48+ Greatest Adobe Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

 Posted in Web Design 1357 days ago • Written by: Dainis Graveris
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keyboard design tips design As I am big Photoshop fan, I really love their keyboard shortcuts – it really helps to build up working speed using them in Your workflow. Keyboard shortcuts are keystrokes or keystroke combinations to quickly execute some command.  If You like using Photoshop as designer, You will evaluate those keyboard shortcuts strength. However there are really huge amount of keyboard shortcuts in  Photoshop, there is no way You can remember them all – and that’s really not worth it so I created my own list and included there not all, but just those worthy ones and little more.

preview greatest photoshop keyboard shortcuts design tips design

And one more fun thing – imagine You go to new design agency – You can really retain great impression as great Photoshop master, if You use those shortcuts often enough in Your workflow. I just saw my boss face when he was watching how I work – I can say – feeling was really good! :)

Notes

I will be using ‘+’ - to define two or more keyboard combinations for example – CTRL + ALT + TAB etc.

I wrote this article using Windows, so if Your are using Macintosh – CONTROL = COMMAND command and ALT = OPTION

Global keyboard shortcuts

1.You can check all Your preferences pressing CTRL + K and learn more.

2. Press TAB – to show/hide tool panels;

3. Press SHIFT + TAB to show/hide only Your palette;

4. Press F repeatedly to cycle screen modes;

5. Press CTRL + TAB to switch to Your next document;

6. Press CTRL + SHIFT + TAB to switch to Your previous document;

7. Press CTRL + T to enter free transform mode;

free-transform

Tip: You can scale proportionally from center Your transform by pressing and holding ALT + SHIFT, when You are dragging.

8. Press ALT + DELETE to fill the layer with foreground color or SHIFT + DELETE to fill with background color;

Tip: You can use ALT + BACKSPACE or SHIFT + BACKSPACE to fill non-transparent pixels.

9. Press X to switch foreground/background color;

10. Press D to reset foreground/background color to black/white;

background-foreground-color

Tip: You can use ALT + DELETE shortcut to fill just current selection.

11. If You work in high zoom pressing and holding SPACEBAR comes very handy by giving You hand tool to move small distance.

Also You can use it greatly with the marquee tool (or rectangle, shape tool etc.) – just start dragging on the document,  and press  SPACEBAR while holding Your mouse and move it to desired place, resize as You want it and repeat circle until You are pleased;

rectangle-marque-tool

12. When You are working, there are lot of experimenting going on, so very handy becomes undo/redo shortcuts :

Press  CTRL + Z to undo/redo previous activity;

Press CTRL + ALT + Z to undo multiple times;

13. While working with big files, it is very important to save often (every 5-10 min) – press CTRL + S to save Your document;

14. I always use this one – press CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + S to bring up ‘save for web & devices ‘ dialog;

15. If You often use filters remember this keyboard shortcut, to repeat previous accomplished filter  : CTRL + F

filter

16. To draw precise, symmetrical  circle or square or straight line press and hold SHIFT, while drawing it.

precise

17. To temporarily switch to move tool while using another press CTRL + CLICK + hold you mouse

18. Open FILL dialogue by pressing SHIFT + BACKSPACE

fill

19. You can test Your fonts easily by selecting Your text, then selecting “set font family” form and just pressing UP or DOWN buttons.

testfonts

20. A always hated that I just can’t simply apply my text by pressing ENTER button..that was until I heard about some great keyboard shortcut!

So how to approve and escape text editing mode? – easy. Just press Your numeric ENTER or CTRL + ENTER

21. Increase/decrease brush size pressing  [ or ] – (left bracket or right bracket)

Toolbar

22. Use Your toolbar shortcuts to switch between tools faster!

Memorize shortcuts of tools You use the most.

tools-menu

You can easily see keyboard shortcut by mouseover on certain tool :

tools-menu-description

Use Your Zoom zoom-tool tool wisely!

23. Double click on zoom tool to zoom Your document 100% size;

Tip: You can press CTRL + ALT + 0 to get actual pixels too (100 % size)!

24. Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom in/zoom out Your document:

Zoom in – CTRL + +

Zoom out – CTRL + -

zoom-keyboard

or

use Your mouse scroll wheel to zoom in/zoom out -  ALT + SCROLL WHEEL UP/ALT + SCROLL WHEEL DOWN

25.  To temporarily switch to zoom zoom-tool tool, while using another press:

Quick zoom in: CTRL + SPACE + CLICK

Quick zoom out: ALT + SPACE + CLICK

26. Use keyboard shortcuts CTRL + 0 to set Your image fit to window;

27. Press CTRL + W to close just Your current open document;

Palette

Note : check out  Your palette keyboard shortcuts pressing ALT + W

28. Layers menu

Note: press F7 to show/hide Your layers menu.

