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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.
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
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;

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;

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;

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

17. To temporarily switch to move tool while using another press CTRL + CLICK + hold you mouse
18. Open FILL dialogue by pressing SHIFT + BACKSPACE

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

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.

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

Use Your Zoom
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 + -

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
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:

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

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


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

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

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

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

40. Press CAPSLOCK to show cursor precise/standard mode;
41. Press CTRL + CLICK on layer
to make 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
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 :
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Dainis Graveris is 23 years old blogger and designer, founder of 1stWebDesigner, now more silently managing everything behind the scenes. He usually hangs out in Twitter tweeting design related links and chatting with people. If you have any questions or feedback that's the best place to start! Cheers!
Friday, August 12th, 2011 08:51
Hi,
How to reduce tummy without loosing body weight?
I just wanted to reduce my tummy only without effecting on body weight.
Thanks
Thursday, July 7th, 2011 06:41
I link this tutorial, im used learning photoshop on tutplus.com, but i see this tutorial is easier to do
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 13:59
Like other bloggers have said… this post has taught me a few new shortcuts when working for clients. thanks!
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011 23:20
Nice! It’s so onerous to seek good quality data on the web at this time from educated sources, it is all wannabe’s and reused content material with just a few exceptions. I hope you keep up the nice work and I seemingly be back to learn extra of your posts sooner or later!
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 16:45
I guess everyone uses these shortcut in daily use of photoshop. what about filter shortcut or in depth shortcut.
Friday, April 9th, 2010 11:07
Ah!! This one has all the shortcuts that i use everyday, anyway…
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 13:35
Thanx for posting. I love shortcuts to! :)
Friday, March 12th, 2010 20:26
Useful article, but also useful PS CS3 shortcuts PDF file.
Sunday, October 11th, 2009 00:29
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Keyboard shortcuts save me so much time. Seriously, they may cut out 30 minutes of work per day! Thank you.
Thursday, May 14th, 2009 18:06
It’s funny, my husband is a web designer, but doesn’t really use Photoshop a whole lot (that’s where I usually come in).
I’ve gotten so used to using a lot of keyboard shortcuts over the years, that it’s become second nature for me to use them instead of clicking on menus and such. So when my husband is using Photoshop, he’ll ask me how to do certain things, or how to get a tool to show up, out of habit, I’ll tell him the keyboard shortcut. lol
Monday, May 11th, 2009 19:13
Excellent, I love showing off with cool shortcuts :)
Monday, April 13th, 2009 03:28
Hey, just thought you might want to know that #31 was exactly what I was looking for; more interesting than that is you came up #1 on Google for “adobe photoshop cs4 duplicate layer keystroke”. I am setting up my wacom tablet and I smiled when I saw your site. =)
Just thought you might like to know that. =D
Thanks! Frank
P.S. I hit Reset by accident [fail moment](instead of submit) but Control+Z Saved the day for all the fields. +1 brownie points there! LOL
Frank Stallones last blog post : MacHeist 3
Friday, April 3rd, 2009 12:16
Hey man.
Here is the 49!:
control+shift+i to reverse the selection (useful to remove those tiny trasparent pixel).
And THANKS!!!! I´ll put in practice more than 15 i did´n knew.
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 11:07
command + ] = mover layer up
command + [ = mover layer down
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 20:00
I love shortcuts, I especially like showing them off to work buddies! Thanks for the list and link to the pdf.
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 04:34
Great cheat sheet. Thank you.
Monday, February 16th, 2009 06:05
thanks for sharing,it’s very useful!
joyaspxs last blog post : 高版本Windows系统如何安装A卡(启用photoshop cs4的硬件加速)
Monday, January 26th, 2009 15:12
Аctually I’m that web designer :) And i have to say that your posts are abs unique. I’m very glad that Уеб Дизайн България liked the blog :) Keep the good work man,
Greetings from Bulgaria
Monday, January 26th, 2009 19:26
Now prepare yourself for a little bulgarian traffic and visitors (all of them are freelancers, designers and bloggers)
:)
http://www.predpriemach.com/showthread.php?t=7502
“predpriemach” means something like “contractor”
Monday, January 26th, 2009 15:28
Hi again, Dainis Graveris!
I`m glad to see your response.
It`s really surprising and shocking knowing You run this website alone. Do Your visitors know it :)
A friend of mine and colleague Veselin Todorov gave me Your site URL 2 days ago. I don`t remember where and how he`s got it, but it does not matter.
I plan starting a blog about great web design resources.
May I write articles and recommend and link to Your site http://www.1stwebdesigner.com ?
“but statistics show ~1,000 uniques for 2 months”
I can`t believe this!
But if it`s true, things will change, you`ll see!
First of all, the domain name is great and cool!
The resources You have published are unique. If you know another web blog like yours, show it :)
I checked just now:
Domain Name: 1STWEBDESIGNER.COM
Created on: 30-Aug-08
The web site seems to be quite a new. That`s why You don`t have thousands visitors every day. In international google search (on english) I think it`s really tough to rank fast and make numbers of visitors. We will discuss this topic again in six months :))
And then the stats will be very different.
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/about-us/
:)
