ctrl+Z repeatedly just toggles between undoing and redoing the most recent action. Grrr. :-)
July 24th, 2007 at 2:05 am
this is great! I do the bulk of my PP in Lightroom, but for those that need roundtrips to PS, I’m printing this out for reference.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:44 am
I agree with Yurik - the spacebar shortcut (for moving the workspace around once you go fullscreen after pressing F) is something that’s indispensable once you start using it.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:51 am
Thanks for these. I’d love to see more PS tips here, especially info about actions; I’ve seen some cool cross-processing and bleach bypass actions, and other examples would be great.
July 24th, 2007 at 3:09 am
You forgot a few more useful ones…
X - switches your forground and background color
CMD (or ctrl on pc) + J creates a new layer from the layer you have selected.
CMD + or - zooms in or out.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:00 am
I don’t ever use the zoom tool, myself — I just use Ctrl+ or Ctrl- to zoom in or out of the image I’m working with.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Wow! Excellent roundup Brian! Now to print this and put it up next to my monitor so I’ll remember.
I wind up using my mouse for everything in Photoshop because I keep forgetting which keyboard shortcuts I’m supposed to be memorizing.
The spacebar shortcut in the comments sounds really useful as well.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:59 am
Keyboard shortcuts are the best. I find it hard to remember what program or platform I’m on at times. As a student I’m learning Photoshop, After Effects, Flash, DVD Studio Pro, Director, and Avid…it gets confusing. But keyboard shortcuts are essential in my field for efficiency.
To add to the Photoshop ones though…
Control+spacebar - temporarily brings up the zoom tool (add the ALT modifier to zoom out
Also, one that works for Windows only is double clicking the background within Photoshop (not an open image) to bring up the “Open” dialog box.
Some others that I use often are “Control+D” to deselect, “D” to set the foreground and background colors to their default, and “X” to swap the foreground and background colors.
July 24th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Remember also that many of these shortcuts work for other Adobe products as well. In Acrobat Reader I particularly like to use the spacebar to move the page around; ctrl+spacebar to zoom-in and ctrl+alt+spacebar to zoom-out; ctrl+0 for fit-to-screen and ctrl+shift+0 for 100% zoom.
July 24th, 2007 at 8:03 am
It sounds like there are quite a few Photoshop savvy photographers out there. Thanks for adding the additional keyboard commands! I might have to get in the habit of using the spacebar shortcut — I don’t know why I never got hooked on that one.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Some great shortcuts - thanks. In addition to the ones that have already been mentioned in the comments, I also use Ctrl-E to merge down and Ctrl-G to group a layer with the one below it (I am an Elements user so that is how I access masks).
July 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
To elaborate on the Space Bar short cuts…
Not only can the space bar be toggled for use as the hand tool (hold space), but SPACE + CMD toggles the zoom tool, and SPACE + CMD + OPT toggles the zoom-out tool.
Using these shortcuts I pretty much never need to use Z or H (Hand and Zoom tools).
July 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Here’s one that helps when you’re doing some fine-tuning. Do ctrl-h to hide the “marching ants” of a selection so you can see better. Works in illustrator also to hide the alternate-color outline of a selection. Be careful that you know this command because you can hit it by accident in illustrator when you’re grouping (ctrl-g). If you don’t know it, you may be wondering why you can’t select anything anymore! You can, you just can’t see that it’s selected.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
“F”to toggle fullscreen (with gray background and visible menubar on a Mac, not sure what that includes on a Windows machine), “F” again to toggle fullscreen with black background and no menubar and “F” a third time to return to the original windowed mode.
“M” for the marquee tool (to make selections), Shift-M to toggle between rectangular and elliptical selections. Further, hold down Shift to constrain selections to a square or circle before/while/after dragging. Press Command-D (presumably Control-D in Windows) to deselect.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Great article :)
I use Photoshop to create graphics for websites, so I spend a great deal of time in the program. Over the past few years I’ve taught myself to rely on quite a few keyboard shortcuts to help make my life (and my job) a whole lot easier. Here are some of the shortcuts that I use on a day-to-day basis (there’s quite a few, so I apologise if the list is too long!)
