Contributing Writers...2 Picker. Click on the gear icon at the top right, and select New Tool...

▼ Contributing WritersCorey BarkerPete CollinsRC ConcepcionDave CrossGlyn DewisBryan O’Neil HughesScott KelbyMatt KloskowskiKristina SherkColin SmithScott Valentine

Published by KelbyOne, LLC.

Copyright ©2015 by Scott Kelby

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

▼ TrademarksPhotoshop, Photoshop Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc.

Macintosh, Mac, and Mac OS X are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.

Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

▼ Warning and Disclaimer

This eBook is designed to provide information about Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photo shop Lightroom for digital photographers. Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and as accurate as possible, but no warranty of fitness is implied.

THIS PRODUCT IS NOT ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY ADOBE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED, PUBLISHER OF ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CC AND ADOBE PHOTOSHOP LIGHTROOM CC.

250 Hot Tips eBook

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▼ Animate Your 3D Layers

You can even animate 3D objects in Pho-toshop. Just select the 3D layer, open the Timeline panel (Window>Timeline), and click the Create Video Timeline button. Click the disclosure triangle next to the name of your 3D layer to see the prop-erties that you can animate. In addition to animating the Position, Opacity, and Scale, you can animate several 3D proper-ties using the same keyframe-based ani-mation. Be careful, though, this can get very taxing on your processor.

▼ Blend Mode Double TeamWhen you’re trying to blend an image with a textured background, use this trick: Duplicate the image layer (or use the adjustment layer trick above) so you have two image layers above the tex-tured background. In the Layers panel, change the blend mode of one image layer to Screen and the other to Multiply. Now you can adjust the Opacity of each image layer to dial in the right amount of blending for the best look.

▼ Let There Be LightIn addition to the standard lights avail-able—Infinite, Point, Spot, and Image Based Lights—you can also make an object emit light. Select the material layer in the 3D panel, then in the Properties panel, click on the Illumination swatch. In the resulting Color Picker, choose a color for the light and adjust the Intensity. Click OK to close the Color Picker. The effect will need to be rendered (3D>Render), and of course, it needs to have other 3D objects in proximity to reflect the light.

▼ File Size Saver with Adjustment Layers

When you duplicate an image layer to apply a blend mode, duplicating that image layer greatly increases the size of the working file. Try using adjustment lay-ers instead. Add an adjustment layer such as Curves (Layer>New Adjustment Layer> Curves) but don’t make any changes in the Properties panel. Simply change the blend mode near the top of the Layers panel, and it will act just like a duplicated image layer without the extra file size.

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Picker. Click on the gear icon at the top right, and select New Tool Preset. Name your preset and be sure to turn on the Include Color checkbox.

▼ Magic Wand ToleranceOne of the reasons that folks call the Magic Wand tool (nested under the Quick Selection tool [W] in the Toolbox) the “Tragic Wand” is because they don’t understand how much of a difference adjusting the Tolerance setting can make. If you get funky results, try a lower or higher Tolerance in the Options Bar. Cre-ative tip: Try using the Magic Wand on textured areas to select unique shapes and grungy effects that can make great brushes (Edit>Define Brush Preset).

▼ Free Transform Flip TrickThis tip is great for making patterns. Duplicate the layer you want to flip by pressing Command-J (PC Ctrl-J). Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to bring up the Free Transform handles, but before you Right-click and choose Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical, drag the center axis target from the middle of the bounding box to the side that you’re flipping to. Now when you flip the image, it will flip from that edge and line up perfectly with the original image.

▼ On-the-Fly Brush Tool Adjustment

When using the Brush tool (B), hold down Control-Option (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Right-click) and drag right or left to change the Diameter of the brush, and up and down to change the Hardness.

▼ Tool PresetsSaving a brush preset is good, but saving a tool preset is better. A tool preset saves extra information such as color and Mixer Brush tool settings, which means that you’ll not only have the brush shape that you want, but that it will also be exactly how you want it to look and act without having to tweak anything. To save a tool preset, click on the tool icon at the far left of the Options Bar to open the Tool Preset


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and use the handles to match the curva-ture of the eyes, and then press Enter. Add a touch of blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur), drop the Opacity in the Layers panel, and you’re done.

▼ Batch Placing Images in a Slide Show

There’s an easier way to import multiple images into a slide show instead of using the File>Place command. Open the series of images you want to use in the Finder (PC: Windows Explorer), select all of the images that you want to import, and drag them into an open document in Photo-shop. After you resize and position the first image as needed, just press Enter and the next image will appear in the document, and so on. Each image will be placed on its own layer.

▼ Rotation ResetWith touch capabilities on tablets and screens these days, or using the Rotate View tool (R) in Photoshop, it’s easy to rotate your canvas to get a better work angle. But it can be maddening trying to rotate it back to its original orientation. Double-click on the Rotate View tool icon in the Toolbox and your canvas will snap back to its original angle.

▼ Copy MergedCommand-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E) will take all of your visible layers and merge them into a new layer above the currently active (and visible) layer. This is great when you’re working on an image and you want all the elements combined, but you want the safety net of still having all the original layers below. Once you try it, you’ll use it all the time.

▼ Specular Highlights with WarpHere’s a great way to create window- shaped specular highlights to add to eyes. On a blank layer, use the Rectangular Mar-quee tool (M) to draw a rectangular selec-tion. Press D to set your default colors, and press Command-Delete (PC: Ctrl-Back-space) to fill the selection with white. Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect. Switch to the Move tool (V), and Shift-Op-tion-drag (PC: Shift-Alt-drag) to duplicate the rectangle directly below the original. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) the original rectangle layer thumbnail in the Layers panel to select both rectangles, and Shift-Option-drag (PC: Shift-Alt-drag) them to the right. Select all four layers in the Lay-ers panel and press Command-E to merge them. Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) for Free Transform, Right-click inside the bounding box, and choose Warp. Now click-and-drag inside the bounding box


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layer, or to the very bottom if there is no Background layer). Command-Shift-] (PC: Ctrl-Shift-]) moves the layer to the top of the stack.

