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Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

Lesson 32 from: Photoshop for Photographers

Ben Willmore

Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

Lesson 32 from: Photoshop for Photographers

Ben Willmore

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Lesson Info

32. Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

Next Lesson: Technical Issues

Lesson Info

Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

so first to talk about working faster. I have something on the back of this board. I think it's still there from the other day when I wrote it down, which are what I consider the essential keyboard shortcuts, these air, the keyboard shortcuts that I try to sear into my head where I can't forget them. What I suggest you dio is if you have a little sticky note, is to put no more than five of these on a sticky note and put it on the side of your screen and referred to it every morning. And every time you come back from lunch and all that until you have them stuck in your head, then throw away that sticking out right down. Five more Stick to the side of your screen. There's no way you're gonna remember all these things just by writing them down. You need to have something that constantly reminds you of them, so a few of these have mentioned before. But there are some in here that I haven't, and I just want to make sure you're aware of them. So when it comes keyboard shortcuts young, do you...

screw up a lot so commands the an IMac controls Ian windows for undue Most people. I find her pretty used to that because you script so much. At least I do, uh so commands the control Z, but here's where it becomes were useful. Add the option key Alton windows, and you can type it more than once and go back in time more than one step. And for me, that's a lifesaver there. If you accidentally go too far and you need to reapply something, then you replace option with shift shift Command Z. He is only going to work. If the last thing he did was undo something, if you ended it and you ended too far, this is gonna let you go the other direction and reapply things. Then when I work on my images, I often try to get rid of the distraction of the footer shop interface. And if you press the letter F, you're gonna get to full screen mode. There are actually three screen modes and if I go to an image here, I'll just open one. Ooh, that's not good. That file was corrupt. So this one is OK. Open image. If I type the letter F the first time. It's Ah, second time in third time. It's in a cycle through of three different modes. And so if I press f, he noticed the very top of my screen, some of the interface went away. I'll have to press it two more times to get back to normal. But this bar that was up here went away and gave me a little bit more space. If I press f another time, the menu bar at the top will disappear, and so will the panels that are usually on the sides. So if you want to show an image to a client, were still in Photoshopped. Pressing letter off twice to get to this mode could be really nice. When you're in any one of those modes, you can hide all your panels that are around you by typing tab Tabal. Hide your panels. Press tab again comes back. Shift tab, though, will only hide the main panels on the right side so you can keep your I should say it hides all but your tools in the options for your tools. So if you really want your imagery maximize and you're using your tools shift tab means hide everything but my tools in the options for them. Press it a second time shift tab and they come back and my tools disappear. So now I know what they're okay. If your if your kids come and play with your keyboard on a regular basis, here's one that you'll run into all the time, and that is usually have a circle that shows what your brushes and it's gonna look like across there and you'll be let the heck and you will not be able to figure out how to get out of it. You'll reset your preferences. You'll reinstall photo shop. It will stay this way, and that's because the caps lock key is down. So caps lock gives you just across there. Uh huh. So if somebody messes with your keyboard and you end up across here capsule. So I mentioned that Tab is gonna hide the side panels shift Tab is going to hide all but your tools and the options for the tools. But I find that to be essential so I can really work on my image and not have all the clutter around, and I'm not constantly opening and closing these panels instead, I'm just get him out of the way temporarily. All right, let's look at other things to Zoom and I've mentioned before. I believe command plus in command minus That's control plus and control minus and windows that will zoom in and zoom out on your picture. Once you've zoomed in on your picturing meter, move around, you can press the space bar to temporarily get the hand tool in. That way you can navigate around your document, so I just press the space bar. And that means I can drag my picture around if I want to quickly zoom in and zoom out. I double click on the hand tool, and it fits my image in the window that I'm viewing so I can see the entire picture. If I double click on the Zoom tool, I get 100% views so I can see really what's in there if I need to do some retouching, that type of thing. Let's see. Here's where I mentioned that visual brush control. I've already mentioned that today. Here's another thing that can mess you up a lot that I try to commit to memory and that is, if you ever doing anything and you find that it attempts to snap whatever it is you're doing to the edge of something, you're moving something and it snaps it to the edge of your document. When you get close to the edge, you're cropping an image, and you're trying to crop out a microscopic area of the top. But when you get near the edge, it snaps to the edge of your picture. That type of thing after you've already pressed the mouse button and you're starting to do whatever activity it is, hold down the control key and it will temporarily turn off snapping. So if you're in the crop tool, you get near the edge of your document because pop gets to the to the edge, hold down control and you'll be ableto finally move it and it won't be snapping two things. But that only works after your mouse button is already pressed. Not before, and continue to hold it. Yes, let's see what else here did you then? This is something that really helps me tremendously, which is all the keys on your keyboard. If you haven't used for a shop for a really long time. They seem to be a random jumble of things. How you do stuff. But there is a definite