The 40 essential shortcuts for a photographer in Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is one of the most important programs to reveal (or edit, if we prefer to call it that) our photographs. If we want to go faster and lose less time, it is very interesting to learn keyboard shortcuts. Most of the functions and tools are assigned a key or set of keys to avoid digging through the menus, so we are going to show you the most useful ones for everyday use.

Learning the keyboard shortcuts of any program will allow us to work faster. We will have to make room in our heads for so much data, but in exchange we will gain time to focus on what is really valuable, which is getting the best photograph.

We are going to focus on the most useful Adobe Photoshop keyboard shortcuts for photographers. Sure Alt + Mayus + Ctrl + R It may be perfect for those who want to interpret a 3D layer, but it is something that is far from the most classic photography. Today we are going to focus on pure photography.

The most interesting keyboard shortcuts for photographers in Adobe Photoshop

If you want to know them all, remember that you only have to go to Alt + Mayus + Ctrl + K to find them. It’s funny, but there is a keyboard shortcut for the menu Editing> Keyboard Shortcuts. In this window you find everything, from the tool shortcuts, to the application and panel menus and even to the Work spaces.

You can change them to suit the way you work. It can be very comfortable if you come from another program. However, I recommend memorizing the preset shortcuts to avoid problems if you change versions or computers.

And I’m going to put the shortcuts for Windows. In most cases, if you’re on a Mac, you’ll just need to replace Ctrl for Cmd Y Alt for Opt. And unfortunately there are shortcuts -very few- that only work on one system… Ahhh… and we’re also going to see some other shortcuts with the mouse, of course. To make the search easier, I am going to group them according to their function within the program. If you know any that is practical and we have not mentioned it here, do not hesitate to collaborate.

Tools

Those of us who see photography from a classical point of view do not need to use all the available tools. We get by with very few. For this reason we can memorize all the shortcuts we need:

• Left click on the tool for half a second: all the similar tools that are grouped there are displayed.
• Left Click+Space: Move the photo around the interface.
• Move the mouse wheel: zoom in on the photo.
• L: Ribbon
• B: Brush tool
• M: rectangular frame
• S: Cloner buffer
• J: Spot correction brush

Virtually every tool has a shortcut, but we don’t need to learn all of them. Nothing more than those that are part of our routine. Modification tools, such as Brush tool The Cloner buffer share some very practical shortcuts to work:

• questions: change the Diameter of the tool
• Numeric keyboard: change the Opacity of the tool
• Shift+numpad: modify the Flow of the tool
• right mouse button+alt: Change Hardness (up/down) and Diameter (left/right) of Brush tool

Interface

It is important to have control of the program’s interface to be able to see a detail in detail, to be able to enlarge or reduce the file or even rotate it if we are doing a dodge&burn.

• Ctrl++: enlarge the image
• Ctrl+´: reduce the image
• Ctrl+0: fit image to interface space
• Ctrl+1: enlarge the image to 100%
• Tab: hide/show tools and panels
• F: Select the different Screen Modes
• R: Rotate the canvas

Shortcuts to work without interruptions

When developing a file, we may need to create new layers, duplicate them, or hundreds of other things. Here I am going to put the ones that can be used the most on a day-to-day basis. It depends above all on your type of photography, not all of us use the same ones.

• Ctrl+N: New document
• Mayús+Ctrl+N: Create a new empty layer
• Ctrl+J: Duplicate layer or selection
• Alt+Ctrl+A: Select all layers
• Ctrl+S: Save a file
• Alt+Mayus+Ctrl+S: Save a file for web (legacy). It is still the best option.
• Ctrl+W: Close a file
• Ctrl+Z: Step back (we can go back to the initial step)
• Mayús+Ctrl+Z: Step Forward (go forward to the last step in the History window)
• Ctrl+D: Deselect
• Ctrl+T: Free transformation
• Ctrl+I: Invert layers and masks
• Mayús+Ctrl+I: Reverse the selection
• Alt+click layer visibility icon: Turn off the visibility of all layers except the one you’re checking
• Ctrl+Y: If you have configured the profile of the paper you print on (View>Test Settings), you can see how it will look on the screen

These are the keyboard shortcuts that I use on a daily basis. On occasion, I use some other tool or function, such as Adaptive Width Angle (Alt + Mayus + Ctrl + A) to make all the lines parallel, or look at the Color Settings again (Mayús+Ctrl+K) or I go directly to the preferences of the program (Ctrl+K)