▼ Hide a Layer ShortcutFor many versions of Photoshop it’s been possible to use a keyboard short-cut to set the Opacity for any active layer (e.g., press 5 for 50%) when you have the Move (V) tool active. Back in Photoshop CS6 Adobe added the ability to press 00 for 0% Opacity. This is a quick way to hide and show a layer without moving over and clicking on the Eye icon beside the layer. Press 00 to hide the layer and 0 to show the layer.

▼ Select a Different Ghost SourceWhen merging a series of HDR images in Merge to HDR Pro, ghosting may appear in portions of an image where the subject has moved. Clicking on the Remove Ghosts checkbox will auto-matically correct this ghosting by using one of the source images in the filmstrip at the bottom of the window. If the ghost-ing correction isn’t to your liking, you can always click on one of the other thumb-nails, and the ghosting algorithm will run again with that selected image as the new source.

▼ Targeting Layers with ShortcutsTo activate the layer above or below the currently active layer in the layer stack, use these shortcuts: Option-] (PC: Alt-]) and Option-[ (PC: Alt-[), respectively. Option-, (Comma) (PC: Alt-,) targets the layer at the bottom of the stack; Option-. (Period) (PC: Alt-.) targets the very top layer. These shortcuts are particularly use-ful when recording an action so that the name of the layer isn’t recorded.

▼ Moving Layers with ShortcutsTo move the active layer up or down in the layer stack, use these shortcuts: Com-mand-] (PC: Ctrl-]) and Command-[ (PC: Ctrl-[), respectively. Command-Shift-[ (PC: Ctrl-Shift-[) moves the layer to the bot-tom of the stack (above the Background

▼ Layer and Mask ShortcutsIf you have a layer with a mask and you want to activate the mask, press Com-mand-\ (PC: Ctrl-\). To activate the layer, press Command-2 (PC: Ctrl-2).


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▼ One Shortcut with Two UsesPressing Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) is a well-known shortcut for Free Transform, but did you know that the same short-cut serves a second purpose? If you have type selected and press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T), it will open the Character panel so you can quickly access all of the settings in that panel.

▼ Close and Save (or Don’t)I’m always surprised when I see people who use a ton of keyboard shortcuts, but still manually close images and click either the Save or Don’t Save buttons. Instead, press Command-W (PC: Ctrl-W) for Close window, and then in the result-ing dialog, press D for Don’t Save, Esc to Cancel, or S (or Enter) to Save.

▼ Reposition While DraggingWhile dragging with many drawing tools, you can reposition the location of where you’re dragging by holding down the Spacebar. For example, after you’ve started to drag with the Rectangular Marquee tool (M), hold down the Spacebar to reposition the marquee, then let go to continue drag-ging out the size you want.

▼ Be SmartWhen we’re retouching, it’s best prac-tice to work nondestructively so that we can go back at any stage and make alter-ations if needed. Smart objects play a big part in that nondestructive workflow, but did you also know that by convert-ing your layers into a smart object rather than, say, creating a merged or combined layer, that you also virtually reduce the file size of the working file in Photoshop, which speeds up your computer’s pro-cessing speed, which in turn speeds up your workflow. Now that’s working smart!

▼ Overlay and Normal ShortcutsThere are keyboard shortcuts for all of the layer blend modes, but when working on layer masks, there are two that are handy for the Brush tool (B): Option-Shift-O (PC: Alt-Shift-O) for Overlay, and Option-Shift-N (PC: Alt-Shift-N) for Normal. This is very useful when you need to switch between Overlay and Normal mode while you’re painting on a mask.

▼ Crop Tool ShortcutsHere are a few useful shortcuts when using the Crop tool: C to activate the Crop tool (click in the bounding box for the next shortcuts), O cycles through the View Overlays (Rule of Thirds, Grid, Diago-nal, etc.), and X swaps the crop area from horizontal to vertical.

▼ Change Views in Refine Edge Shortcuts

Each view in Refine Edge can be activated by pressing a single letter: M for March-ing Ants, V for Overlay, B for On Black, W for On White, K for Black & White, L for On Layers, and R for Reveal Layer. One useful way to use this is to toggle between two views, for example, Black & White and On Layers by pressing K and L.


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▼ Liquify as a Smart FilterLiquify can be edited after the fact as a smart filter (or a “filter layer” as some call it). To apply it as a smart filter, first choose Filter>Convert for Smart Filters to convert your layer to a smart object.

▼ Blur Gallery as Smart FiltersThe family of Blur filters (Field, Iris, Tilt-Shift, Path, and Spin) in the Filter>Blur Gallery can also be edited like any layer when applied as a smart filter (Filter> Convert for Smart Filters), and they can be applied to video! Convert the video to a smart filter to apply the blurs to the entire clip and not just to a single frame.

▼ Patch Tool for ContrailsDoes it seem that whenever you’re pho-tographing outdoors that all planes are routed directly over you? A great tool to get rid of contrails (or plane trails) in your skies without making the sky look fake is the Patch tool in Photoshop (located under the Spot Healing Brush tool [J] in the Toolbox). Just drag a selection around the contrail, then move it over a good area of sky, and Photoshop does a great job of removing the trail and making the sky look great.

▼ A Better Light SourceA great way to add a light source in Pho-toshop is with a large, soft white brush on a blank layer; however, if you use layer Opacity to lower the brightness, the light tends to go gray, as opposed to a not-so-bright white. To fix this, change the blend mode of the layer to Linear Dodge (Add), and instead of using the Opacity slider, use the Fill slider.

