Photoshop Ninja » Shortcuts – Tools

Measuring angles with the ruler tool

Photoshop Ninja — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:00:52 +0000

There’s a very good extra use for the ruler tool in Photoshop – apart from the obvious of-course!

When you draw a ‘line’ with the ruler, you can then hold down Alt and draw a new line starting from the end of the first. If you take a look up at your control strip across the top of the screen you will now see an angle measured.

This can be useful if you need to measure and match angles in layered compositions – now you can transform you layers by that angle and they will all match up! Incidentally – if you have a few layers to transform, you can use the ‘transform again’ command under Edit>Transform>Again to quickly apply the same transformation to another layer.

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Switch to the Photoshop move tool whilst another tool is active

Photoshop Ninja — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:07:32 +0000

Here’s a little gem or a tip – are you getting sick of keep on switching between tools in when you are working? The tool that gets used most in Photoshop is the move tool, and here’s a little tip to stop you having to switch between whatever tool you have active (eg brush) and the move tool.

Simply hold down the Apple key on your keyboard when you have another tool active, this will temporarily switch your tool to the move tool as long as you keep it held down. When you are ready to return to your previous tool, just let go of the Apple key and there you go!

Oh, and don’t forget that hitting V on the keyboard is the shortcut to get to the move tool, if you want to use it for more than a quick re-position!

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All Photoshop Tool Shortcuts

Photoshop Ninja — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 17:40:20 +0000

Here are all the keyboard shortcuts for switching to different tools in Photoshop CS. When a tool has a ‘flyout’ – shown by a little black arrow in the bottom right corner you generally (depending on preferences) hold down shift and hit the letter corresponding to the shortcut to switch to the other tool.

I have highlighted the most useful ones in bold for reference – shortcuts are the path to not only these basic tools but many other advanced features…but all in due time ninjas!

If you hover your mouse over any tool it will show the shortcut to remind you, remember, just kit the key – no modifyer keys required!

OK, here goes – starting from top left and working across and down:

M
-RECTANGULAR MARQUEE TOOL
-ELIPTICAL MARQUEE TOOL
-SINGLE ROW MARQUEE TOOL (ON THIS MENU, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE BY THIS SHORTCUT!)
-SINGLE COLUMN MARQUEE TOOL (ON THIS MENU, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE BY THIS SHORTCUT!)

V
-MOVE TOOL

L
-LASSO TOOL
-POLYGON LASSO TOOL
-MAGNETIC LASSO TOOL

W
-MAGIC WAND TOOL

C
-CROP TOOL

K
-SLICE TOOL
-SLICE SELECT TOOL

J
-HEALING BRUSH TOOL
-PATCH TOOL
-COLOUR REPLACEMENT TOOL

B
-BRUSH TOOL
-PENCIL TOOL

S
-CLONE STAMP TOOL
-PATTERN STAMP TOOL

Y
-HISTORY BRUSH TOOL
-ART HISTORY BRUSH TOOL

E
-ERASER TOOL
-BACKGROUND ERASER TOOL
-MAGIC ERASER TOOL

G
-GRADIENT TOOL
-PAINT BUCKET TOOL

R
-BLUR TOOL
-SHARPEN TOOL
-SMUDGE TOOL

O
-DODGE TOOL
-BURN TOOL
-SPONGE TOOL

A
-PATH SELECTION TOOL
-DIRECT SELECTION TOOL

T
-HORZONTAL TYPE TOOL
-VERTICAL TYPE TOOL
-HORIZONTAL TYPE MASK TOOL
-VERTICAL TYPE MASK TOOL

P
-PEN TOOL
-FREEFORM PEN TOOL
-ADD ANCHOR POINT TOOL (ON THIS MENU, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE BY THIS SHORTCUT!)
-DELETE ANCHOR POINT TOOL (ON THIS MENU, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE BY THIS SHORTCUT!)
-CONVERT POINT TOOL (ON THIS MENU, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE BY THIS SHORTCUT!)

U
-RECTANGLE TOOL
-ROUNDED RECTANGLE TOOL
-ELLIPSE TOOL
-POLYGON TOOL
-LINE TOOL
-CUSTOM SHAPE TOOL

N
-NOTES TOOL
-AUDIO ANNOTATION TOOL

I
-EYEDROPPER TOOL
-NOTE, YOU CAN TEMPORARILY SWITCH QUICKLY TO THIS TOOL WHEN USING A BRUSH BY HOLDING DOWN ALT.
-ALSO HOVERING OVER WITH CURSOR WILL OUTPUT YOUR COLOUR INFO
-COLOUR SAMPLER TOOL
-MEASURE TOOL

H
-HAND TOOL
YOU DONT ACTUALLY HAVE TO USE THIS SHORTCUT, OR EVEN EVER HAVE TO CLICK ON THIS ICON-THIS IS ACCESSIBLE BY USING SPACE TO TEMPORARILY SWITCH TO THE HAND TOOL ANYTIME, UNLESS YOUR EDITING TYPE OF COURSE!

Z
-ZOOM TOOL
AGAIN, YOUR BEST TO FORGET ABOUT THIS ONE TOO AND ZOOM IN AND OUT YOUR IMAGE USING COMMAND/ALT+SPACE

X
SWITCHES FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND COLOURS

D
RESETS FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND COLOURS BACK TO PHOTOSHOP DEFAULT BLACK AND WHITE

NOTE, THE LAST 2 COLOUR CHANGE ONES ARE NOT DISPLAYED ON HOVER OVER, SO REMEMBER THESE SHORTCUTS!

Q
QUICKMASK MODE

F
-STANDARD SCREEN MODE
-FULL SCREEN MODE WITH MENU BAR
-FULL SCREEN MODE

-AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST…

SHIFT+COMMAND+M
EDIT IN IMAGE READY

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Swop and reset foreground and background colours the easy way

Photoshop Ninja — Thu, 05 May 2005 07:53:38 +0000

When you are using brushes you often want to swap between foreground and background colours, or just reset the colour back to the default white and black-especially good when you are working on a layer mask…just use the simple shortcuts below!

D – SHORTCUT TO RESET COLOURS BACK TO DEFAULT

X – SHORTCUT TO SWAP FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND COLOURS

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