We all have them, these tricks and tips hidden away in our brain or an ace, card, or trick up our sleeve, ready to squeeze out a few seconds in our productive workday. Aren’t there more than 10 Photoshop tips? Oh, yeah-tons more! I guess I have to save that for another post! Let’s get started and begin the madness!
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Changing Measurements
Are you working in inches but you need to change to pixels? You could go to the Preferences dialogue box and change it there. Or you can open the ruler function hold Command R (PC: Ctrl-R) to see your rulers in Photoshop. In the rulers, either Right-click your mouse to see the drop-down measurements, and pick the one you want. Or double-click on the ruler, and it will open the Preferences and here you could also change your sizes to pixels too!
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Instant Feather
When using any of the Lasso tools, if you wish to set a feather instantly, just hit the Return key and the Feather field in the options palette will highlight, and you can enter or change the value.
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Hide Your Palettes
To see more of your design, clear all the palettes, including the Tool palette, press Tab. Hit Tab again to re-appear.
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Except for the Tool Palette
To clear all the palettes except the Tool palette, hold Shift and then press Tab.
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Show them all, hide them all
If you have a multi-layer document, don’t forget that if you click on a layer’s eyeball icon while holding the Option (PC: Alt) key, you can make all the other layers invisible and select the layer you want at the same time.
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Choose your Layers Visually
To select a layer automatically, make sure the Move tool is already selected, and hold down Control-click on the art element, and a pop-up box will open highlighting the segment that you just clicked on. On a PC, Control-click on the art element, and in the layers palette, the layer will highlight for you.
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Name Your Layers as You Go
To open the New Layer Dialog box and name the layer as you create it. Use Command-Shift N (PC: Control-Shift N). To skip the Dialog box, use Command-Option-Shift N (PC: Command-Option-Shift N).
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Brush Tool Shortcuts
Often, when using the retouching tools (like the spot healing tool), you may need to change the size or type of brush you are using. Use the right square bracket ] key to move the brush size up bigger, use the left bracket [ to move the brush size smaller.
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Large Brushes with Smoother Edges
Most of the time, large brushes produce rough or jagged edges. To prevent, double click on a brush and lower its spacing setting to 1%.
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Resetting Your Dialog Box
To cancel any of the changes, you have made in any dialogue box without actually exiting the dialogue box and reentering it, by merely holding the Option (PC: Alt) key to change the Cancel button into a Reset button.