2 Minute Tricks # 16 - Time Savers
November 18th, 2005
Instead of one big tricks this week, we will take a look at a few time saving tricks that will let you fly through your photoshop workflow at top speed.
Note: If you are downloading directly from the web page click here to download.
Thanks to the Hijiyama Project for our closing theme.
Step-by-Step Guide
Keyboard Shortcuts
Photoshop has keyboard shortcuts for all of its tools and most of the menu options as well. You can quickly see what the shortcut is for a tool is by hovering your mouse over a tool in the tool pallet, and all menu keyboard shortcuts are listed next to the item in the menu itself .
Menu shortcuts are listed next to the menu item
Hover to see tool shortcuts
A good way to learn these shortcuts is to pick 3 or 4 of your most used menu options or tools and learn their keyboard shortcuts. Then commit 2 or 3 more to memory as you get comfortable with the first 3 or 4. Soon you will know all the shortcuts for tools and menus you use regularly and be able to fly through your editing at top speed.
If you have Photoshop CS or CS 2 you can take keyboard shortcuts a step farther by customizing them by going to the edit menu then selecting the “keyboard shortcuts” option.
Common Shortcuts
| Description | Key(s) |
| Crop Tool | C |
| Hand Tool | Space Bar (hold down) |
| Move Tool | Command or Control (hold down) |
| Levels | Command or Control + L |
| Hue/Saturation | Command or Control + U |
| New Layer | Command or Control + Shift + N |
| Zoom In | Command or Control + “+” |
| Zoom Out | Command or Control + “-” |
Quick Prints
Step 1: Set up a folder or directory full of images you would like to make small prints of.
Step 2: Launch Photoshop and go to the file menu. Then select the automate option, then the contact sheet option.
Step 3: A dialog box will pop open with a bunch of different options. Select the folder of images you set up in the first step in the source images section of the dialog. Then, in the document section set the width and height options to 8.5 and 11 respectively. Then in the thumbnails section change the columns and rows options both to 2 and click the rotate for best fit check box. Unclick the use filenames as captions box at the bottom of the dialog box then hit ok.
Step 4: When Photoshop has finished making your contact sheets just click print from the file menu on each document. Trim your pictures and enjoy.
Quick Value Change
To demonstrate how this technique works create a new photoshop document and select the text tool and type something in your document. Then select all of your text and go up to the text options bar at the top of the screen. You should see a little icon of small “T” next to a big “T” with a drop down menu next to it showing your text’s font size. Instead of using this drop down menu to change your text size click and hold on the icon of the two Ts to the left of the menu. Now drag your mouse slowly to the left and right. You should see your text get bigger and smaller as you drag each direction. This trick works almost everywhere in photoshop where you can adjust a value in a dialog box. Often times the part you need to click and hold on is the text near the value you are trying to change. For example you click and drag on the word saturation to change the saturation of your image in the hue saturation dialog box.
11 Comments Add your own
1. Sally Perreten | November 19th, 2005 at 10:31 am
These are wonderful lessons.
I feel very unsure as to what clipping is and what it’s all about, for, done, etc.I would love a show on this topic.
Thank you again for these shows!
Sally
2. Simon Whitaker | November 19th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
Another awesome tip Kent!
I’ve decided to set up a Flickr group for photos that people have edited using the techniques on 2minutetricks.com. Here’s the link:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/2minutetricks/
Please join in, all of you!
All the best,
Simon
3. Kent | November 20th, 2005 at 8:26 pm
Hey Sally, Glad you like the show. We can look into doing a show on clipping. Do you mean like clipping paths or like clipping of colors?
-Kent
4. Kent | November 20th, 2005 at 8:35 pm
Hey Simon, Great idea! I have posted a couple of pics already. Ill write a story for the front page. -Kent
5. Brigitte Bolduc | November 22nd, 2005 at 2:39 pm
GREAT! Just found you out! The contact sheet option is a fabulous time saver! (I don’t quite have the same options though….. no “Use auto spacing’ nor “Rotate for best fit’ so the images end up more 3 by 3: but I shall woirk this out!
My question: if i have a lot of text layers, can I use a sort of style option to change simustaneoulsy the texts caractersitics such as font size ou color? I create a monthly calendar: each week is a different layer. If a want to get a bigger font, I need to resize the text for each layer… blahh…. any suggestions
And Thanks! these are great!
Brigitte
6. Kent | November 23rd, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Hey Brigitte, The contact sheet options have gone through a variety of revision through out the different versions of photoshop. Older versions might have different settings that make it a little more difficult to get the same results.
As far as the text layers go, I know in Photoshop CS 2 you can change the size and color of multiple layers of text at the same time by selecting all the layer in the tool pallet (click on the top one then hold down shift and click the last one) then select the text tool from the tools pallet. Then you should have access to the text options. Any changes you make (size, color, alignment, etc.) should apply to all the selected layers.
If you have an older version you might be able to do the same thing by linking all of your text layers instead of selecting them. To link layers click on a little empty box in the layer next to the little eye icon in the layers pallet. This will link a layer to the selected layer. When you have all the layers linked try the adjustments and see if they affect all the layers. I wasn’t able to test this since i don’t have an older copy of Photoshop on hand, so it may or may not work.
Hope that helps, and thanks for listening! -Kent
7. Sally Perreten | November 27th, 2005 at 5:10 pm
Hi Kent-
re: clipping
Ummmm…why not both!
Sally
8. Angela | December 14th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
The quick value change is the best tip I have ever gotten for photoshop!!!! Thank you so much!
9. Barney | December 16th, 2005 at 3:59 am
Concerning the Quick Value Change: for fine tuning press the ALT key (pardon my poor English)
10. Markus Juopperi | April 26th, 2006 at 7:58 am
Not to be an ass on you but I wonder what makes people say they are sorry about their bad or limited english when there are no mistakes in their text and they even use words like “pardon me” and “concerning”…
I don’t get it…
Uhm.. back on topic.. The quick way to change values is a really good tip! I find my self using it all the time.
Also the hand tool (through SPACE”) has became one of the most frecuently used functions!
11. A. Vargas | March 19th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I know you hear this all the time, but these tips are really fantastic! I cannot sometimes get myself to sit down, but having these broken down into bite-sized segments makes it very manageable. Also, I’ve compared your tricks for black and white conversion from color with Up To Speed and think yours came out the winner.
If you’re looking for suggestions for a new segment, how ’bout Curves? Many of us are too scared of it and I’ve read that it is evenn preferable to Levels in CS3
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