▼ Conditional ActionsYou can insert If, Then, or Else conditions into actions. The Insert Conditional com-mand is available once you’re recording an action via the flyout menu at the top right of the Actions panel. No more stop-ping at speed bumps or slowing down your timesaving automations.

▼ Shut Them All DownIf you find yourself with a number of open files in tabs, rather than closing them one at a time, simply hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key, and then clicking to close one of the tabs will result in them closing all at once.

▼ Save That WorkspaceIf, like me, you like to keep your work-space neat and organized and have read-ily available only those items you tend to use the most, save it! Just go to Win-dow>Workspace>New Workspace, give it a name, and then click Save. From now on you have a quick-and-easy way to bring everything back to order should any items go astray by clicking on the Reset option under Window>Workspace. M

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Alt) key and Photoshop will temporarily switch to the Burn tool.

▼ Spot Removal TrickIf you’re printing or viewing your pho-tos at a larger size, then removing those pesky sensor spots in the sky is a must, and here’s a tip to help make it easier. In Photoshop, press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to invert your layer in the Layers panel. Your photo is going to look really weird at this point but don’t sweat it. Next, scan over your skies; any spots should stick out like a sore thumb. Just use the Spot Heal-ing Brush tool (J) to brush them away. Finally, press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) once again to invert your layer back to normal.

▼ Change a Linear Gradient with a Curves Adjustment

Tired of endlessly dragging back and forth with the Gradient tool (G) or open-ing the Gradient Editor to get a gradi-ent just right? Try using a Curves adjust-ment layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves) to change the slope of the gradient instead. Seriously, give it a shot and you’ll see what I mean.

▼ Camera Shake ReductionImages blurred from slow shutter speeds can be improved dramatically using the Shake Reduction feature. You’ll find it under Filter>Sharpen>Shake Reduction.

▼ Convert Objects to CSSWeb designers can simply select an object and navigate to Layer>Copy CSS to generate CSS for shapes, etc. The CSS is copied to the clipboard and can be pasted into a style sheet.

▼ Editable Rounded RectanglesYou can resize shapes, edit them, and reedit them—before or after they’re cre-ated. You can even edit individual corner radius in rounded rectangles using the controls in the Properties panel. To adjust each corner individually, just click on the Link icon. If a shape is bound for the Web, export CSS data from the file (Layer> Copy CSS) to save time.

▼ The Landscape CropEverything is wide these days, from lap-tops to monitors to TVs. Our photos tend to look best wide because they take advantage of the full real estate of the screen. A great way to make an impact is the widescreen 16x9 crop ratio that’s built into Lightroom and Photoshop. Just select the Crop tool (C), and choose 16:9 in the Ratio drop-down menu in the Options Bar.

▼ Dodging and BurningDodging and burning is one of the best ways to add depth and dimension to your photos. You’ll find that you’ll switch between the Dodge and Burn tools quite often. Instead of manually switch-ing the tools in the Toolbox, when using the Dodge tool (O), hold the Option (PC:


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▼ Funky Frames from Refine EdgeNeed a quick, random frame or ragged selection around your image? Create a new layer and load it up with a filter such as Clouds, Fibers, etc. Use the Rectangu-lar Marquee tool (M) to make selection on the filter layer, and choose Select>Refine Edge. Start with a fairly large Radius, then tweak the other sliders, especially Con-trast. Choose the output you want in the Output To drop-down menu—usually Selection, Layer Mask, or New Layer with Layer Mask—and click OK.

▼ Clone Sources in the Clone Source Panel

When using the Clone Stamp tool (S), you can have multiple clone sources for a given image, each with its own modified characteristics such as rotation and scale. Open the Clone Source panel (Window> Clone Source), and choose one of the buttons across the top before designat-ing a clone source with an Option-click (PC: Alt-click). Bonus tip: You can set any open document as a source!

▼ Use the Spot Healing Brush Tool on a Blank Layer

Work nondestructively with the Spot Healing Brush tool (J) by adding a blank layer above your background image and putting a check in the Sample All Layers box in the Options Bar. This way, you can see a before and after by clicking on the Eye icon next to your healing layer in the Layers panel, and then make any neces-sary changes.

▼ Apply Adjustment Layers to Groups

Did you know you can clip adjustment layers to entire groups? It’s true! Just hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click between the adjustment layer and group layer in the Layers panel.

▼ Duplicate Layers and Groups to New or Existing Document

Need to move some layers to another document quickly? Select the layers or groups in the Layers panel, Right-click on one of the selected layers, and choose Duplicate Layers (or Groups). A dialog will appear where you can choose to which open document to copy them, or even copy them to a new document. It’s great for page layouts and collage work.

▼ Smudge Tool for MasksTired of trying to paint precise masks? Or maybe you need something random and wispy. Use the Smudge tool (nested under the Blur tool in the Toolbox) to nudge those pixels into place. And if you need to see the mask itself, Option-click (PC: Alt-click) the mask to see it directly on the canvas.


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▼ Adjustment Layer TrickIf you have an image with a subject you need to extract but there isn’t much con-trast between it and the background, you can add a Levels adjustment layer (Lay-er>New Adjustment Layer>Levels) and greatly increase the contrast to the point where the edges are clearly defined, regardless of how bad the image looks. Then use the Quick Selection tool (W) to make the selection. When done, toss the adjustment layer and you’re left with a better selection that you can fine-tune with Refine Edge.

▼ Clip Adjustment Layer to Next One

When using an adjustment layer, it applies the effect to everything below that layer; however, if you want to apply the effect to just the layer below, simply click on the clip layer icon (box with bent arrow) at the bottom of the Properties panel. You can also hold the Option (PC: Alt) key, hover your cursor between the two layers in the Layers panel, and click. Now it only adjusts the layer immediately below while leaving the rest of the layers untouched.

▼ Gradient Selection via Quick Mask

You can make a gradient selection by simply choosing the Gradient tool (G) and then pressing Q to enter Quick Mask mode. This will allow you to draw the gradient like normal and see it as a color overlay. Then when you press Q again, it will return to an active selection.

