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Top 10 Killer Photoshop Combo Moves
Is time kickin’ your ass? Well, learn to defend yourself! Master these killer Photoshop keyboard combos and you’ll find yourself with more time for the important things (e.g. Facebook trivia questions). These combos assume you’re using Photoshop CS3 on Windows platform with default keyboard shortcuts.
Legend:
( ) = Repeat as desired
{ } = Manual Input Required
10. Cloak of Invisibility
Remove everything from the screen except for your file.
- F, F, F | Cycle through Screen Modes
- Tab | Remove Tools and Palettes
- Ctrl+H | Hide Extras (Grid, Guides, Slices, etc.)
- Ctrl+R | Hide Rulers
9. Quick Brush Jab
Quickly and easily customize a brush. This combo is a staple for digital painting.
- B | Brush Tool
- Right-Click and Select or F5 and Select | Open condensed or full Brush Palette
- or . or , or Shift+. or Shift+, | Cycle through brushes or jump to first or last brush
- [ or ]: | Shrink or enlarge brush radius
- Shift+[ or Shift+] | Decrease or increase brush hardness
- {Numeric Input} | Change brush opacity (e.g. ‘5′ = 50%, ‘55′ = 55%)
8. Quick Brush Jab Path Stroke
Stroke a path with a customized brush.
- {Draw Path} | Use any tool to draw a path
- B | Select Brush Tool
- Quick Brush Jab | Use the Quick Brush Jab Combo to customize brush
- Enter | Stroke the path with your customized brush
7. Gaussian Attack
Apply a filter, fade it and apply again. Good combo for fine-tweaking filters.
- {Apply a Filter} | Manually choose and apply a filter (warning: using the Lens Flare filter may result in a swift kick to the mouse balls)
- Ctrl+Shift+F | Fade the filter
- (Ctrl+F or Ctrl+Shift+F) | Reapply filter with or without dialog box
6. Shadow Maker
Create a basic shadow based on a chosen layer.
- {Select Layer} | Select the layer the shadow will be created after. The transparency of this layer needs to resemble the desired shape of the shadow.
- Ctrl+J | Layer via Copy
- Ctrl+[ | Move layer down
- D | Reset color defaults
- Alt+Shift+Backspace | Fill with black and preserve transparency
- Ctrl+T | Free transform
- {Transform} | Modify to your liking
- Enter | Commit
5. Layer Catcher
Select, group and mask layers. Often easier than using the layers palette.
- V | Selection Tool
- Ctrl+Click or Ctrl+Shift+Click or Ctrl+Shift+Right-Click | Select your layers
- Ctrl+G | Group Layers
4. OCD Layer Sort
Rearrange your layers quickly and easily. Great cure for you neuroticism.
- F7 | Show Layer Palette
- Alt+[ or Alt+] or Alt+, or Alt+. | Select a layer
- Shift+Alt+[ or Shift+Alt+] or Shift+Alt+, or Shift+Alt+. | Select more layers
- Ctrl+[ or Ctrl+] or Shift+Ctrl+[ or Shift+Control+] | Move layers down or up or send to bottom or bring to top
3. Ultimate Flattener
Merge All Layers (even those hidden). Quick way to flatten a file.
- Alt+. | Select Top Layer
- Shift+Alt+, | Select all layers between currently selected and bottom layer
- Ctrl+E | Merge the selected layers
2. Infinite Dupe
Duplicate and evenly distribute or transform items. Nice way to distribute something like nav buttons.
- Ctrl+T | Transform
- {Transform/Move} | Manually Move or Transform
- Enter | Commit Transform
- (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T) | Duplicate and transform relative to the newest item
1. Finishing Move – The Web Extractor
Extract a selection and save it for the web. Extremely useful when pulling individual elements from a design, such as buttons or rules.
- {Create Selection} | Select the area you want to extract
- Ctrl+Shift+C | Copy Merged to clipboard
- Ctrl+N | Create New Image based on selection size
- Enter | Confirm New Image
- Ctrl+V | Paste from clipboard
- Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S | Save for the Web
Editor’s note
This post is one of the finalists of our guest author contest. Over three weeks selected top-10-lists and discussion articles will be published. To rate the articles we’ll analyze their popularity, users activity, quality of backlinks, traffic and further data.
Tom Giannattasio resides in Bethesda, Maryland, where he works as a Web designer and Flash developer. His personal website, attasi, showcases his most recent work.
- 95 Comments
- 1
- 2August 13th, 2008 1:04 am
Not a bad list.
- 3August 13th, 2008 1:06 am
Flawless Victory!
Brilliant as usual!
- 4August 13th, 2008 1:08 am
Please make a cheat cheet ;-)
- 5August 13th, 2008 1:08 am
Great, infinite dupe is extremely helpful. Cloak of invisibilty aswell, but knew that before.
