Useful Photoshop Tips For Graphic Designers

• Undo, More Undo Please

Well as you might know by pressing Ctrl + Z in Photoshop you can undo the previous action you made, but when you press the same key combination again, it will redo the previous action.

Believe it or not, Photoshop has a specific button for multiple undo, and it is Alt + Ctrl + Z. Yes, by using this key combination you can undo multiple times, according to the value of History States you set in Edit > Preference > Performance.

If you’re used to common Undo’s key combination which is Ctrl + Z, you can simply press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + K to access Keyboard Shortcut panel and change Undo’s key combination under the Edit section to Ctrl + Z.

• Smart Object For Smart Designer

Smart Object makes your editing smarter by carrying out 2 primary functions: perform nondestructive transforms and perform filtering. This feature comes in very handy especially when you’re producing a site layout with heavy graphics like stock photos, social media icons, and UI kits, and all you need to do is right-click a layer, then click ‘Convert to Smart Object’ to enjoy its benefits.

The first function says that once a layer is converted into a Smart Object, you can transform it any way you want without losing its original quality.

Most we use Smart Layer in Placing Design in Logo Mockup

Once you’ve made a logo, do the same steps as above to create an editable Smart Object. To summarize:

1. Copy the art in Photoshop
2. Go to Photoshop, add a new layer
3. Convert to Smart Object, and double-click the layer icon to open
4. Paste and crop the file’s dimensions to the art
5. Close and save

Example: Poster Mockup ,  Bag Mockup , Premium Mockup

• Transform: Change the size of an image, rotate, flip or distort it!

Click Edit > then click Transform > and select the action you desire.

Or try these shortcuts to make life even easier:

Press Ctrl + T on your keyboard and a bounding box will then appear around the image, indicating transformation. This means you can now resize your image. The best way to do so is by placing the cursor on one of the rectangle corners of the box and then dragging the corner while holding the Shift key. When you’re finished just press Enter and you’re done.

To flip your image vertically or horizontally press Ctrl + T and then right click your mouse. A popup window will appear with a few options for rotating and flipping the image. Select the action you want and when you are done press Enter.

To distort or skew an image press Ctrl + T and then place the cursor on whichever corner you want to distort. Press Ctrl while holding your mouse down on whichever corner of the image you’re looking to morph and drag it down to your desired point, finally press Enter to activate.

• Learning Keyboard Shortcuts

• V = move tool
• F – toggles through display screen modes
• Space bar = temporary hand key
• B – paintbrush tool
• D – sets the foreground/background colorss to default
• X – swaps between background and foreground color
• E – eraser tool
• S – stamp or cloning tool
• W – quick selection tool
• Ctrl+j – duplicates the selected layer

• Change Unit of Measure

You can change the units of measure that show up in your info panel, or that show up when you drag out a selection or the units of measure in the rulers that you can pull up around your document (Cmd/Ctrl + R).

Turn the rulers on by going Window->Rulers and then simply right-click the ruler anywhere and choose the unit of measure you prefer.

• Apply Layer Mask Trick

Adding a layer mask is as simple as pressing the new layer mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel. The default, however, is to have a mask filled with white which doesn’t hide the layer.

If we want the mask to be filled with black (and therefore hide the layer it’s applied to) the trick is to simply hold the Alt/Opt key while pressing the new layer mask button.

• Edit multiple text layers together

You don’t necessarily need to edit each text layer individually if you’re making the same changes to all of them. For example, hold down Ctrl or Cmd when selecting the text layers from the Layers window to snag multiple ones, then make your changes via the toolbar.

• Save files up to 20x faster

From Preferences, choose File Handling then check the Disable Compression of PSD and PSB Files box. Your layered files will no longer be compressed—and take up substantially more room on disk—but saving them will be significantly quicker.

• Insert dummy text

Many people use Photoshop to mock up layouts for websites and the printed page, and if you need to fill in an area with some dummy text then you don’t need to tire out your fingers typing it—just choose Paste Lorem Ipsum from the Type menu instead.

• Use any image as a brush

Open the Edit menu, then pick Define Brush Preset to use the current image (or selection) as a brush. White areas in the source image count as transparent and black areas are where the virtual ink will hit the virtual canvas, so tweak the picture accordingly.

• Be more precise with brushes

If you’ve got some precise editing to do, then the virtual brush tips Photoshop uses by default can obscure whatever it is you’re painting on (especially at larger sizes). Switch to a crosshair instead by going to Preferences then Cursors and changing the configuration.