Your photoshop tips please!

[zespri]

Not looking for long lists or tutorials here. But would love it if you could post 2-3 of your favourite SHORT tips for using photoshop.

For example:

ctrl+shift+z: Using ctrl+z will toggle between undoing and redoing your last action. If you hold down the shift key as well, you can keep stepping back through history as many steps as your history will allow.

Tone down hot-spots: Select your hot-spots by using 'Select | Colour | hightlights'. Now feather a little bit, then use brightness/contrast to tone them down a bit, or levels if you prefer.

Quick mask toggle: While you are in quick mask mode, you can change from erase to paint mode by hitting the 'X' key on your keyboard (as long as you have the default colours of black & white set). It doesnt' matter whether you are using the eraser or the brush, as all 'X' is doing is changing from black to white.

[Japaslavian]

Dodge highlights/Burn Shadows: On very low opacities, these can really help make beautiful contrast with precision. It can also help accentuate lighting on certain subjects. Especially in black and white photos.

Measure Tool for straight horizons: Behind the eyedropper tool there is a ruler called the measure tool. Say your horizon is a little tilted. Take the measure tool and click on the horizon on the left, and then click on the right. Make sure the line goes across the tilted horizon as accurately as possible. Then go to Rotate Canvas>Arbitrary, and there will be a number there for you already that will make the line you made with the measure tool perfectly straight.

[DavidWayne]

oh wow...this is a wonderful idea for a post!!! the best thing I did for myself was to go out and by a "Pen Pad" it makes it so much easier to use photoshop, rather than using a mouse.

[OsmosisStudios]

Straightening horizons: Another trick is to just use a guide line and placing it near the horizon, then adjusting it using the rotate function.

Selective Colour: use the pen tool to cut the shapes you want to colour/uncolour.

Spacebar: When zoomed in (once the canvas is larger than your window), holding the space bar brings up the scroll tool, which allows you click and drag around the canvas.

Im sure there are more that I use without thinking. I wish I were more conscious about it.

[candleman]

when rotating an object you have pasted in.. (eg text or anything)
it can be hard to get it to flip 90 degrees and stay perfectly vertical.

holding down shift when rotating forces it to 90 degrees

[kencaleno]

Originally Posted by zespri

Not looking for long lists or tutorials here. But would love it if you could post 2-3 of your favourite SHORT tips for using photoshop.

For example:

ctrl+shift+z: Using ctrl+z will toggle between undoing and redoing your last action. If you hold down the shift key as well, you can keep stepping back through history as many steps as your history will allow.

Tone down hot-spots: Select your hot-spots by using 'Select | Colour | hightlights'. Now feather a little bit, then use brightness/contrast to tone them down a bit, or levels if you prefer.

Quick mask toggle: While you are in quick mask mode, you can change from erase to paint mode by hitting the 'X' key on your keyboard (as long as you have the default colours of black & white set). It doesnt' matter whether you are using the eraser or the brush, as all 'X' is doing is changing from black to white.

Using "brightness/contrast", is a sure way to ruin your images-use levels and curves.

[zespri]

I stand by my tip. Brightness/contrast is certainly appropriate for some pictures, other tweaks are better with levels/curves - which is why my tip included both.

I think I recall seeing a post by you with lots of photoshop tips at some stage which I remember thinking was great, do you have a couple of favourites to add to this thread?

Originally Posted by kencaleno

Using "brightness/contrast", is a sure way to ruin your images-use levels and curves.

[Japaslavian]

Originally Posted by kencaleno

Using "brightness/contrast", is a sure way to ruin your images-use levels and curves.

I'm going to have to agree with this unless you are using CS3. Adobe did a lot of work to make the Brightness/contrast function work in a much less dramatic manner. CS2 or before... forget about it.
I personally don't use brightness/contrast, but I do think it serves its purpose much better than it did.

[zespri]

ah.... I've noticed my brightness adjustments look a lot better in CS3, they sometimes looked washed out in CS2. I thought it was because I have started working in raw, whereas when I was using CS2 I only worked in jpeg. I thought it was another raw file miracle Thanks for elaborating on it.

Originally Posted by Japaslavian

I'm going to have to agree with this unless you are using CS3. Adobe did a lot of work to make the Brightness/contrast function work in a much less dramatic manner. CS2 or before... forget about it.
I personally don't use brightness/contrast, but I do think it serves its purpose much better than it did.

[Jae]

Oh so many tips and things to remember in photoshop!

To merge all visible layers onto a new layer - Ctrl, Shift, Alt, E
I use this a lot to merge my finished product through either a sharpen or blur filter etc.

To toggle between one layer and all other layers, hold the alt key down and click on the eye of the layer you want to see. Click again to see that layer with all other previously visible layers.