Adobe Photoshop 7.0

We love keystrokes. They make everything go much faster, or at least they make it feel like we’re working faster. Here are a few keystrokes that we use all the time while in dialog boxes.

Option. Holding down the Option key while in a dialog box almost always changes the Cancel button into a Reset button, letting you reset the dialog box to its original state (the way it was when you first opened it). If you want to go keystrokes the whole way, type Command-Option-period to do the same thing.

Command-Z. You already know Command-Z (what Seattle’s Mac user group calls “Just Undo It”), because it’s gotten you out of more jams than you care to think about. Well, Command-Z performs an undo within dialog boxes, too. It undoes the last change you made. We use this all the time when we mistype.

Arrow keys. Many dialog boxes in Photoshop have text fields where you enter or change numbers. You can change those numbers by pressing the Up or Down arrow keys. Press once, and the number increases or decreases by one. If you hold down the Shift key while pressing the arrow key, it changes by 10. (Note that some dialog boxes change by a tenth or even a hundredth; when you hold down Shift, they change by 10 times as much.) A few dialog boxes use the arrow keys in a different way, or don’t use them at all. In the Lens Flare filter, for instance, the arrow keys move the position of the effect, and arrow keys just don’t do anything in most of the Distort filters.

Tab key. As in most Macintosh and Windows applications, the Tab key selects the next text field in dialog boxes with multiple text fields. You can use this in conjunction with the previous tip in dialog boxes such as the Unsharp Mask filter, or you can simply tab to the next field and type in a number if you already know the value you want.

Dialog boxes seem like simple things, but since you probably spend a good chunk of your time in Photoshop looking at them, wouldn’t it be great to be more efficient while you’re there? Here are a bunch of tips that will let you fly through those pesky beasts.

Aligning two layers together is all well and good, but we often find we want to align something to the image canvas itself. For instance, you might want to center some text horizontally in the picture.

1. Press Command-A to select the whole image.
2. Select the layer you want to move.
3. If you want to align more than one layer, link those layers to the selected layer.
4. Choose from among the Align buttons in the Options bar or the Align to Selection submenu (under the Layer menu). If you choose the Horizontal Centers button, then Photoshop centers your layer to the selection (which, in this case, is the size of the canvas).

Note that when you have a selection, the Align Linked submenu changes to the Align to Selection submenu (which is why you have to deselect your selections before aligning two or more layers).

Page-layout programs have offered alignment features for years, but this capability first appeared in Photoshop 5, and it’s a godsend for anyone who really cares about precision in their images (we find it particularly useful when building images for the Web). Here’s how you can align objects on two layers.

1. Choose which layer you want “locked”—that is, which one stays put while the other layer moves—by selecting it in the Layers palette.
2. Click in the second column of the Layers palette next to the layer you want to move (a link icon should appear next to it). If you want to align more than two layers, link all of them.
3. Make sure you have no selections by pressing Command-D (or choosing Deselect from the Select menu), and then choose among the options on the Align Linked submenu (under the Layer menu). Or, even faster, click on one of the Align buttons in the Options bar. If you don’t deselect first, Photoshop aligns to the selection instead of to the layers.

4. When you’re done aligning objects, don’t forget to turn off the link icon in the Layers palette (unless you want these layers to be linked so that they move in tandem from now on).

If you select three or more layers (or, to be more precise, select one layer in the Layers palette, and then link two or more other layers to it), you can also distribute the layers instead of aligning them. For example, if you have four small pictures that you want evenly spread across your Photoshop image, you could put each one on a separate layer, link them all together, and choose Horizontal Centers from the Distribute Linked submenu (under the Layer menu).

Note that Distribute Linked doesn’t care which layers are selected and which are linked. When distributing layers vertically, Photoshop “locks” the layers that are closest to the top and the bottom of the image canvas; when distributing horizontally, it locks the left-most and right-most layers. All the layers in between get moved. For example, if you choose Vertical Centers from the Distribute Linked submenu, Photoshop moves the layers so that there is an equal amount of space from the vertical center point of one layer to the next.

We think this interface is pretty clunky (after all, when you link layers together, they aren’t supposed to move independently of each other), but once you align or distribute layers once or twice, you’ll find that it’s not that bad.

You can add a guide to a page by dragging it out from either the horizontal or vertical ruler. Or, if you care about specific placement, you can either carefully watch the measurements on the Info palette as you drag, or select New Guide from the View menu. (If you don’t think in inches, you can change the default measurement system; see “Switch Units,” later in this chapter.) You can always move a guide with the Move tool (don’t forget you can always get the Move tool temporarily by holding down the Command key). There is a list of grids and guides keystrokes that can help you use these features effortlessly.

