8 Photoshop Tricks I Wish I Knew When I Was a Student

August 8th, 2011 by Stphanie Walter | Tutorials

Photoshop is one of the (if not THE) most well known

software used in the design industry whenit comes to
manipulating images and pixels. As a web designer I
had some Photoshop lessons at school but that was 2
years ago. Today the software has evolved, more
options are available, and I also learn a few tricks while
practicing.
You will find in this article eight tricks I wish I knew
when I was astudent (or wish existed in previous
Photoshop versions) . These are the kind of tricks that
could make your workflow faster and your life easier.
Easier Illustrator-like Layer Auto-Select
As I do a lot of logo / UI design, I wont hide it, Im a
huge fan of Illustrator. One of the things I like the most
when working withillustrator is the fact that whenever
you select something, you can see the actual selection
on the working space. You can also click on whatever
you want to edit, and it will be selected.
In Photoshop by default you have to go and select what
you want to work on in the layer panel, and use a CTRL
+ click on the element to select it, or right-click
somewhere in the working space and youll get a list of
your layers (good luck if you did not rename them).
Fortunately, theres a simple tip to make Photoshop
behave like illustrator. When you select the Move Tool
(V key) you will see in the option bar a check box "auto-

select" and a drop down list next to it. Check the box,
and put layer in the drop down list. Know, whenever
you click onan element that was not locked,it is
selected in your layers panel.
You can also check the "show transform controls" if you
want to see some transform controls around your
elements and be able to resize them directly, Illustrator
style.
Bonus point: you can select multiple layers by drawing
a rectangle around them like in illustrator (still using
move tool and not marquee tool) .
Get Better & Quicker Control on Your Current Tool
Size
Usually to change the size of a tool, you can either use
the drop-down list in the options bar, or right click in
the middle of the document that will open apop-up. But
did you know that you could change the size of thetool
you are working with, in a far more precise way by only
using your mouse and the ALT key?
The technique is pretty simple. FIRST hold ALT key and
THEN right click on the mouse, you then will see a red
circle appear.This is the current tool size. Move your
mouse to the right: the size of the tool gets bigger,
move it to the left: the tool getssmaller.
Bonus point: If you move it to the top and the tool
hardness will decrease, move it to the bottom, and the
tool hardness will increase. This trick works with all the
tools that can get a specific size and hardness.
Take Advantage of Multiple Windows

If you go and take a look in the windows menu, you will

see under 'Arrange' the option "new windows for ZZZ" .
Thisoption will duplicate your currentdocument in a new
window. The nice part about this is that changes will
affect both windows, it is basically just a second view of
the same document.
Then youll ask, why would I want to open the same
document in two windows? Ill give you two examples
for using this tip.
Lets say that you are working on a document that will
be both used for web AND print, you might want to
have a preview ofyour document in CMYK right? Here
comes the handy part of the trick: you can still work in
anRGB environment on your document, while
previewing whatit will look like in CMYK. Go to window
> arrange > new window for XXX. Then set the view of
this document to "proof colors" (CTRL+Y) .
Now you can keep on working onyour document in
RGB, while seeing what it would look like forthe print
version.
Another use would be while working with layer masks.
To display a layer mask in full screen option, you just
have to press ALT + click on the layer mask. You should
then get a layer of black and white colors,
corresponding to your layer mask. It is pretty hard to
work on that layer, since you don't really see what you
are doing.
Here again we could open our document on a new
window, andthen get side by side the layer mask
preview and our image. Wecould then do more precise

workon the layer mask and see results on the other

window.
Unleash the Power of Clipping Masks
Clipping masks are very useful incomplex Photoshop
creations. They enable you to work, using another layer
as a frame. Basically, whatever is created in a clipping
mask will only affect the layer below it. We can see an
example with some text.
In the example below, I created a text layer. Then I
added an empty layer, and clipped it to the text. I used
a brush to drawpink leaves above the text and as you
can see, the brush can't go "outside" of the text layer. If
I release my clipping mask, I thensee that what I
created was actually not cut, just hidden.
To create a clipping mask above a layer, you just have
to hold down the ALT key while clicking on the create
new layer icon. Then the new layer dial box appears,
and you can just check "Use previous layer to create
clipping mask" . You can also achieve this with the keys
shift+ CTRL + N.
Easily Create a Selectionfrom a Layer or Mask
By clicking on the thumbnail of a layer and holding
down the CTRLkey, you will create a selection based on
the layer clicked. Once again this can be very useful to
select text for example, but alsocomplex shapes.
The great thing about this trick is that it will work on
layers, butalso on masks. You can for example select
the shape of a vector mask.
Puppet Warp Transform

To transform an image using puppet warp transform,

simply click on edit > puppet warp . The image will be
then scatteredwith a mosaic of lines. At the junction of
each line, you can place a pin. You will need at leasttwo
pins on the image.
The active pin is symbolized by ayellow disc with a
second black one, inactive pins are simply yellow discs.
With puppet warp you can move a part of the image
while the other parts dont move. Just pin the parts of
the image you don't want to move, and play with the
other ones.
Here is an example of what can be achieved, let's make
the Statue of Liberty dance:
Image credit: Mr G's Travels
You can delete a pin by holding ALT and hovering over
the pin with the mouse, you can also get a rotating
circle around the active pin with this same ALT key.
Use the Styles to Save Useful Effect Presets
Another Illustrator feature I really like is the "graphic
styles" panel which enables you to save any element
style you create. This is particularly useful when you do
a lot of GUI design, lots of buttons and you want to be
able to re-use a graphical style you created. This
feature is also possible in Photoshop.
Once you are finished playing with your drop shadow,
inner shadows, etc. options, you can see that there is a
tab at the top of the layer style named styles . You
might never have noticed that, but you can click on it.

Then you can simply click on the "New style" button,

and save your style.
Another way would be to select the layer that has the
style you want to save, open the style panel on the
right (you might have to activate it in view) and click
the little new icon (same icon as new layer in fact)
,then save it.
In this panel, you can also see all the other styles that
were saved (or default Photoshop ugly styles) . To apply
a style to an element, first select the layer. Then you
have got two solutions:
*. Select the style you want to apply from the styles
panel.
*. Use the option bar drop down style list. For this
option to appear, the rectangle Tool (U) must be your
active tool.
Another cool feature about styles is the ability to save,
share and load them, so that you can create a complete
library of styles. In order to export styles, open the
styles panel and click on the top right down-pointing
arrow, to open the presets manager.
From there you can save your styles. By default none is
selected, and you will have to select all the styles you
want tosave. You can use the same panel to load some
other saved styles libraries.
Don't Cancel Adjustments, Reset Them
Curves and level adjustments can be hard to master,
especially at the beginning. Sometimes some level
combination or other adjustments just don't fit quite

well in the design, and the designer has to start over.

The common way to do that would be to press the
cancel button, and re-open the adjustment boxwe were
working with.
But there's a little trick that helps win some time here:
when you want to cancel a curve, instead of directly
clicking on thecancel button, hold the ALT key. The
cancel button disappears, and is replaced by a reset
button.
Clicking on the reset button will, well, reset the curve
(or any adjustments you were working on) and you can
startall over again.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are plentyof things we can easily
achieve with Photoshop. I hope you enjoyed these 8
little tricks. If you have more tricks, don't hesitate to
share them with us in the comments below!