X - Switches colors in foreground/background
D - Resets colors to Black (fore) and White (back)
V - Pointer
T - Text
Ctrl + Shift + Alt - Save for web
Ctrl + E - Merge Down
G - Gradient
M - Marquee
Ctrl + ‘;’ - Shows/hides extras (guides, slices, grid etc)
Ctrl + Shift + ‘;’ - Activates/Deactivates snap
And possibly the most useful: Ctrl + plus/minus which zooms in and out over set defaults. Very useful, as others have noted :)
It’s also worth mentioning that if the appropriate setting is checked in the options (as it is by default), then holding Shift while hitting any of the single keys I listed above will cycle through the different modes for each tool. For example, hitting Shift and G while in Gradient mode will switch to Fill mode, and vice versa.
There are still dozens (if not a couple hundred) shortcuts that I still don’t know, so I’ve got a long way to go before I’ve got full control. Thanks for teaching me a few I hadn’t picked up on yet :)
July 24th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
a very useful idea which otherwise go unnoticed by hundred of photoshoppers. main thing is saving the time and electricity.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
As I read I was going to post about the spacebar shortcuts but I see that has been well-covered in the comments. It’s essential and I use it all the time.
One custom shortcut that I’ve built that I use all the time is Ctrl+Q for cropping to selection. Saves me a ton of time, but you have to remember to set it up on a new install of PS or it will… close the program. Urgh!
July 24th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
don’t forget the f-key
cycles through the different full-screen display modes. Useful for viewing your work without the canvas, as well as editing things near the edge of the canvas
July 24th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
very nice and useful! thank you!
July 24th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Those are common useful shortcuts, thanks. there is more i want to share:
as mention earlier, the spacebar + mouse drag. Another one is shift+tool shortcut. For example if i wan to do white to transparent gradient, i would hit D (default) color, then X, switch to white, the G and Shift G to get the gradient tool.
and ctrl+A to select all, Ctrl+click on layer thumb to get the layer transparency.
These are some shortcuts i used normally.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
one pretty simple shortcut not mentioned is the caps lock key for toggling the crosshairs and brush outline when using the paint brush. Real handy for making precise touch ups on the fly.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Great work Brian. I use Photoshop every day but I still found out a few new shortcuts. One of my favorite shortcuts is CTRL + T. This is used to scale and rotate a picture manually. It is quite useful when trying to put together more pictures or rotating them and it is much easier then guessing how much a 35 degree rotation will move your picture. :-)
I also use “G” for the bucket/ gradient tool and “L” for the Magnetic Lasso which is great for cutting stuff out from your pictures. :-)
July 24th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Don’t forget Ctrl + Shift + Alt + S to save for web :) Also Ctrl + D to deselect.
July 24th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Cool. Very helpful.
I usually use CTRL+T to resize images.
July 24th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Why doesn´t anyone use mouse scroll wheel for zooming? I think that´s much faster than any of those keyboard shortcuts..
July 24th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Couple of extra bits I use a lot,
I’ve defined ctl + alt + shift + c for the crop tool which speeds up slicing of comps for the web, ctrl + alt + shift + s is the Save for Web shortcut, and for quick zooming for a particular area (useful to go down to pixel level for precision cropping), then use space + ctrl and simply draw a selection on the canvas. The image will zoom in automagically.
Final tips are learn the selection shortcuts, holding space whilst drawing a selection allows you to move it, shift constrains the shape (i.e. a perfect square or circle). It also allows you to add to an existing selection. Alt lets you remove parts of a selection.