Hide/Show All Extras (grids, guides, etc.) – Command-H

Hide/Show Guides – Command-’ (quote)

Hide/Show Grid – Command-Option-’

Snap To Guides – Command-; (semicolon)

Lock/Unlock Guides – Command-Option-;

Snap to Ruler Marks. We almost always hold down the Shift key when dragging guides out from a ruler; that way, the guide automatically snaps to the ruler tick marks. If you find that your guides are slightly sticky as you drag them out without the Shift key held down, check to see what layer you’re on. When Snap To Guides is turned on, objects snap to the guides and guides snap to the edges and centers of objects on layers.

Most Photoshop 7.0 users can’t envision a world without Cut and Paste. However, there are times to use the clipboard and times not to. In Photoshop 7.0, you often want to avoid the clipboard because you’re dealing with large amounts of data. Every time you move something to or from the clipboard, you eat up more RAM, or hard drive space, which can slow you down.

If you want to move a selection of pixels (or a layer) from one document to another, you can do so by dragging it from one window into the other (if you’ve got a selection, remember to use the Move tool, or else you’ll just move the selection boundary itself). Photoshop 7.0 moves the pixels “behind the scenes,” so as to avoid unneeded memory requirements. If you’re trying to copy an entire layer, you can also just click on its tile in the Layers palette and drag it to the other document’s window.

Layers are a fact of life, and with Photoshop 7.0 it’s not uncommon to find yourself with more layers than you know what to do with. If you make a selection and select Copy, you only get the pixels on the currently active layer (the one selected on the Layers palette). If you want to copy all the visible layers, select Copy Merged instead (or press Command-Shift-C).

However, we find some people using this technique in order to make a merged copy of the entire image (not just a selection). Sure, you can do it, but it’s faster and less memory-intensive to use the Duplicate feature (under the Image menu) and turn on the Merged Layers Only checkbox. (This label makes no sense to us; it really should be called “Merge Visible Layers in Duplicate.”)

One of the problems with layers is that you often can’t do the same thing to more than one layer at the same time. But remember: there are always workarounds!

If you want to move more than one layer at a time with the Move tool, you can link the layers by clicking in the second column of the Layers palette. Whichever layer tile you click on (other than the one that’s already active) is linked with the current layer. Now when you use the Move tool (with no selections), both layers move.

If you simply make a selection, then drag it with one of the selection tools, you move the selection boundary but not its contents. If you want the pixels to move as well, you have to use the Move tool. Fortunately, no matter what tool is selected, you can always temporarily get the Move tool simply by holding down the Command key. Note that you can hold down the Option key while you drag to copy the pixels as you move them (moving a duplicate of the pixels).

When you move or copy selected pixels with the Move tool, you get a floating selection (sort of like a temporary layer that disappears when you deselect). While the selection is still floating, you can use the Fade command (in the Filter menu) to change its opacity or blend mode.

With the Move tool, you can move an entire layer around without selecting anything. When you do have something selected, you don’t have to worry about positioning the cursor before you click and drag. This is a great speedup, especially when working with heavily feathered selections.

Arrow Keys Move, Too. When moving pixels around, don’t forget the arrow keys. With the Move tool selected, each press of the key moves the contents of your selection by one pixel. If you add the Shift key, the selection moves 10 pixels. Modifier keys work, too: hold down the Option key when you first press an arrow key, and the selection is duplicated, floated, and moved one pixel (don’t keep holding down the Option key after that, unless you want a lot of duplicates).

Remember that you can always get the Move tool temporarily by adding the Command key to any of the above shortcuts. Pressing the arrow keys with any tool other than the Move tool moves the selection without moving the pixels it contains. This is an essential technique for precision placement of a selection.

If you’ve got the Move tool selected (press V), and nothing is selected when you press the arrow keys, the entire layer moves by one pixel. Add the Shift key to move 10 pixels instead.

The Navigator palette acts as command central for all scrolling and zooming. We rarely use this palette because we find that it’s usually either too precise or not precise enough, and it takes too much mousing around. Of course, this is largely a personal bias on our part; if you find it useful, more power to you.

Most of the palette is occupied by a thumbnail of the image, with a red frame indicating the contents of the active window. (If your image has a lot of red in it, you might want to change the frame color by choosing Palette Options from the palette’s popout menu). Dragging the outline pans the contents of the active window. Command-dragging lets you define a new outline, thereby changing the zoom percentage.

The percentage field at the lower left of the palette works exactly like the one at the lower left of the image window. Clicking the zoom-in and zoom-out buttons has the same effect as pressing Command-plus and Command-minus. David’s favorite feature in this palette is the magnification slider, which lets him change the zoom level dynamically. It’s not a particularly useful feature, but it’s mighty fun.