PhotoShop Shortcuts At A Glance

Fill layers or selections without the Paint Bucket

There are several ways to accomplish this:

Through the Fill dialogue box: Press SHIFT + BACKSPACE. This opens the Fill dialog box. You can then choose one of several options including Foreground colour, Background colour, pattern and more.

To fill the area with the foreground colour, press ALT + BACKSPACE.

Fill only non-transparent pixels:

• To fill only the non-transparent pixels of an area with the Foreground colour, press ALT + SHIFT + BACKSPACE.
• To fill only the non-transparent pixels of an area with the Background colour, press CTRL + SHIFT + BACKSPACE.

This includes partially transparent areas, which means that if an object is feathered, the action will fill (partially) the partially transparent pixels. This allows you to keep shadows and feathered items looking identical to the way you originally designed them.

Free up space on the scratch disk

Every PS user out there must have experienced the problem of the scratch disk, so here's a solution.

PhotoShop isn't exactly good at handling disk space, and the way to flush the scratch disk is to save more information on it! It sounds silly, but if you create a really small file, say 1x1 pixel and save it as a PSD, then this will pull the chain and flush the scratch, allowing you to save your big file.

Or you can choose EDIT > PURGE > ALL or

EDIT > PURGE > CLIPBOARD

Hide palettes and rulers

Press the TAB key to toggle the palettes between 'visible' and 'invisible'.

Hide the effects of a Mask layer

Hold down the SHIFT button and click the Mask layer icon.

Hide the marching ants

Press CTRL+H (but don't forget to put it back as soon as you can!)

Interact with Layers without using the Layers palette

There are several ways to do this.

To select a layer without the layers palette:

1. Position your mouse over the layer you wish to change to and press CTRL + right mouse button.


2. A menu of the layers will be displayed directly underneath the cursor ed.


3. Press CTRL + ALT + right mouse button, and the upper-most layer that has an object on it will be selected.

Note, in version 6, transparency (or opacity) lower than around 30% will prevent you from selection a layer with the second option.

To move layers without using the layers palette:

• Move a layer down one level, press CTRL + [
• Move a layer up one level, press CTRL + ]
• Move a layer to the bottom, press CTRL + SHIFT + [
• Move a layer to the top, press CTRL + SHIFT + ]

To select layers without using the layers palette:

• Select a layer down one level, press ALT + [
• Select a layer up one level, press ALT + ]
• Select the bottom layer, press ALT + SHIFT + [
• Select the top layer, press ALT + SHIFT + ]

Invert a selection

Press CTRL + SHIFT + I

Invert an image's colours

Press CTRL + I

Load Channels without using the Channels palette

To quickly see what channels are available to you, press CTRL and 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. This will display a greyscale version of that colour channel (CTRL + ~ takes you back to the composite channel).

To actually load the selection from a channel, hold down CTRL + ALT + [number].