Photoshop Instructions » Shortcuts

How to move layers without touching them

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:16:05 +0000

Okay, the title is slightly misleading ..

You can not move layers without touching them, but you can move them from the layers palette without clicking on them using the following keyboard shortcuts:

To move a layer down to the layers palette, press: Command-left bracket (PC: Ctrl-left bracket)
To move a layer to the palette of layers, press: Command-right bracket (PC: Ctrl-right bracket)

Now, if you want to move a layer within the image without using your mouse, select the Move tool and use the arrow keys on your keyboard.

Shortcuts for Zoom

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:15:52 +0000

To go directly to view 100% of your image, then double click the Zool tool.

To adjust the image directly to the screen size, double-click the Hand tool.

Other useful Shortcuts for zooming:

[Ctrl + =] - zoom in
[Ctrl + -] - zoom out
[Ctrl + 0] - fit to window

Select the outline of your text

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:15:37 +0000

There are two ways for selecting the outline of your text. The first is to use ctrl-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the layer palette to Type Layers. The second way is to go to Select menu and select Load. When the dialog box opens, click OK and create a selection around your text.

Formatting symbols in Photoshop

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:15:24 +0000

To adjust the distance between the character of the baseline (as must be done on commercial symbols), highlight the character you want to format and press Shift-Option-up arrow (PC: Shift-Alt-up arrow) to move the character above the baseline. Use the same shortcut, but the down arrow key to move the text below the baseline (for cases such as H2O, etc).

Display the dialog box for last filter used

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:13:44 +0000

If you apply a filter and want to apply it again with different parameters, there is a keyboard shortcut to do just that. You can display a dialog box containing the last filter you ran with the settings used by pressing Option-Command-F (PC: Alt-Control-F). If you want to re-apply the last filter you used with exactly the same settings, simply press Command-F (PC: Ctrl-F).

Move the pallet out of the way

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:12:05 +0000

If pallets are invading your workspace, there is a quick way to embed them to the edges of the screen. Simply press and hold the Shift key and double-click the title bar of the palette you want. This will make the pallet stick immediately to the nearest edge of the screen, leaving blank space in the center. Enjoy your space!

Switching between different Preferences windows

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:11:22 +0000

This is a not-so-known shortcut that will save you a lot of time. When you open one of the frameworks of Preference Photoshop (General Preferences, Plug-ins & Scratch Disks, Units & Rulers, etc.), simply press Command-N (PC: Ctrl-N) and you’ll receive the next set of preferences in the current context dialogue. To go back to previous set of preferences, just press Command-P (PC: Ctrl-P). Quite handy!

Set the tracking to 0

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:11:07 +0000

The Tracking tool (the palette Character) defines the interval between your letters. A negative value brings them closer, while a positive moves them apart. If you work a lot with text you will be changing this value constantly, so it will be useful to have a quick way to reset it to zero on your selected text.

This is done simply by pressing Shift-Command-Q (PC: Shift-Control-Q). Just be careful so that your text is selected (which is odd, since you can increase or decrease the value of tracking only on the selected layer, but the shortcut is not working if the selection is text).

Design lines

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:08:28 +0000

If you have a problem designing lines with the tools provides by Photoshop, here is a small trick to help you. Instead of dragging the tool, simply click once to the point where you want to start and then move to where you want to finish the line, press and hold Shift, click and Photoshop will automatically draw a straight line between two points. Easy.

Reset to default settings in Photoshop

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:08:04 +0000

Would you like to restore Photoshop to its original settings that were immediately after installation? You can do this easily by holding down the keys Shift-Option-Control (PC: Shift-Alt-Control) and open Photoshop. You’ll see a dialog box will prompt you to restore the default settings of Photoshop. Now everything is restored and you can start customizing it again!