- 6August 13th, 2008 1:16 am
Yep, all the combo’s I use on a daily basis. Love the keyboard!
- 7August 13th, 2008 1:29 am
Good article – though it’s not really a “Top Ten List” – not the authors fault really since SM put the restrictions on the contest.
A top ten list should have some sort of priority or order in the list from good to bad or bad to good – this is nothing other than a list (though a good one) of Photoshop shortcuts in no order whatsoever. For example, as a pure graphic designer, I never use #2 / #1 as I have no need for them (though copy selection to new image is of course handy).
Anyway, just a shame that this article couldn’t have been more free to be like “Killer Photoshop Combo Moves!” and not worry about the Top Ten structure. I bet the author could have made 15 / 20 (or even more) that would have been even better!
All in all, good work. No idea how 1200 character articles are going to try and compete with monsters like this though…
- 8August 13th, 2008 1:29 am
Definitely the best contest article so far. “Finish him” move (Mortal Kombat paraphrase) has been my favorite combo for years now.
- 10August 13th, 2008 1:34 am
an even quicker way to merge the layers quickly, is simply to hit ctrl+shift+alt+e this makes a new layer with all the visible layers merged.
- 11August 13th, 2008 1:36 am
I love this article especially because it reminds me of fighting games. Now I’m going to use photoshop and think I’m a Tekken character. It just totally makes PS more fun!
- 12August 13th, 2008 1:45 am
Great list, there’s quite a few there I didn’t know. :o
- 13August 13th, 2008 1:45 am
Does anyone know how can you select color in Photoshop from Firefox? Once I saw that trick but I forgot shortkeys.
- 14August 13th, 2008 2:14 am
Simply the best
- 15August 13th, 2008 2:23 am
This is an fantastic article. The title really caught my eye in Google Reader ;D
- 16August 13th, 2008 2:24 am
Good work. Usefull
- 17August 13th, 2008 2:48 am
Thanks for the list, but, will there be a MAC version?
- 18August 13th, 2008 3:05 am
Agreed- would it have been so hard to add in the mac versions too?!
Cool idea for a post though
- 19August 13th, 2008 3:44 am
maybe a little pedantic but intro goes “These combos assume you’re using Photoshop CS3 on Windows platform.” Then the main image is of a Mac?
Good and useful article, best so far of competition entries.
- 20August 13th, 2008 4:11 am
That’s a superb title image. I like how it’s slightly tilted and shows the edge of the MacBook Pro screen, too. A “how to make” tutorial might be in suitable order!
- 21August 13th, 2008 4:41 am
مختصر و مفید
- 22August 13th, 2008 4:51 am
Excuse me, I’m Italian and I don’t totally get the meaning of the word “combo”. Is it something like actions?
- 23August 13th, 2008 5:14 am
alt+shift+ctrl+K — and all shortcut u can learn manualy. And what good in that post?
- 24August 13th, 2008 5:20 am
@Carrie..
No, there won’t. A Mac version may, however.
- 25August 13th, 2008 5:29 am
Thanks for this reminder!
Loved the names!
“taste a taste of my gaussian attack, you evil multi-layered-rasterized psd!!!!!”
^_^ - 26August 13th, 2008 5:50 am
Thanks for putting the Mac equivalents…
- 27August 13th, 2008 5:54 am
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S is my bestfriend
- 28August 13th, 2008 5:57 am
Hey everyone. Thanks for checking out my article! In response to some of the comments, tonight I’m going to whip up a printable cheat sheet which will include the Mac shortcuts. Be on the lookout!
- 29August 13th, 2008 6:02 am
Nice idea, poor execution. I was excited when I saw the headline of the post, and then the image of CS3 on a Mac. But wait… : \
Not all designers use PCs… come on SM. Posting shortcuts for both PC and Mac would be the least I would expect.
- 30August 13th, 2008 6:08 am
combo = combination, more than one thing at once
- 31August 13th, 2008 6:41 am
Simple, alot of these are just experience. You need to learn the hotkeys, and get used to them.
And it really works well for those who don’t know these things, to read articles like this.
Thanks alot for sharing it. - 32August 13th, 2008 6:42 am
Good stuff!
- 33August 13th, 2008 7:16 am
Incredbly creative execution. Most of these people probably already know but I actually wanted to read through the entire list.
Great Job.
- 34August 13th, 2008 7:17 am
amazing… thank ya SM for the photoshop moves :)
- 35August 13th, 2008 7:39 am
all seemed good to me – i may have been reading this wrong but not sure why you also need the alt key to select multiple layers. In CS3 you just need to shift or ctrl select.
