Software & Apps Design 22 22 people found this article helpful Useful Keyboard Shortcuts for Photoshop CC Edit images like a pro with these shortcuts by Tom Green Writer Tom Green is a former Lifewire writer, the author or coauthor of 15 books on computer graphics, and is a professor at Humber College. our editorial process LinkedIn Tom Green Updated on April 28, 2020 The Ultimate Guide to Keyboard Shortcuts The Ultimate Guide to Keyboard Shortcuts Introduction Windows Timesavers The Best Windows 10 Keyboard Shortcuts Essential Keyboard Shortcuts for Better Productivity How to Use the Shortcut Alt + Underline Shortcut to Create New Folders Essential Shortcuts for iTunes Mac, iOS & iPad Quick Tricks The Best Mac Shortcuts Keyboard Shortcuts for Finder Mac Startup Keyboard Shortcuts 18 Shortcuts for Apple's iOS Shortcuts App iPad Keyboard Tips and Smart Keyboard Shortcuts Android & iPhone Shortcuts The Best Android Shortcuts You Should Be Using Create and Use iPhone X Shortcuts Email Shortcuts The 30 Best Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts for 2020 How to Use Yahoo Mail Keyboard Shortcuts The Complete Apple Mail Shortcut List Shortcuts in iOS Mail Delete Shortcut Keys for Popular Email Programs How to Use Outlook.com Keyboard Shortcuts Create Text Snippets With Shortcuts in Mac OS X Mail Online & Browser Shortcuts Top 36 Shortcuts for Edge and IE 11 Keyboard Shortcuts: Google Chrome for Windows Create Web Page Shortcuts in Chrome for Windows Control Safari Windows With Keyboard Shortcuts Shortcuts for Safari Toolbars Shortcuts for Safari on OS X & Sierra Excel Shortcuts The 23 Best Excel Shortcuts Shortcut Excel's Fill Down Command Shortcut the Current Date/Time Formatting Numbers Adding Worksheets Shortcut to Saving Your Work Creating a Chart MAX Function Shortcut More Office Shortcuts Top 10 Microsoft Word Shortcuts The 5 Best Hidden Word Shortcuts Add Shortcut Keys to AutoText Entries Uppercase Shortcut Key How to Reset Keyboard Shortcuts in Word Shortcut to Speed Up PowerPoint Presentations Other Useful Shortcuts The Best Google Docs Shortcuts 18 Shortcuts for Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon Changing Linux Mint Cinnamon Shortcuts Fedora GNOME Keyboard Shortcuts Maya Keyboard Shortcuts Create or Reassign Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Office Useful Keyboard Shortcuts for Photoshop CC Time-Saving Fill Tool Shortcuts in Photoshop The 5 Most Useful GIMP Keyboard Shortcuts How to Use the GIMP Keyboard Shortcut Editor Shortcuts to Type a Tilde Mark Tweet Share Email Keyboard shortcuts speed up repetitive actions and improve the image manipulation process by reducing mouse movements and clicks. The Adobe Creative Cloud solution, like most major software implementations, supports a variety of key combinations. Information in this article applies to all versions of Photoshop Creative Cloud 2014 and later. Commands and menu items may differ in other versions of Photoshop. lechatnoi/ E+/Getty Images Space Bar for Move Tool Pressing the space bar temporarily switches to the hand for panning your document no matter which tool is active (except for the text tool in typing mode). You can also use the space bar to move selections and shapes as you are creating them. As you start drawing a selection or shape, press the space bar while holding down the left mouse button and reposition the selection or shape. The Mac uses the Command and Option keys in place of Windows' Ctrl and Alt keys, respectively. Use the space bar to zoom in and out of the document by pressing it along with other keys. To zoom in, press Space-Ctrl (or Command on a Mac), and then click. To zoom out, press Space-Alt (or Option on a Mac) and click. Caps Lock for Precise Cursors The caps lock key changes the cursor from a crosshair to brush shape and vice versa. Use this shortcut if you want a more precise cursor or for tools where it might be hard to figure out the "active" part of the selector, like Lasso and Crop. Zooming In and Out You can zoom in and out of your document without using the space bar. The quickest way is to hold the Alt key while rolling the scroll wheel on your mouse, but if you don't have a scroll wheel or want to zoom in and out in precise increments, the following shortcuts are worth remembering: Ctrl/Command-plus: zoom inCtrl/Command-minus: zoom outCtrl/Command-zero: fits the document to your screenCtrl/Command-1: zooms to Exact Pixels Undo and Redo The Ctrl/Command-Z shortcut performs "undo" in most programs, but in Photoshop, that keyboard shortcut only goes back one step in your editing process. If you want to undo multiple steps, use the "Step Backward" shortcut. On a PC, it's Alt-Ctrl-Z. Press Command-Option-Z on a Mac. You can keep pressing this command as many times as you want to undo several steps at once. To redo steps, use the "Step Forward" shortcut. It's the same as Step Backward, but you add Shift to the command. Deselect a Selection After you've made a selection, press Ctrl/Command-D to deselect an item. Change Brush Size The square bracket keys increase or decrease the brush size. By adding the Shift key, you can adjust brush hardness. [: decrease brush sizeShift-[: decrease brush hardness or soften brush edge]: increase brush sizeShift-]: increase brush hardness Fill a Selection Filling areas with color is a common Photoshop action, so it helps to know the shortcuts for filling with the foreground and background colors. Alt/Option-Delete: fill with the foreground colorCtrl/Command-Delete: fill with the background colorShift-Delete: opens the fill dialog boxD: reset color picker to default colors (black foreground, white background)X: swap foreground and background colors Add the Shift key to preserve transparency while filling with the foreground or background color. Emergency Reset When you're working in a dialog box and get off track, you don't have to click Cancel and then reopen the tool to start over. Hold your Alt/Option key down, and in most dialog boxes, the "Cancel" button will change to a "Reset" one so you can get back to where you started. Selecting Layers Selecting layers is easier to do using your mouse, but if you ever need to record an action with layer selection changes, you'll want to use the keyboard shortcuts. If you select layers with the mouse while recording an action, the recording uses that layer name. So later, when you try to run the action, and it can't find that specific layer name, the action won't work. When you select layers using keyboard shortcuts while recording an action, however, the action records it as a forward or backward selection instead of a fixed layer name. Here are the shortcuts for selecting layers with the keyboard: Alt/Option-[: select the layer below the currently selected layer (select backward)Alt/Option-]: select the layer above the currently selected layer (select forward)Alt/Option-comma: select the bottom-most layer (select back layer)Alt/Option-period: select the top-most layer (select front layer) Add Shift to these shortcuts to select several layers. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. Thank you for signing up. Tell us why! 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