Friday Tips: #2

It's tip day once again! Here are a few tips that I use to make work in Photoshop and Lightroom a bit easier:

• In Photoshop, when you make a mistake you want to hit Ctrl-Z to undo, right? Well, if you make a few mistakes in a row and need to undo multiple times you may notice when you Ctrl-Z again it isn't undoing but rather redoing. It's an easy fix. Under Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts, replace the shortcut for "Step Backward" with Ctrl-Z (you will be told in the info area that it will remove it from "Undo/Redo" but that's OK. Now, when you hit Ctrl-Z it will take you back one step in the history each time instead of just toggling back and forth.
• When you hold down Alt while adjusting the exposure or black levels in Lightroom or ACR the image will temporarily go black or white, respectively, to show you the highlight/shadow clipping as you move the sliders.
• Ever have a lot of documents open and get annoyed by having to close each one when you're done? Holding down the Shift key in Photoshop while closing a single document will close all open documents. Haven't saved everything yet? You will still have a chance to save any unsaved documents before they close.
• When using shape or selection tools you may know that holding down the Shift key will constrain the proportions to perfect squares or circles and that holding the Alt key will grow your shape/selection from the center. If you add the Spacebar to that, you can move your selection around to make sure it is properly aligned with what you are trying to select. Give it a try and you will quickly learn how great it is to use!