Technology Author: Brian Jardine

If you work in Photoshop, you will know that projects can take a significant amount of time to complete if you do not use keyboard shortcuts. Shortcuts will help you activate tools, move layers top the top of the workspace, and even save for web. So, it makes sense that you would use keyboard shortcuts when working on your projects in order to get the job done in an acceptable time frame.

The first step in learning how to photo shop using your keyboard shortcuts is to learn some of the basic functions that are similar to other software out there. The common functions are copy, paste, save, print, paste, etc: Respectively, these are usually achieved by simply clicking on CNTRL and the first letter of the word, like CNTRL S to save. However, to paste, you will use CNTRL V instead of P, which is print. So, these are just the basic shortcuts.

But, the keyboard is more useful that you might think. For instance, if you wanted to copy a layer object and move it, you would click on the ALT key and then drag the object. This leaves the original object in place while moving the copied object over. This is a fast way to make duplicates of objects in a layer without having to drag the layer icon onto the new icon button in the layer pallet each time.

Using your keyboard to make selections is a great way to demonstrate how to photo shop at speed. You can select an object within a layer quite quickly and without using any marquee tools. Basically, in the layers pallet, you would click on the layer while holding the CNTRL key. You'll see that everything on that layer becomes selected. However, you will not select any negative space. This is really handy, as you could spend many hours making such a complex selection using the lasso tool on multiple layers.

Many photographers want to know how to photo shop quickly. After all, they have many photos to work on and get ready for their portfolio. Using keyboard shortcuts is the best way to speed up your work. Let's say you wanted to deselect a selection without going to the file menu. Well, all you need to do is click CNTRL D and you are done. Or, say you want to zoom into an area. Instead of clicking on the zoom tool, just hit Z on the keyboard. Now, you have accessed the zoom tool. It is that easy.

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