Solo your layer

f you’d like to preview a single layer, you can quickly get a look at it on its own by Alt+clicking on the layer’s eye icon in the layers panel. Alt+clicking on the eye icon again will return you to the previous layer visibility state. Note that if you accidentally click on another layer’s eye icon you’ll lose the ability to revert back to the previous state

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Essential Photoshop shortcuts

Mastering these shortcuts will help you work smarter, save time, and graduate to true Photoshop guru level!

• Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E will merge a copy of all Layers
• F Cycle through workspace backgrounds
• X Change your foreground and background colours
• D Reset foreground and background colours to black and white
• ] and [ Change your brush tip size
• Cmd/Ctrl+J Duplicate a layer or selection
• Space Bar Hold Space and drag to navigate around the image
• TAB Hides or shows all panels and tools
• Cmd/Ctrl+T Transform a layer
• Cmd/Ctrl+E Merge selected layer down, or merges several highlighted layers
• Cmd/Ctrl/Ctrl+Shift+Opt+S Save for web & devices
• Cmd/Ctrl+L Bring up levels box
• Cmd/Ctrl+T Open Free Transform tool
• Cmd/Ctrl+M Open Curves
• Cmd/Ctrl+B Edit Colour Balance
• Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Opt+C Scale your image to your preferred state
• Cmd/Ctrl+Opt+G Create clipping mask
• Cmd/Ctrl+0 Fit on screen
• Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+>/< Increase/decrease size of selected text by 2pts
• Cmd/Ctrl+Option+Shift->/< Increase/decrease size of selected text by 10pts
• ]/[ Increase/decrease brush size
• Shift+F5 Fill the selection
• }/{ Increase/decrease brush hardness
• ,/. previous/next brush
• </> First/last brush
• Cmd/Ctrl+] Bring layers forward
• Cmd/Ctrl+[ Send layer back
• Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+[ Send layer to bottom of stack
• Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+] Bring layer to bottom of stack

5 Quick Photoshop tips

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01. Easier marquee selections

Hold down Alt to start a selection at the centre point with any Marquee tool, and then hold Space to temporarily move the selection around.

02. Undo, undo, undo

You probably know that Cmd/Ctrl+Z is Undo, but you may not know Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+Z lets you undo more than one history state.

03. 1000 history states

Go to Edit>Preferences>Performance to change the number of History states up to a maximum of 1000. Beware though of the effect that this has on performance.

04. Cycle blend modes

Shift + or – will cycle through different layer Blend Modes, so long as you don’t have a tool that uses Blend Mode options settings.

05. Bird’s eye view

When zoomed in close, hold down H and drag in the image to instantly dart out to full screen then jump back to another area. One of the best Photoshop tips for viewing work!