▼ Subtract a Layer from a SelectionIf you have an active selection and you want to remove the shape of another layer from that selection, then hold down Command-Option (PC: Ctrl-Alt) and click on that layer’s thumbnail in the Layers panel to remove it from the selection. Or you can hold down Shift-Command (PC: Shift-Ctrl) to add it to an active selection.

▼ Perspective WarpThis feature (Edit>Perspective Warp) was introduced back in Photoshop CC and gives you yet another tool to get more accurate distortions. Sometimes you need to adjust the perspective of an object or even a building. This feature avoids the need for a multistep, multilayer process by allowing you to define a perspective grid right on the image and then manipu-late it any way you need. It even has a nifty little guide that pops up to show you how.


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the color is applied, while Opacity sets the limit for how transparent the color is. Flow is like the speed of the water coming out of the hose and Opacity is the size of the container it can fill. Knowing how the two work together will give you more control over your brushstrokes.

▼ Blur the Edges to Match Reality/DOF

Don’t forget to feather or blur the edges of any people or rounded objects that you composite into a scene so they have the proper depth of field. Sharp edges= flat people.

▼ Using Camera Raw As a FilterCamera Raw is a great tool for editing your photographs, and it’s also a filter that can be applied to any layer (Filter> Camera Raw Filter), making it a great way to change the look of each ele-ment in a composite without having to mess with Levels, Curves, etc. It’s also a great way to finish an image by making a copied merged layer of all the elements (Shift-Command-Option-E [PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E]) and applying final color adjust-ments, sharpening, and a vignette.

▼ Use Alignment Tools for Faster Workflow

If you have the Move tool (V) active and multiple layers either selected or active, you’ll see a series of alignment tools in the Options Bar. Use these to really speed up your workflow and get precision placement of your elements.

▼ Drop Opacity for Elements in the Background

When placing elements into a scene for a composite, try dropping the Opacity of the elements in the distance a few per-centage points. This will help them inter-act with the scene and settle them into their proper depth of field.

▼ Option (PC: Alt) and Shift Are Your Two Power Keys

The two most powerful keys in Photo-shop are Option (PC: Alt) and Shift. They’ll often allow a tool to do something extra, so whenever you’re using a tool, hold down one or both of those keys to see if something new happens.

▼ Flow vs. OpacityWhen using the Brush tool (B), it’s import-ant to understand that Flow (in the Options Bar) determines the rate of speed

▼ Copy One Mask to AnotherIf you’d like to copy a layer mask from one layer onto another existing layer mask, click-and-drag the mask while holding down the Option (PC: Alt) key. You’ll see a double arrow icon appear, indicating


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Simply press the Delete (PC: Backspace) key and a single point will be deleted from the path. You can control how many points are dropped onto the selec-tion you’re making by changing the Fre-quency setting in the Options Bar.

▼ Drag-and-Drop Images from the Finder or Windows Explorer

If you drag an image from the Finder (PC: Windows Explorer) onto an open image in Photoshop, it will place the image as a smart object. If you have Photoshop set to Application Frame, and you don’t have any files open, you can drop it in the pre-view area to open it as a separate image. If you already have files open, just drop it in the empty area to the right of the last image tab.

▼ Undo Layer VisibilityBy default, clicking on the Eye icon to hide and show layers is not undoable. If you want to be able to use the Undo/Redo and Step Backward/Step Forward commands to show and hide layers, you have to change one setting. In the His-tory panel flyout menu, choose History Options, and in the dialog, check Make Layer Visibility Changes Undoable.

that you’re copying an item. After drop-ping it onto the other layer mask, you’ll get a dialog asking if you want to replace the existing mask. Click Yes and you’re good to go!

▼ Find the Pantone ColorIf you’re using a certain color and you want to see what the approximate spot color is, click on the Foreground color swatch near the bottom of the Toolbox to open the Color Picker, and then click on the Color Libraries button. The color will automatically appear as the Pantone coded equivalent.

▼ Removing Points from Magnetic Lasso Path

When working on a selection with the Magnetic Lasso tool (nested under the Lasso tool [L] in the Toolbox) and a point is added into an area you don’t want, you don’t have to cancel the entire selection.

▼ Slow-Motion Video in PhotoshopYou can create slow motion footage right inside of Photoshop! Make sure that you have footage that was captured at a frame rate that’s best suited for it (60 fps, 120 fps, and so on). Drag the footage into Photoshop, and go to Layer>Video


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▼ Placeholder TextWhen you’re working with a design and need to see what it would look like with some text, drag out a text box with the Type tool (T), and then use the Type menu and choose Paste Lorem Ipsum. This will fill the text block with random text, ideal for mocking up a design.

▼ Color AdaptationBack in Photoshop CC 2014, a setting called Color Adaptation was added to the Content-Aware functions. With the Patch tool (nested under the Spot Healing Brush tool [J] in the Toolbox), you can apply this in an interesting way, after using the tool. With Content-Aware chosen in the Options Bar, use the Patch tool to select the area you want to remove, and then drag the selection to the area you want to use for the patch. Then click in the Color field in the Options Bar, and use the Up and Down Arrows to change the setting (from 0 to 10). As you change the number, the patch will adjust, allowing you to find the ideal number in each situation.

▼ Load Bright and BrighterTo load a selection of the areas brighter than 50% gray, in the Channels panel hold down Command (PC: Ctrl) and click on the RGB thumbnail. After saving that as an alpha channel (Select>Save Selec-tion), you can select areas that are even brighter. With the selection active, hold down Command-Option-Shift (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift) and click on the thumbnail of the new Alpha channel. This will select areas that are even brighter. Then you can save that as an alpha channel. Now you can Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on either of the two Alpha channels depend-ing on the brightness of the areas you want to select.