Nice and young!
“I am designer from Latvia”
Now I understood how you have found out that Уеб Дизайн България translates Web Design Bulgaria :)
BTW my name is Anton.
See you around
Greetings from Bulgaria, again ;)
Saturday, January 24th, 2009 16:37
According to trackabacks numbers this must be very popular article (and not only this and all in the web site). And now this came to Bulgaria also.
:)
This web site was given to me by a friend of mine, also Bulgarian web designer.
You will get more and more popularity.
And the person who had made this Photoshop resource is brilliant.
—–
spirearexia, what about the financial crisis??!!
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 08:21
I’m Alreay known every shortcut so not helpfull for me but thanks ur helping others…..
If not, then it's time to learn how to:
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DarkTiger
Saturday, September 20th, 2008 19:42
Thank You very very much! It helped me a lot.
Dainis Graveris
Saturday, January 24th, 2009 16:53
@Web Design Bulgaria – thanks for excellent feedback. Actually I alone run this website, just to clear out.
I don’t know how popular web and graphic design is in Your country, but statistics show ~1,000 uniques for 2 months and according to people count it’s pretty good :)
I am very glad You evaluate this site, keep coming back I think it will go only better and better over here! :)
I think spirerexia post is just spam, I am deleting that comment.
Уеб Дизайн България ®
Saturday, January 24th, 2009 16:37
According to trackabacks numbers this must be very popular article (and not only this and all in the web site). And now this came to Bulgaria also.
:)
This web site was given to me by a friend of mine, also Bulgarian web designer.
You will get more and more popularity.
And the person who had made this Photoshop resource is brilliant.
—–
spirearexia, what about the financial crisis??!!
nipun jain
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 08:21
I’m Alreay known every shortcut so not helpfull for me but thanks ur helping others…..
gunasekhar
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 04:05
48+ greatest adobe shortcuts, they are very useful for the photoshop students-thanks
xiro
Friday, October 17th, 2008 12:11
hey what site can I visit to teach me the very basic of photoshop just a newbie here hehehe.
Eric
Friday, September 5th, 2008 23:32
Great tutorial! I mainly wanted to know about the different zoom ones so that helps me out a lot!
Dainis Graveris
Friday, September 5th, 2008 18:59
@kevin yes it really does – every designer must know those ones.
@John thanks! Hope You learned something new too!
Lester Hein
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 14:53
Love it! thanks for th info – very useful. Let me know if you ever do one for Illustrator ;)
Michelle
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 12:30
An excellent list of Photoshop shortcuts, thank you very much Danis!
Dainis Graveris
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 06:42
Thanks, naldz! Yeah, there was some digging :)
I love Your site too, good luck!
Dainis Graveris
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 00:06
Hey, thank You mate once again :) Took some digging yeah :)
NaldzGraphics
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 06:38
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
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 17:56
@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 :)
Stacy
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 03:00
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 :\ )
John
Friday, September 5th, 2008 17:03
Cheers mate, very help full.
Great job! *thumbs up*
Tutorials Room
Friday, September 5th, 2008 17:47
Good Tutorial! It was chosen for the main page of http://www.tutorialsroom.com. Keep on the good work :)
kevin
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 23:08
Thanks for sharing! It saves my lots of time.
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 07:01
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.
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 12:41
Yeah, that’s right, those keyboard shortcuts are just must know ones. Thanks for response!
Web Design Bulgaria ®
Monday, January 26th, 2009 15:28
Hi again, Dainis Graveris!
I`m glad to see your response.
It`s really surprising and shocking knowing You run this website alone. Do Your visitors know it :)
A friend of mine and colleague Veselin Todorov gave me Your site URL 2 days ago. I don`t remember where and how he`s got it, but it does not matter.
I plan starting a blog about great web design resources.
May I write articles and recommend and link to Your site http://www.1stwebdesigner.com ?
“but statistics show ~1,000 uniques for 2 months”
I can`t believe this!
But if it`s true, things will change, you`ll see!
First of all, the domain name is great and cool!
The resources You have published are unique. If you know another web blog like yours, show it :)
I checked just now:
Domain Name: 1STWEBDESIGNER.COM
Created on: 30-Aug-08
The web site seems to be quite a new. That`s why You don`t have thousands visitors every day. In international google search (on english) I think it`s really tough to rank fast and make numbers of visitors. We will discuss this topic again in six months :))
And then the stats will be very different.
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/about-us/
:)
Nice and young!
“I am designer from Latvia”
Now I understood how you have found out that Уеб Дизайн България translates Web Design Bulgaria :)
BTW my name is Anton.
See you around
Greetings from Bulgaria, again ;)
Dainis Graveris
Monday, January 26th, 2009 18:29
@web designer thanks for spreading the word about my website! Appreciated!
@Anton You’ve got some research I see :) Sure You can, but also know writing good content takes a lot of time, so know You’ll need to spend long sleepless nights to get some results :) And actually it’s 150,000 uniques now this month.
And yes, site is very new, so I am just taking place in google, rankings and so on. I don’t know how it will go – but I hope to continue this way and watch what will come out :) And I know many many websites like mine, I’ll share with my RSS feed in continuous articles :)
And yes, I know a little bit Russian too :) thanks for kind words – wish You good luck with Your works and blog!
Tryan
Friday, August 12th, 2011 08:51
Hi,
How to reduce tummy without loosing body weight?
I just wanted to reduce my tummy only without effecting on body weight.
Thanks
Tim Weaver
Thursday, July 7th, 2011 06:41
I link this tutorial, im used learning photoshop on tutplus.com, but i see this tutorial is easier to do