Photoshop is a great program and using the available shortcuts will speed up your workflow. Here are some tips and shortcuts to change the way you work in Photoshop:

Print a Summary of all the Photoshop Shortcuts

To print off a summary of all the Photoshop shortcuts open up Photoshop and go to edit in the top menu. Click on the button Summarize. When you do this you will be asked for a file name and you can save the file wherever it is convenient for you. Now you will have a file that you can refer to or learn from.


Undo Tool

Ctrl/Cmd +z is the shortcut that is used when you want to undo one history step in Photoshop but you might not know that adding Alt/Option into the mix, lets you undo more than one. So the next time you want to go back in history states use Cmd/Ctrl + Alt/option + Z.


Cycling Through Layer Blend Modes

Cycling through blend modes can be quite tedious when you are clicking on each one individually. Use the shortcut Shift + or – to go from one to the other quickly.


Changing the Foreground and Background Colors

If you are doing some dodging and burning, or anything where you are often switching between black and white in the left tool panel, then clicking on ‘x’, rather than having to click on the little arrow in the tool panel will save you a lot of time.


Changing the Foreground and Background Colors back to black and white

If you have some colours selected and need to go back to the default colours of black and white then using the shortcut ‘D’ will change the colours back to the default.


Free transform tool

Cmd/Ctrl+T will access the free transform tool.


Increase and decrease Brush Size

]/[ will Increase/decrease brush size.


Increase and decrease Brush hardness

}/{ will Increase/decrease brush hardness


Bring Up the Fill Dialog Box

Pressing shift + backspace will bring up the fill dialog box.


View one layer On Its Own

When working with multiple layers you’ll often want to view one layer on its own. To do this hold down Alt and click the eye icon of the layer you want isolate to make every other layer invisible. Hold down Alt and click again to reveal all the other layers once more.


Changing Opacity of a layer

As long as you are not using a painting tool such as the brush, you can easily change a layer’s opacity just by pressing a number key. If you press 3 you will get opacity of 30%. If you want to get back to 100% then just press ’0’.


Adding Or Subtracting From A Selection

If you are using a selection tool, to add to an existing selection hold Shift and if you want to subtract from a selection hold alt.


Tilting Your Canvas

There are many times when tilting your canvas will help you and to do this all you have to do is press ‘R’ and then use your mouse to drag your canvas. When you let go of ‘R’ you will be able to use the tool that you were on before. To flip your canvas back to its original position hold down ’R’ and then click on reset view in the top panel.


Drawing a Straight Line With the Brush Tool

To draw a straight line with the brush tool all you have to do is to click on your document with the brush tool and then press shift and click to finish the line.


Enjoy your creativity!