Layers>Interpret Footage. This will bring up a dialog that will let you change the Frame Rate of the footage. If you switch a 60-fps clip to 30 fps, you have cut the speed down in half, making for really smooth slow motion.

▼ Curve ChannelsA common way to make a Curves adjust-ment is to separately adjust each color channel (Red, Green, and Blue). Instead of choosing each channel from the pull-down menu in the Curves dialog or Prop-erties panel, press these keys to switch between the channels: Option-2 (PC: Alt-2) for RGB, Option-3 (PC: Alt-3) for Red, Option-4 (PC: Alt-4) for Green, and Option-5 (PC: Alt-5) for Blue.

▼ Combining ShapesYou can combine two or more shape layers into one shape layer: just select the layers in the Layers panel and press Command-E (PC: Ctrl-E) to merge them together. Although when you change the Fill and Stroke in the Options Bar it affects both objects, the original shapes remain independently editable when you use either the Path Selection or Direct Selec-tion tools (A).


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▼ Extraction TimesaverWhen you need to composite someone onto a different background, drag the entire photo of the person onto the new background before starting any extraction. That way when you make a selection and use Refine Edge in the Options Bar, you can use the On Layers view (L) in the Refine Edge dialog to see the edge of the person on the new background. Now every deci-sion you make is in the context of the new background.

▼ Smarter Layer CompsLinked smart objects have one added benefit: using layer comps. In the original layered file, create layer comps in the Layer Comps panel that show and hide various

layer combinations. After you place the file into a document (as a smart object), use the Properties panel and click on the drop-down menu that displays as Don’t Apply Layer Comp to choose the layer comp you want to display. This saves you having to return to the contents of the smart object to change how it displays.

▼ Reset Character One of the potentially frustrating things about working with text is that Photoshop remembers every setting you last used. If you’re formatting some text—changing leading, tracking, horizontal scale, etc.—those settings will continue to be used the next time you add text. In cases when you want to start fresh with the normal settings, go to the Character panel flyout menu and choose Reset Character.

▼ Maximize Your WorkspaceWant more workspace? Try pressing the Tab key to hide all the panels, Options Bar, and Toolbox; press it again to reveal them. Or try pressing it in combination with the Shift key to hide just the panels; press it once again to reveal them.

▼ Tiled WindowsIn tiled window view (Window>Arrange), you can change the view of all windows at the same time by holding down the Shift key. For example, use Shift and the Space-bar and then click-and-drag to scroll the windows at the same time, or Shift-Com-mand-Spacebar (PC: Shift-Ctrl-Spacebar) to zoom all windows the same amount.


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smart object (Layer>Smart Objects>Con-vert to Smart Object). This way you’ll still have access to all the layers but can also return to the plug-in and make changes to the settings. This works great with Goo-gle’s Nik and Topaz plug-ins, for example.

▼ Faking Cutouts with BrushesFake challenging cutouts, such as those with hair or fur, using brushes. For exam-ple, the 112 Dune Grass brush built into Photoshop can, amongst other things, be made to look like fur using the set-tings in the Brush panel. Rather than attempt a perfect cutout, make a rough selection, then add a layer mask. Paint in black to remove a section of fur or body. Then paint it back in using the Dune Grass brush set to white to reveal the fur again, but now in the shape of the brush head, which looks like fur.

▼ Clone Stamp Tool RotationIf you’re trying to clone over an area that’s at an angle using the Clone Stamp tool (S), make life easier by first Option-click-ing (PC: Alt-clicking) to choose your clone source, and then in the Clone Source panel (Window>Clone Source), highlight the Rotate the Clone Source field and use your Up and Down keys to rotate clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively. Throw in the Shift key to rotate in larger increments.

▼ Color Dodge for Lighting EffectsColor Dodge is an awesome blend mode for creating lighting effects. The trick is to use it with a color that’s darker than what you need, then paint with the Brush tool (B) onto a blank layer. The magic hap-pens once you change the blend mode to Color Dodge. You can then control the intensity with the Opacity slider or even add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with a clipping mask and use the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness sliders in the Properties panel to finesse the look.

▼ Smart Plug-InsBe sure to use third-party plug-ins non-destructively. Rather than use them on a merged stamp layer, select all the layers in the Layers panel, and convert them to a

▼ Use Notes to Collaborate with Others

Use the Note tool in Photoshop to commu-nicate with others exactly what needs to be done and where. The Note tool is found in the Eyedropper tool’s (I) fly out menu.


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backdrop for viewing your selection. Just press B for black, W for white, and K for a black-and-white view. There are others, but honestly, those are the three you’ll use most.

▼ Copy-and-Paste EverythingIf you’ve ever tried to copy-and-paste something in Photoshop, you may have realized that the Copy command (Edit> Copy) only copies from the currently active layer. But if you make a selection first, then choose Edit>Copy Merged, Photoshop will copy everything within that selection no matter what layer it’s on.

▼ Sample Colors from AnywhereHere’s another neat, undocumented trick. You can use the Eyedropper tool (I) to sample colors from anywhere on your computer’s screen, not just inside Photo-shop. The trick is to click within a docu-ment first to sample a color. Don’t let the mouse button go yet, though. Now drag outside of that window onto whatever it is you’d like to sample on your com-puter. As long as you don’t let your mouse button go, Photoshop will con-tinue to sample whatever is under your cursor. This works when you’re in the Color Picker, as well.

▼ Toggle through Layer Blend Modes

When looking for the best blend mode to use, activate the Move tool (V), hold down Shift-Option (PC: Shift-Alt), and then with your other hand, use the + or – keys to cycle through the different blend modes for the layer. This way, you can quickly determine which one works best for your needs.

▼ Deleting a Layer the Easy WayThis one seems small, but it comes in really handy. If you ever want to delete a layer, just press the Delete (PC: Backspace) key. It’s much easier and faster than going to the Delete Layer icon (trash can).