My favorite shortcut: alt+scroll wheel
- 36August 13th, 2008 7:52 am
@Lucifix (#13): Select the Eyedropper Tool, click and hold down mousebutton, switch to Firefox (Alt+Tab), move to the color you want, release mousebutton. Voilà.
- 37August 13th, 2008 7:53 am
Flawless victory!
Finish him!:)
Killer moves man, you got me:) - 38August 13th, 2008 8:29 am
People use CS3 on PC?
- 39August 13th, 2008 8:32 am
I remember when I (accidentally) discovered the tab key would hide your palettes . I was Apple + tabbing too fast, and totally panicked when all my palettes disappeared! It was a very sad day indeed.
Seriously, nice article Tom – very handy shortcuts.
Thanks!
- 40August 13th, 2008 8:44 am
Ultimate Flattener is a new one for me
- 41August 13th, 2008 9:02 am
I use the web extractor all the time. Never thought anything of it.
- 42August 13th, 2008 9:06 am
How stupid to you have to be to not realize that the only difference between Mac and PC shortcuts is that the ctrl key = the command key.
Replace where you see “ctrl” with “command” and stop your bitching.
- 43August 13th, 2008 10:29 am
Papa’s got a brand new bag..
- 44August 13th, 2008 10:34 am
Great info, but it would be nice to have both the PC & MAC platform keyboard notes. Yes I know I can figure it out, sometimes we designers are just lazy!
- 45August 13th, 2008 11:31 am
You could put the keys in the KBD tags and style it a bit.
- 46August 13th, 2008 11:34 am
I have been using Photoshop for a few years now… I find the most useful tool in the PS arsenal is one that is very rarely used.. even by a lot of advanced users. The Keyboard Shortcuts option. Everyone has their own style of using Photoshop.. there are a ton of shortcuts that I NEVER use.. and there are some that I use more than others… It really helps to customize your shortcuts to tools/filters/options that you actually use. For instance.. Sure F5 pops up brushes… but I almost always have that pane open anyways.. So i switched out F5 to “Convert to Smart Object”.
Even though I know the majority of these steps/shortcuts from being self taught.. It’s great to have someone really show how useful and powerful keyboard shortcuts really are.. they save so much time!! Great article!
- 47August 13th, 2008 12:26 pm
As a rookie to PS, I can use all the tips I can get. Thanks!
- 48August 13th, 2008 12:34 pm
Great Stuff
- 49August 13th, 2008 12:38 pm
It’s missing the best shortcut ever.
Ctrl + Alt + Right Click
Selects the layer directly under your cursor, without fail.I don’t know how much time this has saved me since I found it.
- 50August 13th, 2008 12:44 pm
Number 3 can easily be condensed into ctrl (cmd) + shift + e to merge all visible layers.
Otherwise, excellent list. There’s always something to learn in photoshop.
- 51August 13th, 2008 12:59 pm
Oh my god, the final one is going to save me so much time!
@Hamish M — NO WAY! You’re my new hero. Until now, I’ve been hitting V -> Ctrl-Left Click to select layers, being able to do it without switching tools is going to be fantastic!
- 52August 13th, 2008 1:10 pm
this list is better than bacon!
- 53August 13th, 2008 1:54 pm
good list. do it for fireworks and illustrator too :)
thanks - 54August 13th, 2008 3:35 pm
The real magic comes in using actions to eliminate keystrokes.
I’ve got #1 cued to F2.
One stroke.
- 55August 13th, 2008 6:12 pm
Hey everyone.
I put together a pdf cheat sheet for anyone interested. It can be downloaded from my site at: http://www.attasi.com/pdfs/killer-photoshop-cheat-sheet.pdf
Thanks to all for viewing/voting/commenting!
- 56August 13th, 2008 6:22 pm
The title made me laugh! Witty ;).
It’s interesting seeing photoshop combinations presented in a combo to yield a net result, cool. Although the article could probably be assuaged even more with some screenshots that give an overview of the result.
- 57August 13th, 2008 8:10 pm
up up down down left right left right b a select start
- 58August 13th, 2008 9:08 pm
Way to go really useful list
- 59August 13th, 2008 9:49 pm
its a basic, not bad
- 60August 13th, 2008 10:10 pm
Userful but very old!
This all are old shortcuts………!
Offcourse a little bit additions to CS3, more like layer shifting/selecting (other than 7.0)Here are some of the tricks for photoshop (this may know for few)
To change the background color
1. Selct “Paint Bucket” Tool (Press G)
2. Choose your color (Foreground)
3. Shift click on the backgroundNote: This option will not work in fullscreen mode.
- 61August 14th, 2008 5:36 am
Hold down Shift + Alt and then press “+” to cycle through blending modes on the selected layer.
Very helpful.
- 62August 14th, 2008 5:50 am
niiiice…but print version would be even better :)
- 63August 14th, 2008 6:20 am
This makes everything so much easier. You should write a book.