Nice post,
Andy
July 24th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Uhm. Selection can also be moved just by making it and then grabbing it with the same selection tool.. ;) (But yeah, that’ll come handy time to time when you have to make pixel perfect selections. Thanks. :)
My personal favorite shotcuts (not mentioning the most obvious ones):
M - Marquee
V - Move
A - Selection tools (for path editing)
T - Text
B - Brush
S - Stamp tool
Q - Quick mask
Z - Zoom tool
X - Swap foreground & background color
Spacebar - Pan
F - Toggle fullscreen
TAB - Toggle the panel visibilities
CTRL + 0 - Fit to screen
CTRL + ALT + 0 - Actual pixels (1:1)
CTRL + keypad +/- - Zoom in/out
CTRL + SHIFT + I - Invert selection
CTRL + D - Deselect
CTRL + H - Show/hide extras
CTRL + R - Toggle rulers
CTRL + T - Free transform
ALT + Backspace - Fill with foreground color
CTRL + Backspace - Fill with background color
CTRL + E - Merge down
CTRL + G - Group layers
CTRL + I (while layer mask selected) - Invert layer mask
Move tool + ALT - Copies selection/layer
0-9 while layer selected - Modifies the layer opacity (as with tools)
Personally I do slicing for web at ImageReady (CS2) which handles it smoother than PS.
Where as zooming, I found myself nowadays preferring the zoom tool which allows me to zoom directly to the part I want to concentrate and then zoom quickly out with CTRL+SHIFT+keypad 0 or CTRL+keypad 0.
I guess that’s it. Turned out to be quite long of a list but living without those shortcuts would be pain-in-the-backside for me. :)
-M
July 24th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
actually the most important shortcut is: Ctrl + S.
;p
July 24th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Nice tips, I learned a few. I’m a keyboard shortcut lover for sure.
One of my favorites is V to select the move tool, and then Ctrl+LeftClick to select a layer. This is an alternate option to the “automatically select layer” option for the move tool. This has to be done with the move tool though, even though most tools switch to it when holding Ctrl.
(well, not really my favorite per se, but about the only one I didn’t see mentioned in the article or comments, unless I missed it. =)
July 25th, 2007 at 12:19 am
To add to the selection shortcuts a couple posts up:
When initially drawing a selection, you can use alt to center the selection on your start point. i.e. when normally if you started in the center and dragged to the right edge, the selection would stretch from the center to the edge, with alt it will expand in the other directions as well. Very nice for centering your selections on objects such as eyes and whatnot. You can also move the selection while still drawing it by holding space (mentioned above).
July 25th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Very useful, thanks. One shortcut I’d love to have: when editing text, is there a keyboard shortcut to jump *out* of text-editing mode and back to the caret? I hate having to click on another tool just to leave text editing mode.
Ctrl-S (Save) will do this, but it can be slow when working with big images.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:33 am
and i guess finally
ctrl + f4 to shut down photoshop then
ctrl + f4, then S to put your computer into standby
=)
July 25th, 2007 at 8:27 am
When working with multiple layers, CTRL+ALT+LEFT CLICK on the graphic and you’re taken to that layer. Or, right click on the graphic with the move tool and you’ll get list of every layer under your cursor.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:31 am
oops…
I meant CTRL+ALT+RIGHT CLICKon the graphic and you’re taken to that layer.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Thank you, you 1.0 noob. I feel like “Maddoxing-out” on you right now but I don’t have the energy. Please learn faster you digital photography wonk noob. If people actually go to your school and think they’re competent, then they are bigger morons than you.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Tom, try keypad enter.
-M
July 25th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Btw, surprise surprise the certain poster above doesn’t have any kind of contact information mentioned (in this case, his website).. Oh well, guess that’s the basic first-time-drunk angry teenager strategy when they go barking around. Guess you can’t win every time.
-M
July 25th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
One of the most useful keyboard shortcuts (and one of the least known, in my experience) is Space Bar during a marquee selection. Don’t worry if you didn’t get the first pixel right, with space held you can move the STARTING POINT of your selection.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
First of all, great posts by everyone and a great article. Here are some additional shortcuts I use.
Ctrl + Alt + E merges all selected layers onto their own new merged layer without getting rid of your existing layers.
Andy, I’m not sure why you wanted to define [ctrl + alt + shift + c] as a crop tool shortcut since just pressing the letter ‘c’ is already the default shortcut for that tool.