▼ Searchable FontsThe font fields in the Options Bar and Character panel are searchable. Just start entering the name of your font, and the list will shorten to match the results.

▼ If You’re Over 40 this Tip’s for YouIf you’re over 40 and you have a hard time reading small text, this tip for making your layer thumbnails larger will help out a lot. Right-click in an empty area of the Layers panel, and choose Large Thumb-nails. Photoshop now uses larger versions of your thumbnails in the panel.

▼ Backgrounds for Making Selections Easier

When you’re making a complex selec-tion, seeing the selected image on the right backdrop helps out a lot. When you’re in the Refine Edge dialog (Select>Refine Edge), you can press a keyboard shortcut to switch to a different


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▼ Use Color Range to Create Masks for Shadows/ Midtones/Highlights

If the light on a client’s face is very uneven, try using the Highlights, Mid-tones, and Shadows options in the Select drop-down menu in the Select>Color Range dialog to isolate different tones on the face and increase or decrease the exposure accordingly in order to even out the lighting. For example, after selecting Highlights in Color Range and clicking OK, add a Curves adjustment layer. This will generate a mask based on the selection. Decrease the exposure with the Curves adjustment. Repeat for the midtones, then select the shadows and increase the exposure with another Curves adjustment layer. Put these three layers in their own layer group, add a black mask on the whole folder, and then paint in the smoothed-out lighting effect on the client’s face. To get it perfect, play around with the opacities of each layer in the group and also click on each mask and use the Feather slider in the Proper-ties panel to blur them a little.

▼ Selective Color: Fixing Tungsten Lights

When you have color contamination from a tungsten light in a predominantly daylight-balanced image, use a Selec-tive Color adjustment layer (Layer>New Adjust ment Layer>Selective Color) with the Colors set to Yellows in the Properties panel to remove the yellow hues from only the places that have yellow in the image. This significantly decreases mask-ing time. This also works for a blue window in a predominantly tungsten-lit room.

▼ Selective Color: Fixing Face Redness

When some of the wedding guests that we photograph have very red faces (due to dancing or drinking), we use a Selec-tive Color adjustment layer set to Reds to remove redness from only the reds of the skin, leaving the yellows in the skin tones alone. This also will significantly decrease your masking time.


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▼ Warp Pasted Backgrounds to Fit Image

If, for example, you’re trying to elongate a white seamless background behind a group of people, use the Edit>Trans-form>Warp option after you’ve pasted the white background into the image. This allows you to use less of the Clone Stamp tool (S) since you can drag and manipulate the edges of the pasted por-tion of the background to reach all the corners of your frame.

▼ Use Gradients in Your MasksIf you’re working on a landscape image and you would like an effect to only be visible on the sky, you can use the Gradi-ent tool (G) to make perfect masks in sec-onds. Just make sure that the colors used in the gradient are shades on the white-to-black spectrum. Also, remember to apply the gradient to the mask and not the actual layer.

▼ Auto-Align LayersIf your client chooses a portrait where her eyes are slightly blurred, replace the slightly motion-blurred eyes with the eyes from a frame where the eyes are sharper. This usually works best for photographers who shoot multiple frames in quick suc-cession. With both images open, drag the image with the sharp eyes into the blurry eye image, and then use the Edit>Auto- Align Layers command. Make sure both layers are selected in the Layers panel before enabling the align command. Once they’re aligned, use a layer mask to hide everything except the sharp eyes.

▼ Load Images into Same FileIf you need to create an image with multi-ple images stacked on top of one another (e.g., if you used a tripod to capture multiple images that you need to mask together), use the File>Scripts>Load Files into Stack command. This creates a file with all of the files stacked as layers in the same image.

▼ Bird’s-Eye ViewWhen you have a very large image such as a panorama, it can be difficult or time-consuming to inspect different portions of the image at large magnifications. Hold the H key, and click-and-hold the left mouse button. You’ll see that the image shrinks to fit entirely on the screen. Drag the mouse to reposition the box surrounding the cursor, release, and Photoshop will fill the screen with the new selected area.


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not Group is turned on next to Auto-Se-lect. Hold down Command (PC: Ctrl) and click in your document. Whatever you click on will become the active layer. Another way is to turn on Auto-Select, and if you want to see bounding boxes and have the Move tool work more like Illustrator, turn on Show Transform Con-trols, as well. I prefer the Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) way.

▼ Pricing Materials for 3D PrintsWhen you do 3D printing to one of the 3D printing services in Photoshop, get a quote. Choose 3D>3D Print Settings, and then choose one of the service providers from the Print To drop-down menu in the Properties panel. From the Printer drop-down menu, choose the type of material from which you want your model to be made. If you choose the Estimate Price option at the bottom of the Printer drop-down menu, all the materials will now include an estimated price next to them.

▼ Change Brush Size and SoftnessPress the Left ([) or Right ( ]) Bracket keys to make a brush smaller or larger, respec-tively. This works with the Brush tool (B) or any relative of it, including things such as the Eraser (E) and Dodge and Burn tools (O), and even with brush Size fields in dia-logs such as Liquify. If you also include the Shift key in the combination, you can change the softness of the brush.

▼ Auto LevelsWhenever you open a Levels or Curves adjustment, you might see the Auto but-ton and ignore it like I have for years. However, it’s worth clicking now to see what you get. Adobe has made vast improvements to the Auto settings in Photoshop CC.

▼ Create Composite Layer When you have a number of layers and want to apply an effect to all of them, it’s easier to flatten them. However, you may want to keep your construction layers for making changes. Choose the top layer in the Layers panel and press Shift- Option-Command-E (PC: Shift-Alt-Ctrl-E). A new flattened layer will appear above all the other layers.

