7 Helpful Adobe Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

1. Open A New Document

Every project has a beginning. Starting something new is one of the easiest things to do in Photoshop. Don’t be intimated by all of the new options available to you. Just use this handy shortcut for a new document and get started immediately.

Shortcuts For Creating A New Document:

Mac: Cmd + N

Windows: Ctrl + N

2. Saving A Document

One of the first rules of working in a digital application, is save your work often, and save it to multiple locations. So many times, people lose important documents because they forgot to save their work. Keyboard shortcuts are here to save the day! You can avoid wasting hours recreating projects by using the Save and Save As commands in Photoshop. The Save command will save your document’s current state to a specified location. The Save As command will allow you to save your document’s current state to a new location. Think of it as saving an additional copy of your work.

Shortcuts For The Save And Save As Commands

Shortcuts For The Save Command

Mac: Cmd + S

Windows: Ctrl + S

Shortcuts For The Save As Command

Mac: Shift + Cmd + S

Windows: Shift + Ctrl + S

3. Closing A Document

Congratulations, you’ve finished working on your project. Wait! Don’t just get up and walk away from it! Close that document before you leave. You wouldn’t want someone coming behind you and changing all your hard work. You don’t know how to close that document quickly? Not problem! There’s a keyboard shortcut for that.

Shortcuts For Closing Documents

Mac: Cmd + W

Windows: Ctrl + W

4. Access The Free Transform Option

The ability to move and scale objects is a great feature of Photoshop. There are tons of tools to warp and distort objects, but we’re going to focus on the basic Free Transform tool. With the Free Transform tool, you can change the scale, rotation and location of the currently selected object.

Shortcuts To Access The Free Transform Tool

Mac: Cmd + T

Windows: Ctrl + T

5. Changing Brush Sizes

When people think of brushes in Photoshop, they often think of the Brush Tool. While the Brush Tool is one of the most common ways to use brushes, it is by no means the only way to use brushes in Photoshop. Many other tools such as the Healing Tools, Selection Tools and Pattern Tools all operate using brushes. The tool you’re using and the size of your document will play a huge role in what size brush you need. Also, many fine details in a document will require you to increase and decrease your brush size numerous times within a few short minutes.

Shortcuts For Changing Brush Sizes

Decreasing The Size Of A Brush:

Mac:

Windows:

Increasing The Size Of A Brush:

Mac: ]

Windows: ]

6. Managing The Foreground And Background Colors

The foreground and background colors are used to determine the colors of what you’re paining or working on. The default foreground and background colors are black and white. There are some great keyboard shortcuts for working with the foreground and background colors. At first glance, you might be wondering why someone would need to activity manage these colors. There are several reasons why you might need to manage these colors, but a very common reason is masking. In masking, you’re hiding and revealing certain parts of an image. The color black is typically used to hide something, and the color white is typically used to reveal something. So, you might find yourself switching between black and white frequently during a masking session. Also, having your foreground and background color set to the default is important for proper masking.

Shortcuts For Managing The Foreground And Background Colors

Shortcuts Setting The Foreground And Background Colors To Their Defaults:

Mac: D

Windows: D

Shortcuts For Swapping The Foreground And Background Colors:

Mac: X

Windows X

7. Quickly Access The Type Tool

A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes you need to use words. When that time comes, you’ll be prepared because you’ll have the Type Tool shortcut memorized and ready to go! All of your friends will be so impressed with your Photoshop skills and agility!

Shortcuts For Accessing The Type Tool

Mac: T

Windows: T