Hints and Tips for PHOTOSHOP

This page provides hints and tips for the use of Photoshop software.

They are not in any particular order. New tips will be added to the end of the list in each sub-section.

The success of this service will depend upon the willingness of club members to contribute their ideas.

If you have a hint or tip that you would like to share please email it to the webmaster.

Photoshop CS3 and CS4 come in two versions, the "standard" version and the "extended" version. You generally don't need the extended (and more expensive) version unless you want to do image editing for video or on 3D objects.

Don'r forget to check out the "academic" and "student" versions of Photoshop if you are a teacher or student - if you are elligible, the cost is much less than the "normal" version but the programme is identical.

The Brightness and Contrast sliders in CS3 look the same as they did in earlier versions of Photoshop but they work differently "behind the scenes". They now work in a similar way to the Brightness and Contrast controls in Camera RAW and are far less destructive.

To quickly change the size of the currently selected brush, just press the Left Bracket key to decrease the size or the Right Bracket key to increase the size. The Bracket keys are he square ones that look like [ and ].

To return your brush colours to their default values of black and white - just press D on the keyboard. To swap the foreground and background colours just press X. This is very handy when you are painting on layer masks. You can also swap the foreground/background colours by clicking on the double-headed arrow near the small squares that indicate the foreground/background colours (at the bottom of the tools palette).

If you are using a BRUSH and it appears as a cross-hair instead of a circle, check that you do not have the CAPS LOCK on.

If that does not work, check that you have not selected a really large brush size (so that the "brush circle" is bigger than the display area).

When you upgrade from one version of Photoshop to a newer version, your CUSTOMISATIONS (non-Adobe plug-ins, actions, workspaces and preferences) are not automatically transferred. So keep a backup of your old version of Photoshop until you have manually transferred your custom files to the new version.

When you have an image open, pressing the "F" key repeatedly will cycle through a series of SCREEN LAYOUTS with different backgrounds.

Whatever screen view you have, pressing the Tab key will hide all the toolbars and palettes. Pressing Tab again brings them back.

If you have a SCROLL WHEEL on your mouse, check your mouse preferences - you can probably set it so that you can pan vertically, pan horizontally and zoom in and out by holding down different keys as you rotate the scroll wheel.

Top of page

If you have a dialogue box open and press the Cancel button it will close the box. If you hold down the Alt key, the Cancel button changes to a Reset button - clicking on it will reset all the adjustments in the dialogue box to their default values without closing the dialogue box.

When you first open an image in Photoshop it appears as the Background layer in the layers palette and it is "locked" (note the small padlock symbol to the right of the layer name). To unlock it, double click on the word "Background" (the name of the layer). A dialogue box will open and you can give the background layer a new name, or just press the Enter/Return key to accept the default new name of "Layer 0".

The reason for unlocking the background layer is that Photoshop will not allow certain operations on locked layers. See the next tip for an example.

When you use the Crop tool there are two Cropping Area options in the options bar (top of the screen just below the menu headings). One option is Delete, the other is Hide. You have to make your cropping selection before these options will appear. If you select the Hide option there are two things you can do after hitting Enter (to accept the crop) that you cannot do if you select the Delete option. The first is that you can reposition the crop area by using the Move tool. The second is that you can restore the original (non-cropped) image by choosing Image>Reveal All from the menu. You cannot use the Hide option if the Background layer of the image is locked.

If you want to copy the pixels inside a selection, but the selected pixels are on several different layers, you do not have to flatten the document. Just make the selection and then choose Edit>Copy Merged. The selected area will be merged and copied to the clipboard but all the original layers will stay intact.

If you forget (or have not yet learned) how to do something in Photoshop try using the Help function by selecting Help from the main menu at the top of the screen. If that does not solve your problem, use Google to search for a tutorial on the topic.

Top of page

Snapshots are a good way of keeping track of the progress you are making when you are doing complicated image editing. In the History palette, open the actions window by clicking on the symbol in the top right-hand corner, then select History Options to set up the way you want the snapshots to operate. For example "Automatically create new snapshot when saving". Don't forget - all snapshots (and all other entries in the History) are deleted when you close the image.

Unless you select the Allow Non-linear History option, selecting a snapshot and changing the image will delete all the states in the current History palette.

Photoshop has a View>Print Size option that allows you to display images at approximately the size they will print. For this to be reasonably accurate you must set your screen resoluton to the correct value. You will find instructions on how to do this near the end of this tutorial.

You can control the Opacity slider in the layers palette with the arrow keys on your keyboard (which is sometimes easier than doing it with the mouse). Click on the arrow next to the Opacity field and then use either the left/right or up/down arrow keys to change the Opacity percentage 1% at a time. If you hold down the shift key then the Opactiy will change 10% each time you press one of the arrow keys.

This technique works in most situatons where you have the option of typing numbers to change a setting (for example, changing the brightness with the Brightness/Contrast dialogue.

After you draw a selection marquee you can reposition it by placing the selection tool arrow inside the selection and then clicking and dragging.

When you do this you will sometimes discover that the selection is not quite what you wanted - and you will probably deselect it and start again.

If you decide the selectoin is in the wrong place BEFORE you complete the selection, just hold down the space bar and reposition the selection. then release the space bar and finish making the selection. (You do all of this without releasing the mouse button.)

The same technique can be used when you are making a selection with the Crop tool and when you are drawing shapes with the shape tool.

Normally when you creat a new layer, either from the menu or by clicking on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette, the new layer is created ABOVE the currently selected layer.

Sometime you will want the new layer to be created BELOW the currently selected layer. To do this, hold down the Control key (Command key on a Mac) and then click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

Top of page

If you have a large number of layers in an image file it is sometimes useful to colour code some of the layers to make it easy to find them. For example, you might colour code an important adjustment layer so that you can easily come back to it later.

To add a colour code to the eye icon next to the layer name just right-click on the eye icon and select a colour from the pop-up menu.

When using the Crop tool:

Make a selection.

Move the cursor outside the selection and the cursor will change to a double-headed curved arrow.

Click and move to rotate the selection.

If necessary, adjust the size of the selection by clicking and dragging on the corners or on the markers that appear along the centre of each side of the selection area.

When you are satisfied with the selection/rotation either double-click inside the selection or press Return.

If you are trying to save a file as a JPEG using File>Save As but JPEG s not one of the option available in the "format" pop-up menu you are probably trying to save a 16-bit image. Since there is no such thing as a 16-bit JPEG file, the JPEG option is not available. To solve the problem, change the image to an 8-bit file using the Image>Mode menu. You will then be able to save it as a JPEG.

Sometimes when you adjust the contrast of an image with Levels or Curves you will introduce a slight colour shift. To remove it, just change the blend mode of the adjustment layer to Luminosity.

Sometimes when you are painting on a layer mask it is difficult to see exactly where the mask is - particularly if the effect of the adjustment is a subtle one. If you press the backslash key ("\") the mask will appear as a red transparant overlay on the image. You can toggle the mask overlay on/off by repeated pressing of the \ key.

Thanks to Andrew Stynan for reminding us of this tip.

All images on this site and all documents and tutorials linked to this site are copyright.

This page last updated 1st December 2008 (RK)