▼ Duplicating Documents Have you ever wanted to make an exact duplicate of your Photoshop document, layers and all? While you could choose File>Save As, and then save a copy and work on that, there’s a quicker way. Open the History panel (Window>History). At the bottom left you’ll see an icon that looks like a document with a plus sign on it. Click that icon to create a dupli-cate document.

▼ Black & White Adjustment for Better Color Images

The Black & White adjustment layer pro-vides some great ways of toning different portions of an image. Imagine if you had this kind of control over a color image? Duplicate your layer, go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Black & White, and change its blend mode to Luminosity in the Layers panel. Now when you make changes to the Black & White adjustment, notice how you now have control over the tones of the color image.

▼ How to Select a LayerSometimes it’s difficult to know exactly which layer you’re working on. Maybe there’s a layer on the page that you want to select so you can move it, scale it, or somehow change it. It’s as simple as mak-ing sure the Move tool (V) is selected. In the Options Bar, make sure that Layer and


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Shift-Alt-Ctrl) then press T repeatedly for each repeat. Note: Each repeat will create a new layer unless the object is selected before invoking step and repeat.

▼ Fade EffectsHave you ever applied a filter in Photo-shop and thought maybe you’d like to decrease its intensity just a little instead of completely undoing it? There’s a fea-ture called Fade that’s only available right after you apply a filter. It’s located under the Edit menu and it allows you to lower the Opacity of the filter, as well as change the blend mode, which affects how the filter blends with the original pixels.

▼ Sync Your StuffThe Sync Settings feature is very handy, especially if you work on multiple machines or when installing on a new machine. Go to Photoshop (PC: Edit)>Preferences>Sync Settings, and in the Advanced Settings section, you can choose what you want to sync. I just leave it set to Everything because I use all of these features. Even if you don’t use multiple machines, it’s a good idea to sync everything, because if something should happen to your com-puter, you can rest assured that all your stuff is saved and never lost.

▼ The Flame GeneratorThe new Flame generator (Filter>Ren-der>Flame) is great for creating realistic custom flame effects for almost anything. Designers may find, however, that they can create some rather interesting design effects if they play with different colors and drastically move the sliders around. A little experimentation can go a long way.

▼ The Tree GeneratorLike the Flame generator, the Tree gener-ator (Filter>Render>Tree) works in simi-lar ways in that you choose a type of tree and then you can determine how lush or dead you want its appearance just by moving the sliders back and forth. Don’t be afraid; be extreme with the settings and you may discover something new.

▼ Quick ExportThe new Quick Export feature (File>Ex-port>Quick Export) introduced in Pho-toshop CC 2015 allows you to quickly export a file to whatever format you most commonly use. You can configure the Quick Export function in the Preferences (File>Export>Export Preferences). And if you choose to Export Files to an Assets Folder Next to the Current Document, when you choose Quick Export from either the File menu or by Right-clicking on an individual layer in the Layers panel, it will save in your selected format with-out any prompts at all.

▼ Step & RepeatUnless you use this feature all the time, it’s easy to forget about it. When you want to create multiple instances of an object, just press Option-Command-T (PC: Alt-Ctrl-T) to activate Free Transform in step-and-repeat mode. Then, move or transform the object and press Enter. Hold down Shift-Option-Command (PC:


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▼ Image Import from DeviceThere’s a pretty cool feature in Photoshop where you can import images from your devices: Just go to File>Import>Images from Device. Your connected devices will show up on the left side of the Import Images from Device dialog. Once a device is selected, you can download its images to your computer or open them right in Pho-toshop as either a new document or as a new layer in the frontmost document. This is a handy feature for getting your device images quickly into Photoshop.

▼ Scale In StyleLayer styles are great, but when you shrink down an object that has layer styles, the object gets smaller, but the styles stay the same size. You need to scale the styles along with the object. Watch the Options Bar as you scale the object and note the percentage you reduced the object. In the Layers panel, Right-click on the layer styles for that object, and chose Scale Effects at the bottom of the menu. Type in the same percentage that you scaled your object, click OK, and now it should look as good small as it did larger.

▼ Adobe ColorRemember Kuler? It was a great color- editing feature that used to be available in most Adobe apps. Now that feature is called Adobe Color Themes (Window> Extensions>Adobe Color Themes), and it allows you to create color themes and save them to your Creative Cloud Libraries. There’s also a mobile app for Adobe Color CC that allows you generate color sets using the device’s camera. So if you see a logo or even a landscape that has colors you like, simply shoot the image to gener-ate the color set and upload it to your Creative Cloud Libraries right on the spot.


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▼ Hiding the GuidesGuides are great tools to help line up objects and images, but sometimes they can get in the way visually. The keyboard shortcut to hide them and then reveal them is Command-; (PC: Ctrl-;). If you want to turn Snap on or off for the guides, just add Shift to the shortcut: Shift-Com-mand-; (PC: Shift-Ctrl-;).

▼ File ToggleWhen you have a lot of images open in Photoshop and you need to move to a different file, simply press Control-Tab to toggle forward through your files and Shift-Control-Tab to toggle backward. This also works in the different Screen Modes (F).

▼ Keyboard Shortcut to Your Two Favorite Brushes

For you artists who love to use brushes, with the Brush tool (B) selected, Shift-, (comma) will select the first brush in the Brush Presets panel (Window>Brush Pre-sets) and Shift-. (period) will select the last brush in the panel. So, if you have a couple of brushes that you use a lot, put one at the beginning and one at the end of the list, and you won’t have to go to the Brush Presets panel or the Brush Preset Picker to select them anymore. To change the order of your brushes, you’ll need to go to Edit>Presets>Preset Man-ager, select Brushes in the Preset Type drop-down menu, drag your brushes into place, and click Done.