- 64August 14th, 2008 7:02 am
Excellent article! Love this site.
The extractor tip is useful for me. I usually do an Alt+i, D to duplicate the image, then Alt+L, F to flatten the image, and then crop from there. Your tip is much more intuitive and logical. Thanks so much!
- 65August 14th, 2008 7:11 am
@Andrew Wilkinson
Glad to help. Spread the word! :) - 66August 14th, 2008 9:40 am
I think it’s good but not excelent cause you didn’t include any mac shortcuts. It could have been excellent if you did. Great work on it though.
- 67August 14th, 2008 11:04 am
this is a great compilation of keyboard shortcuts and it’s written in a very unique way. good job.
- 68August 14th, 2008 11:34 am
Smashing
- 69August 14th, 2008 1:46 pm
merge all visible layers:
PC: shift+ctrl+E
MAC: shift+apple+E - 70August 14th, 2008 10:45 pm
old stuff but still good
- 71August 15th, 2008 1:15 am
list of all photoshop CS3 keyboard shortcuts.
http://morris-photographics.com/photoshop/shortcuts/index.html#pscs3 - 72August 15th, 2008 1:37 am
Great article, but where are the OS X shortcuts?
- 73August 15th, 2008 2:08 am
Hamish M, I think it’s more simple to use Ctrl + left click. It does the same thing:)
- 74August 15th, 2008 11:14 am
Would advise everyone to visit this source…great shortcuts
http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/photoshop-secret-shortcuts/
- 75August 15th, 2008 11:55 am
no.1 I can do while sleeping :D
good collection that, thank you… - 76August 19th, 2008 4:27 am
3. could be
Ctrl Alt Shift N => new Layer without dial box
Ctrl Shift E => Merge All into current Layerso you merge all without loosing all the layers…
- 77August 19th, 2008 11:53 pm
CTRL+S it’s our best friend =))
This list is excelent :D
- 78August 21st, 2008 1:47 pm
Yeah, no Mac equivs is lazy. I’ve got #3 in an action via Shift +F1.
- 79August 26th, 2008 7:06 pm
Looks like I was late to the party. Great tutorials…now I’ve got to use them often enough that they stick!
- 80September 2nd, 2008 10:46 pm
I don’t know if there’s a shortcut key, but the way I do it is to make the Photoshop window smaller, so you can see the browser, and whatever color you wanted to select, then, after selecting the Eye Dropper tool, click and hold the mouse button down, then drag it out into the browser window.
You’ll see the color change in the palette. When you have the color you want, just let go of the mouse button.
- 81September 8th, 2008 3:19 am
C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!
- 82September 16th, 2008 6:47 pm
I am saying now “Its killer tips” many thanks
- 83September 18th, 2008 6:56 pm
suck!!!!
- 84September 18th, 2008 7:22 pm
i need more infomation. not this kind of shit. this is not helping me……!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
- 85September 22nd, 2008 6:00 pm
like shit
- 86October 10th, 2008 7:17 am
nothing fresh has not heard, but don’t care thank you for labour
- 87October 22nd, 2008 5:51 am
I never get into the position where “time’s kickin’ my ass”. If you get that pressed, well, something’s wrong somewhere.
- 88October 31st, 2008 1:16 pm
와우 정말 멋진데요~!
- 89March 29th, 2009 7:19 am
Many Thanks for this. Probably one of my favorite article.
- 90March 30th, 2009 7:29 pm
lol you have a MacBook Pro on the pic but all of those commands are for Windows xD
- 91April 3rd, 2009 8:47 am
excellent tips, Many many thanx for this
- 92April 7th, 2009 1:35 pm
Nice. Since I’m on PS all day almost every day, I use most of these and they have saved my life. I see some I didn’t know that I will be using, especially Layers.
Also, if you’re doing mad crazy pen paths (I do color corrections for luxury retail products that have lots of zippers, linings and general funky details that require tons of selections) , my top time-savers are using the space bar to move rapidly around the image, option to change my bezier handle direction simultaneously while drawing path, and cmd to move a point of path around if I miss my mark. Those and a really huge monitor and Wacom also help!
- 93May 20th, 2009 1:46 pm
Co co-co-co-co-co-co-combo breaker!!! lmao thanks for such usseful info!!!
- 94September 14th, 2009 11:00 am
To be honest… it’s mostly stuff I learned in school! what I need is the next level… anyone can find out any of these tricks (if you can call them that) by going to the help button in photoshop! what would be great is to learn more about combining effects and new ways of doing things to create stunning visuals… new ideals…
- 95October 30th, 2009 12:37 pm
Brilliant post as usual.
Check the daily posts on photoshop cs4 keyboard shortcuts @
http://www.amkaysweb.blogspot.com
- 00
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Very good !