Also, Jayhan, [ctrl + clicking the layer thumbnail] gives you a selection of all non transparent pixels in that layer, maybe that’s what you meant by ‘get to the layer transparency?’.
Like Sparky’s [ctrl + Q] command for cropping to selection, some time ago, I too created a custom shortcut for that same action: [ctrl + /] is mine. It’s nice to see someone else who needed a shortcut for that feature.
Another custom shortcut I created is for when you wish to straighten an image using the ruler tool. After you draw a line with the ruler tool, I press [ctrl + alt + shift + A] to bring up the ‘rotate canvas (arbitrary)’ dialogue box with the roation angle already calculated by photoshop. This makes straightening an image a snap.
I also often use:
[ctrl + s] to ’save’
[ctrl + shift + s] to ’save as’
[ctrl + shift + alt + s] to ’save for web’
My most frequent (by far) shortcuts are the tool shortcuts which have been mentioned already B,V,E,C,P,A…etc. Make sure that on your photoshop preferences (ctrl k to get to this dialogue box) you have ‘use shift key for tool switch’ DESELECTED to enable these shortcuts without having to also press the ctrl key. I also use my scroll wheel on my mouse to zoom rather than using the zoom tool. You also must enable this feature in the PS preferences dialogue.
Also holding down the spacebar while drawing a marquee selection allows you to move the marquee selection around the screen while you are still drawing it.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
As many said above, I think the space bar is definitely the most useful “shortcut”. I hate it when other design programs don’t have a feature like this.
July 26th, 2007 at 1:49 am
Mikko: you’re a genius! Many thanks.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Some of my favorites not mentioned are:
It was mentioned that [Ctrl + click] on a layer thumb selects the layer transparency, but when you already have a selection made, holding [ctrl + shift] adds that layer transparency selection to the current selection, [ctrl + alt] subtracts it, while [crtl + shift + alt] intersects it. It changes your cursor to reflect this. This can be very useful when making complex selections from multiple layers.
Also, while using the marquee tool, you can hold down [shift] to constrain your selection to a perfect square (or circle when in elliptical mode), along with the [alt] for changing your start point to the center. You can even hold them both down and [space] at the same time. Also, once you’ve made a selection, you can nudge it around using the arrow keys, just like layers.
When using the pen tool (which is the absolute best for making selections IMO - when you finally get the hang of it, it’s indispensable), holding down [alt] while clicking a point you just made converts that point to a hard edge (deletes the trailing handle). You can hold down [ctrl] to move points and handle points around, and add [alt] to that to break the handles. I highly recommend playing around with the pen tool. Once you’ve made a shape, you can make the shape a selection by holding [ctrl] and clicking on the layer thumb, just like any other layer. It makes nice and smooth anti-aliased selections.
[alt + ctrl + d] brings up the feather dialog when you have a selection.
Holding the [shift] key while moving almost anything (moving a layer or selection, moving a vector point with the pen tool, etc.) turns on a snap feature, which allows you to move something in one direction only.
I’m sure there’s more, but that’s all I can remember right now.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Also, one thing I forgot on the pen tool: change the fill on the shape layer so that you can see what you’re selecting.
July 28th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Great knowing these tips! When I make the frame for my pictures I really loose a lot of time… Someone told me a wile ago that I could record some commands and then replay the recorded process to an entire directory. But I forgot how to record and do this think. I would appreciate if someone could remind me.
July 28th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
I normally use ctrl+shift+alt+E to make a merged copy of all the layers I have selected. This command creates a new layer automatically, so there is no need to make a new one before applying the comand.
To exit the text-editing mode I use ctrl+enter, a very useful shortcut for laptop users.
On a side note, while editing text, keeping the ctrl key down will let you move the text while you’re typing. You can do it afterwards, it’s true, but I find it useful some times and wanted to share it.
Great post, it’s going to be one of my favorites.
May I translate it in Italian?
July 28th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
@ Lau
from the window menu, call up the Actions Panel. In this Panel there is a command to record all the activity you do on an image.
Search “how to make custom actions in Photoshop” you should find quite a good deal.
