13 Adobe Photoshop Shortcuts Every Designer Should Know

Adobe Photoshop is a highly desired raster graphic editing tool. Regarded as the most versatile design tool, it sees numerous applications in the field of website and mobile UI design. Apart from allowing users to edit images, Photoshop plays a prominent role in web design as well. It helps professional designers to create backgrounds, text, buttons and 3-D artwork for a voguish website design. Also, Animation experts use Photoshop’s multi-layered rendering feature to create intricate characters and backgrounds.

However, most of the designers are not aware of the Keyboard shortcuts that when used can boost the efficiency of the design work. So, let’s take a look at some of the mostly used Photoshop shortcuts to work more efficiently using Adobe Photoshop.

 

Mostly Used Adobe Photoshop Shortcuts

Z (Zoom Tool)- Brings in the zoom tool allowing you to zoom in. Similar to the hand tool, holding the Alt key, it temporarily shifts to the zoom out mode.

 

H (Hand Tool)- While already zoomed in a segment of your image, the H command brings in the hand tool allowing a quick panning. Moreover, if the hand tool is active, holding the Ctrl key, you can zoom in without switching to the zoom tool. Similarly, if you holding the Alt key, you can zoom out without even switching tools.

Ctrl + 0 (Fit image on the Screen)- A quick command to get the entire photo in the viewport. (Note: ctrl+zero, it’s not ‘o’)

 

B (Brushing Tool)- An extremely usable tool when dealing with masks, and designers use it in addition to the zoom and hand tool.

 

Ctrl + Z (Undo)- Widely known and one most useful shortcuts for getting rid of silly mistakes we make.

 

Tab (Show/Hide Palettes)- Hiding the palettes provides more room thereby avoiding to pan or zoom while editing.

 

[ (Decrease Brush Size)– Used to decrease brush size to enter the hard to reach areas.

 

] (Increase Brush Size)- Used to increase brush size to access larger areas.

 

Shift + [ (Reduce Brush Softness)- Reduces the softness of the brush to about 25%.

 

Shift + ] (Boosts Brush Softness)- Increase the softness of the brush to about 25%.

 

Ctrl + Shift + N- This brings in new layer dialog box and puts a new layer above the active layer.

 

Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N- This shortcut command does not import the dialog box and only places a new layer above the active layer.

 

Ctrl + Alt + Shift + K- In case you are unable to recall these commands or  want to learn about other commands, use this shortcut to bring the help dialog containing keyboard shortcuts.