Photoshop CS5 Shortcuts for Professionals

Photoshop CS5 Shortcuts for Professionals

Thanks to all of our precious commentators, who took out time to write such valuable comments, I had to promise another article similar in context but this time, intended for the professionals. YET, even the very beginners would learn a lot from this article, so if you are one, keep on reading.

Sorry, I am a little late in making this article which I promised in the comments of Timesaving Photoshop CS5 Shortcuts,but it is always “better late than never”. If you haven’t visited the previous Time-saving Tips Article yet, you should do so immediately.

In today’s article, we shall take a look at the shortcuts which professionals use to perform tasks of hours in minutes. This article can also be considered as a list of tips and tricks for Adobe Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Many of these shortcuts were provided in comments section of the last post. So I’m writing the commentator’s names initalics at the end of their tips.







This post is also made in the same manner as the previous post. It is distributed into two sections, First Covers the shortcuts related to Tools, second section is for the Workspace (everything except tools).

Note: I’m sharing all of the tips and shortcuts shared by our Commentators, except for the ones which do not work in Adobe Photoshop CS5. I have tested all these shortcuts on Photoshop CS5 Extended.
TOOLS

This article is made on the footsteps of the previous one. We are first describing the shortkeys… I mean shortcuts which relate to the tools in the toolbar. Later we’ll check out everything else.




• CTRL+SHIFT+ > increases and CTRL+SHIFT+ < decreases the font size when it is selected by a text tool.

By Ali Raza

• Press and hold the shortkey of any tool, and use the newly active tool …. when you are done with it, release the shortkey, the active tool is switched back to previous one.

By Ali Raza

• Alt+Right Click and dragging in an active document will resize the brush/pencil/eraser tools.

By RevuGuy
Quick List of Adobe Photoshop Tool Selection Shortcuts

Q = QUICK MASK
Q = MAGIC WAND
E = ERASER
R = Rotate Tool (CS5), with the new snap tools, if you hold R and rotate, after you let got it will snap back to the same tool as you had previously
T = TYPE TOOL
Y = HISTORY BRUSH
U = VECTOR SHAPE
I = EYE DROPPER
O = DODGE AND BURN
P = PEN TOOL (drawing paths)
A = PATH SELECTION TOOL
S = STAMP TOOL (clone)
G = PAINT BUCKET/GRADIENT TOOL
H = HAND
J = HEALING BRUSH
L = LASSO
Z = ZOOM
X = SWAP BACKGROUND AND FOREGROUND
C = CROP
V = MOVE TOOL
B = BRUSH
N = NOTES
M = MARQUEE
[ = Make brush smaller
] = Make brush bigger

By Robert Whetton

• SHIFT + (key of tool) will switch between that tool family. ALT+Click on tool do the same function.

By Ali Raza

• Alt+Delete Fills the selection or layer with foreground color. Ctrl+Delete Fills the selection or layer with background color.

• Alt+Shift+Delete Fills the selection or layer with foreground color while preserving transparency. Ctrl+Shift+DeleteFills the selection or layer with background color preserving transparency.

• Shift+F5 Opens the Fill Dialog Box
Text

• Ctrl+H Manipulates the visibility of currently selected text.

• Ctrl+Shift+B Makes the text Bold

• Ctrl+Shift+I Italic

• Ctrl+Shift+U Underline

• Ctrl+Shift+? Strikethrough

• Ctrl+Shift+K All Block Letters

• Ctrl+Shift+H All Small Caps (Block Letters in smaller font size)

• Ctrl+Shift+= SuperScript

• Ctrl+Shift+- SubScript

• Ctrl+Shift+L Aligns the text to left.

• Ctrl+Shift+R Aligns right.

• Ctrl+Shift+C Aligns Center.

• Ctrl+Shift+J Justified Alignment.

• Ctrl+Shift+F Forced Justified.
WORKSPACE

Now These are the shortkeys….. shortcut keys which which relate to everything except tools.



An Image Stolen From Designzzz Upcoming Book.

• CTRL + Click on a layer thumbnail in the layers panel to select the contents (works well for alpha channel selections).

• CTRL + 1 or 2 or 3 to show only Red, Green or Blue color channels respectively (1, 2, 3, 4 for CMYK mode).

• CTRL + 4 (RGB)/5(CMYK) and up to show only alpha channels in the order they were created in.

• CTRL + Z is undo/redo, everyone knows that, but for stepping back more than one step, CTRL + ALT + Z steps back through history…CTRL + ALT + Y.

By ~AR

• CTRL+J duplicates the current Layer while you have nothing selected.

If you have any active selection and press CTRL+J, the selected area will be copied to the new layer. If you pressSHIFT+CTRL+J when you have something selected, it will be cut out and put on a new layer.

• Scrolling (with your mouse scroll) moves the document up and down. CTRL+Scroll moves it left and right.

• ALT+Click on the visibility icon of a layer to hide all other layers.

• CTRL+TAB to switch between open windows.

By Paratron

• Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E will merge all visible layers into the newly created layer. Also Ctrl+E will merge selected layers.

By Blair

• Ctrl+Alt+2 It selects tonal range higher than 50% (look at the histogram).
You can easily reverse it with Ctrl+Shift+I

By Stoyan Kostov

• ALT+[ GO DOWN THROUGH LAYERS ALT+] GO UP

• CTRL+[ MOVE TARGET LAYER DOWN CTRL+] MORE TARGET LAYER UP

By Ali Raza

• Ctrl+[ Moves layer downwards. Ctrl+] Moves layer upwards.

• Ctrl+Shift+[ Moves the layer to the bottom of current group. Ctrl+Shift+] Moves the layer to the top of current group.

• Ctrl+J Duplicates the layer, you know that. Ctrl+Shift+J Duplicates layer or selection with the Cut function.

• Alt+ (any) Arrow Key Duplicates the layer or selection by 1 pixel. Alt+Shift+Arrow Key Duplicates and nudges by 10 pixels.

• Ctrl+Shift+E Merges everything. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E Creates a new layer by merging the selected layers.