Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts – Visual Cheat Sheet
If you are a photographer, then chances are that – like me – you spend a lot of time reworking images in Photoshop. I really enjoy Photoshop work, but I enjoy getting to the finished product and I never want a task to take any longer than it needs to. For this reason, I am a huge fan of using keyboard shortcuts.
Photoshop is an incredibly powerful piece of software; however, it is only powerful if you know how to use it. Now, keyboard shortcuts won’t improve your Photoshop skills – but it will save you lots of time by making your work more efficient.
Keyboard shortcuts save a LOT of time by substantially decreasing the amount of mouse movement that is required to get something done. It only take a second to slide the mouse across to the side and select the tool that you want to work on; however, this time really adds up when you consider how often you swap between tools and change settings – especially when you are working on a large number of images.
Remembering Keyboard Shortcuts
I struggle to remember keyboard shortcuts until have used them for a while – so cheat sheets like this are fantastic. I especially like this one because it is visual – which means it is even quicker to see the option that you want.
Print a copy of this cheat sheet and keep it on your desk. After a few weeks you will remember the shortcuts that you use the most and only occasionally reference the cheat sheet for the more obscure options that you use less often.
Get Your Free Copy
Download a copy of the Photoshop keyboard shortcut visual cheat sheet from Remedy9. The cheat sheet was originally created by Kenneth Setzer, and you can download his original version from over on the Smashing Magazine blog, including the .psd file.
My Favourite Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts
These are some of the shortcuts that I have learned over the years that I find the most useful, and which save me the most amount of time when I am working in Photoshop.
Top 10 Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts for Photographers
If you are going to learn any shortcuts, this would be a great place to start. These are the the shortcuts I use the most:
1. Space bar – Hold down to get the Hand tool
2. B – Select the Brush tool
3. V – Select the Move tool
4. G – Paint Bucket tool
5. M – Select the Marquee tool
6. X – Alternate between foreground and background colours – this is a massive time saver when your are working with masked layers
7. ctrl+Z – Undo/Redo last action. Repeated presses will alternates between undo and redo of the last action
8. ctrl+alt+Z – Undo. Repeated presses will continue to undo in the order that they were completed
9. Pressing [ or ] to change the brush size (I use this one a lot!)
10. Hold ctrl and press - or + to zoom in or out
Other Useful Photshop Keyboard Shortcuts
These are other keyboard shortcuts that I also use on a regular basis:
I – Select the eyedropper tool
ctrl+shift+I – invert selection
ctrl+D – Deselect a selection
ctrl+T – transform
ctrl+J – duplicate layer
ctrl+E – merge current layer down
ctrl+G – add all selected layers to a group
Advanced Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts
If you are looking for something more advanced, Smashing Magazine recently published a post with a comprehensive list of obscure and advanced Photoshop keyboard shortcuts.