Cheers!
July 28th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Excellent list of shortcuts… There are more shortcuts at http://www.kbshortcuts.com/ for photoshop and other applications.
Thanks.
July 29th, 2007 at 4:43 am
instead of using the zoom tool, just use space + ctrl or space + alt to zoom in and out with the tool without actually switching to the zoom tool.
August 15th, 2007 at 6:10 am
This is a nice looking list..^^
Thanks a bunch for sharing!
August 15th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Wow, guys.
I knew almost all of these beforehand, but somehow I missed every single one of the spacebar-related shortcuts.
This is going to save me so much time.
Thanks!
August 15th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Oh, also.
Ctrl+J
If you have nothing selected, it duplicates the current layer. If you do have something selected, it copies the selection to a new layer and maintains the layer properties of the selection’s original layer (blending mode, etc.).
I use it all the time.
August 27th, 2007 at 1:00 am
A company called zCover (zcover.com) makes awesome Photoshop Shortcut keyboard covers… for Mac’s anyway (the only computer that matters…lol)
I had no idea of half of these commands before I got this cover… most of them are simple to remember as they are on the corresponding key of the first letter in the tool… ie .
C for Crop
Z for Zoom
E for Eraser
H for Hand tool
B for Brush tool
L for Lasso tool
S for clone Stamp
etc. etc. I would recommend this cover to anyone that uses PS a LOT, it is well worth the $49 CAD…
August 27th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
One of my favorite sites for keyboard shortcuts is keyxl.com.
http://www.keyxl.com
They must have hundreds of programs listed.
September 26th, 2007 at 2:50 am
i’m just begining all this stuff and well do you think you could give me some pointers
September 27th, 2007 at 5:49 am
Nice list but I would like to mention that because PS is used by so many Windows AND Mac users, writing things such as “Sorry Mac users” is just plain lazy and discourteous. Any book you find on PS will show both sets of shortcuts or at least explain if there are any differences (alt vs. option for example). As an experienced user in both environments, I don’t have much of a problem translating any keyboard shortcuts between the two platforms, but people who are solely Mac users might.
Normally when I see something like “Sorry Mac users” I just click away. There are plenty of other sites with better coverage for both platforms.
October 5th, 2007 at 5:49 am
hmm… I suppose you’ve got a point GG. My intent was just to avoid extra clutter by including both sets of commands for the entire list. I guess I had assumed that most users know the conversion between PC and MAC, but it would have been good of me to mention that Ctrl->Cmd and Alt->Opt. I’ll be sure to do at least that from now on when writing about any keyboard commands, thanks for bringing that up.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:28 am
Great list, I’ve picked up some good ones (if I can remember them when I need them!)– thanks everyone…
One I don’t think I’ve seen here is ‘Ctrl H’ to hide selection lines–good for previewing what things are going to look like before committing. Just don’t forget to turn it off, as your selection is still ’selected’! This also cycles through showing grids if you’ve already gone there. You can even use this when transforming, although it makes navigation a bit more difficult.
Oh, and holding down ‘Shift’ to constrain transformations to squares or circles…
Thanks again!
December 7th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Toby’s “[ctrl + clicking the layer thumbnail] gives you a selection of all non transparent pixels.” I usually hit Ctrl + a to select all and press Ctrl + –> (arrow) to Nudge non-transparent pixels. It also results with the mentioned selection, at least while ‘Move’ is current Tool.
Ctrl+drag is useful to move layers while other tool is active.
As I always have too many layers to scroll them on the sidebar, I do Merge this way: ‘Move’ is active, Autoselect Layers is checked at the toolbar, hold down the Ctrl and click the actual layers around the picture. Unmerge works the same way, holding down Ctrl and clicking the layer to unmerge.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Thanks for this info, now I can send my son off to school. He is my expert and info person!
March 29th, 2008 at 4:35 am
You can utilize all of the F keys by setting your own shortcuts via Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. You can set keys F1 to F15 to whatever functions you want. I am a big fan of shortcuts and these are very handy for functions I use for almost every session.