meaning behind every key on your keyboard, especially the modifier keys that you hold down, and this tells you what they mean. And if you think of this, if you put this on a post it note in and put it on the side of your screen for a week or two weeks until you really committed to memory, it makes it so if you'll be so much faster, so let me quickly go through it. It just tells you what your modifier keys mean. So the shift key obviously gives you capital letters. That's what caps means, but it also constrains things. If you're ever working on, let's say the crop tool and you're cropping your image and you can get any shape crop you want. If you would rather constrain that so that you can't suddenly make it a square or suddenly make it something else Instead, you wanted to be the same proportions as what you had is what you currently have. You don't want to be able to mess with it. Shift will constrain it if you're working with something else. Let's say a circular selection are oval hold shift. It'll be a circle. If you're moving a layer instead of be able to randomly move it, you hold shift and you can Onley move it, horizontal or vertical, that type of thing. The other thing that shift could mean is to add to something. If you have a selection, you want to add to it. The old shift shift means ad, but it's not just with selections. It's with most anything. If we were in the human saturation dialogue box and if you remember or not, we were using the eye droppers to isolate things like we clicked Teoh isolate skin and there was an eyedropper or the plus sign on it, and we clicked around to expand the area we're working on. All you'd have to do is hold shift, and you wouldn't have to click on that. I drop with the plus sign on it. He would already know. You want to add two things because that's why else would you be holding shift? Shift adds to things option, which is all time Windows does to general things. You're either going to get to a secondary fund function in something. If a button could do more than one thing, it's option you're gonna hold down to do it. If there's a hidden feature somewhere, it's option you're going to use to get to it. So when I'm in adjustments like levels, the cancel button can also reset. You hold option to get to it. This slider here can give me a preview, but somehow I have to get to it. I hold option to do that, and if I call that down, it could give me a preview on my screen. So if there's ever any hidden feature option, the other thing that option does is has you work on a duplicate of something. If you ever moving a layer, and you would like to move a copy of the layer, hold down the option key when you drag and it's gonna move a copy of the layer. Ah, there are many different places. One place is Farrah. Stuff we worked on today, when it comes to option, is if you ever have a mask and you want to use the same mask on a different layer, what you could do with masks is, you can click on a mask and dragged them between layers. Just click on a mask, drag it up to another layer, let go, and it moves it there. But the problem is it removes it from the area was before. If you hold down the option key, it moves a copy, right? So it's really good to know that in your head, so that if you ever working on almost anything in Photoshopped and it's capable of working out a duplicate in some way, that's gonna be the key that you always hold down to do it. The command key gives you the move. Tool temporarily. If you ever need. In the move tool, you're in the paint brush. You need to move something. Hold down the command key and you'll be in the move to a temporary. You'll be moving whatever's in that layer. The other thing the command key does is when you click on things, it turns them into selections. I'll click on a layer on the little thumb now for the layer. It just selected what was in that layer command? Click on a mask. It turns that into a selection command click on things to get selections out of him. So that's why it says Convert to selection over there. I've already mentioned Tab in that it hides Europe your panels. But if that ever doesn't work, Tab does one other thing. And that is, if you're ever in something that has some numbers involved. Like if I go and do an adjustment like hue and saturation and I have a number like this, I could change Tabal cycle through the other fields that that air there, which means that if you ever have a number selected, like up here opacity and you hit tab, it's going to switch between the other fields. So if it ever doesn't work to make your palates go away, you know, somewhere on your screen somewhere hidden anywhere. There's a number where some text selected, and it's trying to do its other functions. So press the return key and then you can get it to work again. Um, with that and then I mentioned earlier caps, lock would give you a process. If you commit that to memory, you can become much faster photo shop, and you can also discover ah lot of shortcuts in more efficient ways of working. You could just think that Hey, I'm adding to something, and I'm used to using some manual technique of clicking on an icon or doing something else. Why don't I try shift? Because in general that usually means ad, and you'll probably find out that whatever feature it is you're using, it'll work because in the vast majority of photo shop, that's how it all works. So that's one thing that I try to commit to memory, and I have seared in my head and makes me much faster when I work in a photo shop. But so don't expect you to commit all that to memory right now. I hopefully right, which everyone's air important down you put him on a sticky note. You put him on the side of your screen. You replace whenever the stuff goes into memory and you keep feeding your that that stuff. But that's the list that I would go with to start with

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Ratings and Reviews

Jim Pater
 

I taught Photoshop (version 5) to graphic design students at the college level. I had great fun teaching. This is the perfect course to show others how they might go about teaching a Photoshop course. Congratulations Ben, on your excellent teaching style and methods. I thought I already knew quite a bit about Photoshop but this course made me aware that there's always more that you can learn.

Ron Greathouse
 

This course is one of the best Creative Live Courses that you have made available to us. I have purchased at least 12 courses and this course is my personal favorite. Ben is an excellent instructor and should be teaching at the university level. He is great!

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