29. Press CTRL + SHIFT + N to create new layer with dialog box;

30. Press CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + N to create new layer without opening dialog box;

31. Press CTRL + ALT + J to duplicate active layer with dialog box;

32. Press CTRL + J to duplicate active layer without opening dialog box ;

33. How to navigate between layers:

Mouse click on active layer and press SHIFT to select several layers:

shift-layer

Press and hold CONTROL to select or deselect definite layers;

34.Press CTRL+G to group selected layers in one group:

Tip: use CTRL + SHIFT + G to ungroup layers

ctrl-g-layer

35. Collapse or expand all groups in Your layers palette by pressing CTRL + CLICK on the group’s triangle:

ctrl-click

ctrl-click-image

36. Show/ hide Your layers by and holding Your  mouse and dragging it up/down. Repeat to do inverse action:

visibility

37. To mask layers, do this trick – hold ALT + MOUSEOVER on the line between layers:

mask

38. Click and drag background layer to make duplicate. I suggest to use this action starting every new file:

background-copy

39. Press ALT + CLICK on eye icon – to show/hide all layers, except active one:

show-hide-all

40. Press CAPSLOCK to show cursor precise/standard mode;

41. Press CTRL + CLICK on layer layer to make selection:

control-click-selection

42. Press CTRL + I to inverse current selection;

43. Press CTRL + D to deselect current selection;

44. You maybe knew about deselect shortcut, but did You know how to reselect previous selection? Just press  CTRL + SHIFT + D !

45. Press CTRL + E to merge selected layers or press CTRL + SHIFT + E to merge all visible layers into one;

46. If You ever wanted to make  Your text longer or little bit shorter with tracking, You can do it easy with keyboard shortcuts – so first select Your text and then press CTRL + ALT + > or CTRL + ALT + < to set wider or thinner indent.

47. You can easily change Your layer or brush opacity opacity by just pressing number keys – 1 = 10%, 2 = 20%, 3 = 30% etc.

48. And lastly I want to provide You with great *.pdf file I found out there.

It is 4 page PDF document with ALL possible ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS3 shortcuts ! It’s great isn’t it? You can check out the list and maybe You’ll find some more great shortcuts You didn’t know about! Good luck shortcutting!

Oh, well and here is the link :

adobe-photoshop-keyboard

 Did you enjoy this article and found it useful?

Dainis Graveris is 21 years old blogger and designer with really strong passion. He usually hangs out in Twitter tweeting design related links regularly. If You use Digg actively he can be great friend there and don't forget add to StumbleUpon too! How about Deviantart? Meet him there as well! If You have any questions feel free to write and add him to Gtalk - it is beautiful way to get contacted directly!
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 62 Brilliant Comments - Join Discussion Now!

  • nipun jain

    Posted 1306 days ago
    25

    I’m Alreay known every shortcut so not helpfull for me but thanks ur helping others…..

  • xiro

    Posted 1312 days ago
    24

    hey what site can I visit to teach me the very basic of photoshop just a newbie here hehehe.

  • gunasekhar

    Posted 1335 days ago
    23

    48+ greatest adobe shortcuts, they are very useful for the photoshop students-thanks

  • DarkTiger

    Posted 1339 days ago
    22

    Thank You very very much! It helped me a lot.

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1341 days ago
    21

    Merlin I am glad You are appreciating my work :) Thanks!

    Nitin You’re welcome!

  • Nitin

    Posted 1351 days ago
    20

    Thanks

  • Merlin

    Posted 1351 days ago
    19

    U have done a great job :-)
    Thank you very much. Continue this work

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1352 days ago
    18

    gunasekhar thanks :)

  • gunasekhar

    Posted 1352 days ago
    17

    very useful & excellent

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1353 days ago
    16

    Thanks, Eric! Nice to hear that! Yeah, zoom and hand tool always is handy in use :)

  • Eric

    Posted 1354 days ago
    15

    Great tutorial! I mainly wanted to know about the different zoom ones so that helps me out a lot!

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1354 days ago
    14

    @kevin yes it really does – every designer must know those ones.

    @John thanks! Hope You learned something new too!

  • Tutorials Room

    Posted 1354 days ago
    13

    Good Tutorial! It was chosen for the main page of http://www.tutorialsroom.com. Keep on the good work :)

  • John

    Posted 1354 days ago
    12

    Cheers mate, very help full.
    Great job! *thumbs up*

  • kevin

    Posted 1355 days ago
    11

    Thanks for sharing! It saves my lots of time.

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1355 days ago
    10

    Yeah, that’s right, those keyboard shortcuts are just must know ones. Thanks for response!

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1355 days ago
    9

    Stacy – oh, thanks I`ll fix that one shortcut.

    That’s right, designer always need to search for the ways to do same process better and faster.

    And thanks for pointing, You might be right – I am always logged in, so didn’t really caught that one.

  • Stacy

    Posted 1355 days ago
    8

    you put z to swap foreground/background colors

    z selects the zoom tool.

    x swaps foreground/background.

    good list. i dont know how any serious designer can get along without using the shortcuts.

    (from a design/usability perspective i also find it curious that you put field names beneath the fields on this form :\ )

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1356 days ago
    7

    @Michelle thank Your, for good words!

    @Lester I know many of those shortcuts are very similar to Illustrator – but I`ll look out for them soon enough! :) thanks :)

  • Lester Hein

    Posted 1356 days ago
    6

    Love it! thanks for th info – very useful. Let me know if you ever do one for Illustrator ;)

  • Michelle

    Posted 1356 days ago
    5

    An excellent list of Photoshop shortcuts, thank you very much Danis!

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1356 days ago
    4

    Thanks, naldz! Yeah, there was some digging :)

    I love Your site too, good luck!

  • NaldzGraphics

    Posted 1356 days ago
    3

    great tips Dainis. I know some of them but others are new to me.nice blog too.another site to subscribe:)thanks a lot and keep it up

  • Dainis Graveris

    Posted 1357 days ago
    2

    Hey, thank You mate once again :) Took some digging yeah :)

  • ZerroQ

    Posted 1357 days ago
    1

    Holly Molly, guess it’s not only the greatest shortcuts, but shortcut list aswell ;)

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