Photoshop has many shortcuts for often used actions, and some of them can greatly help you paint faster and more efficient. Other shortcuts will make Photoshops interface less "in the way" and let you use all your creativity on a big canvas without annoying dialogs and menus. Shortcuts that handles the brushes are explained in the text above.

Note: Some stupid programs that interface with windows such as ICQ can sometimes be configured to take over some shortcuts. So if ICQ or another program pops up when you use these, check that programs configuration. I know ICQ has a setting to disabling this.

  

INTERFACE

TAB		Hide all dialogs and windows in Photoshop. Leaving an empty work-space where you can work with a big canvas without beeing distracted. Note: you can still paint. If you already know shortcuts for the most used tools then it should be a breeze.

SHIFT + TAB		Hides all dialogs and windows except the toolbox and the tool setting window. Good for quickly hiding the layer, history, info window and still be able to edit and paint on your painting.

F		Click F once to switch to full screen mode with menus. It will hide all open files and canvases, centering the current selection canvas. And the workspace around the canvas will be a grey color. Click F one more time to go from full screen mode with menus to a complete full screen mode without menus. The workspace will now be black. This mode combined with TAB will let you paint without any distraction only showing the canvas. THIS IS HOW I PAINT.

SHIFT + F		When working in full screen mode you can force the menu to be hidden or visible by pressing SHIFT + F. If the menus are hidden a little arrow will come on the top part of the toolbox. Clicking on this arrow will bring up the menu.

CTRL + H		In Adobe Photoshop 7 comes some annoying functions such as the slices. Although they can be very useful for a web designer such as myself, they become a burden for a painter. CTRL + H will hide all "extras" such as slices, guides, audio, notes selections and so on. If you press CTRL + H while these are hidden they will become visible once again. When starting on a new painting i always hide these elements directly.

CTRL + R		CTRL + R will hide or show rulers to the painting. Rulers can be a great tool when doing perspectives and web designs. If you click on the ruler and drag out to the canvas a guideline will be created. Using the move tool these guides can be moved or deleted. To delete a guide just drag it to the ruler or outside the canvas. A painter ordinary doesn't need the rulers to be visible.

CTRL + (+)		Shortcut for zooming in on the painting. Zooming is useful for adding details. When zoomed you can navigate on the canvas using the hand tool. A shortcut for this when your are painting is to hold down SPACEBAR.

CTRL + (-)		Shortcut for zooming out on the painting. When working on paintings for print, the size often increases to severeal thousand pixels in both height and width. It can be practical to paint in 25%, or 50% on a 5000 pixel big painting. When working out zoomed the painting looks best in 12.5%, 25% and 50%.

CTRL + ALT + (+)		This zoomes in on the painting and increases the canvas window according to the zoom.

CTRL + ALT + (-)		This zoomes out on the painting and decreases the canvas window according to the zoom.

ALT + MOUSE SCROLL UP		Most new mouses have a scroll mouse attached to itself. Some of these (most microsoft and logitech) can be used as a zoom shortcut in Photoshop. Scroll the scroller up to zoom in on the painting.

ALT + MOUSE SCROLL DOWN		Scroll the scroller down to zoom out on the painting.

CTRL + Z		Very useful :) Poor traditional artists, but when you start getting used to painting and you are getting good you don't use this feature as much as a beginner. Instead of undoing every missplaced stroke I simply paint over it and uses the faulty stroke as a texture. CTRL + Z will only undo latest change. Pressing undo again directly after undoing will undo the undoing :)

CTRL + ALT + Z		In Photoshop there is a history window, it stores all your actions. (max 99 actions, can be configured in photoshop settings). This shortcut will go one step back in the history window. Allowing you to undo multiple actions.

CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + Z		This shortcut will instead go one step forward in the history window. If you just have undone several steps and went one step to much. Use this shortcut to go forward again. It looks like a shortcut from hell but when you know it, it's very useful.

CTRL + B		Brings up the Color Balance window. I will in detail go over this further down in this tutorial.

CTRL + U		Brings up the Hue/Saturation window. I will in detail go over this further down in this tutorial.

CTRL + M		Brings up the Curves window. I will in detail go over this further down in this tutorial.

CTRL + T		Mostly useful when editing. If you have selected a part of a painting this will let you freely transform the selection. Can be useful for adding perfect reflections in water. I briefly explained this in my first Tutorial - 001 - Desirable Thirst.

CTRL + BACKSPACE		Fills a selection or the canvas with the current background color. I usually use this when starting on a new painting.

ALT + BACKSPACE		Fills a selection or the canvas with the current foreground color. I usually use this when starting on a new painting.

Click here to download Adobes Quick Reference paper.
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