▼ Take a Peek Behind The Styles CurtainUse the new Styles tab at the top left of the Layer Style dialog to learn more about how layer styles work. (Note: This is the same set of styles that appear in your Styles panel [Window> Styles]. A style is a preset that applies multiple layer styles at once.) Now that you can apply these styles in the Layer Style dialog, it’s even easier to see the individual layer styles that were used to make each style. Try clicking on different styles and then click on each layer style being used on the left side of the dialog to see what kind of settings are applied to create that look.


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bottom of the Character panel to activate Faux Bold.

▼ Get The Leading OutYou can change the leading (space between lines) of a paragraph without using the Character panel. Select all of the lines of text with the Type tool (T), press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key, and then press either the Up or Down Arrow key to decrease or increase the leading on the fly, respectively.

▼ Layer Comps and Blend ModesA layer comp can “record” the Visibility, Position, and Appearance of the layers in a document. You’ll find these options in the New Layer Comp dialog when you click on the Create New Layer Comp icon at the bottom of the Layer Comps panel (Window>Layer Comps). Appear-ance refers to layer styles, which not only includes things such as Drop Shadows or Strokes, but it also includes blend modes and Opacity. So if you have a couple of

layers and want to easily compare dif-ferent blend modes, add a series of layer comps, each with a different blend mode. Then you can quickly “browse” through the different looks using the Apply Next and Apply Previous icons at the bottom of the Layer Comps panel.

▼ Place Instead of Dragging- and-Dropping

Dragging-and-dropping an open image into another Photoshop canvas that’s smaller than the image you’re dragging means that you’ll have to Free Transform (Command-T [PC: Ctrl-T]) it to get it to fit. Instead, choose File>Place Embedded. Placing the file will turn it into a smart object and automatically transform the image to fit within the bounds of the can-vas. The placed image will also have a Free Transform bounding box around it, so you can immediately size it as needed.

▼ Use Place Linked for Files that Use the Same Element

If you have several files that rely on one common image, take advantage of the new File>Place Linked feature in Photo-shop. You can then have a single file that serves as a common element for multi-ple designs. Change that image, and all of the images that use it will automati-cally update.

▼ When Bold Isn’t an Option, Fake It

There’ll be times when you come across a font that doesn’t have a bold option. Inside the flyout menu at the top right of the Character panel (Window>Char-acter), you’ll find a Faux Bold option for making any font appear bold. You can also click on the first T icon near the


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whatever you did: scale, rotate, move, or any combination of transformations. Bonus: If you want to apply the transfor-mation to a copy, press Option-Shift-Command-T (PC: Alt-Shift-Ctrl-T).

▼ Scale a PatternAlthough you can add a pattern using Edit>Fill, the Pattern Stamp tool, or the Pattern Overlay layer style, only the layer style (Layer>Layer Style>Pattern Overlay) gives you the option of scaling the pat-tern as you apply it (and the ability to edit that scale amount at any time).

▼ Dodging the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights

Dodging and burning is a great way to craft your images, but you can spend a lot of time switching the Range of the tools between Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights in the Options Bar. Once you have the Dodge or Burn tool (O) selected, press-and-hold Shift-Option (PC: Shift-Alt) and then S for Shadows, M for Mid-tones, and H for Highlights.

▼ Solid Color Adjustment LayersWhen you want to add a layer filled with color, try using a Solid Color adjustment layer (Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color). When you use Edit>Fill to fill with a color, every time you want to change the color, you have to click on the Foreground color swatch to use the Color Picker, and then Edit>Fill again. Instead, because the Solid Color adjustment layer is, well, an adjust-ment layer, you can double-click on the layer to change the color and see instant results while the Color Picker is still open.

▼ Toggle Layer LocksIf you’ve turned on any of the locking functions in the Layers panel (Lock Trans-parent Pixels, Lock Image Pixels, Lock Position, or Lock All), you can toggle that lock off and on by pressing the Forward Slash key (/). Bonus: You can turn on two locks at once (e.g., Lock Transparent Pix-els and Lock Position) and the shortcut works the same way.

▼ Transform AgainIf you’ve used Free Transform (Command-T [PC: Ctrl-T]) to scale down a layer, and want to apply the exact same transforma-tion to a different layer, press Shift-Com-mand-T (PC: Shift-Ctrl-T). That’s the short-cut for Transform Again, meaning repeat

▼ Calculate an AngleIf you need to measure the angle of something on a photo, use the Ruler tool (found under the Eyedropper [I] set of tools). Drag along one edge of the item, then hold down Option (PC: Alt), hover your cursor over the starting point of the first line until the icon changes from a ruler to an angle, and drag a second line. Look in the Options Bar to see the angle.

▼ Lab Color in an RGB DocumentUsing Lab Color mode (under Image> Mode) offers some interesting ways to adjust an image, but when you convert from RGB to Lab and then back to RGB you lose any adjustment layers. To get around that, Right-click on the Back-ground layer, choose Convert to Smart


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makes the Puppet Warp editable after you apply it.

▼ Matching Graphic DimensionsIf you ever need to re-create a graphic for a website but just don’t know the size of the original image, simply Right-click the graphic in your Web browser and choose Copy Image (PC: Copy). Then, head over to Photoshop, choose File>New, select Clipboard from the Document Type drop-down menu, and click OK. Your new doc-ument will match the size of the original. (Tip of the hat to my buddy Dave Clayton for this one.)

▼ Painterly Texture EffectGive your pictures a painterly texture look by first adding a merged layer (Shift-Command-Option-E [PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E]) at the top of the layer stack and naming it “Look.” Duplicate this layer (Command-J [PC: Ctrl-J]) and rename the duplicate “Sharpness.” Hide the Sharp-ness layer for now by clicking its Eye icon in the Layers panel. With the Look layer active, go to Filter> Noise> Reduce Noise, set Strength to 10, and all the other sliders to 0. Click OK. Now you’ll have a smooth textured look across your image. (Note: If you’d like to increase the effect, press Command-F [PC: Ctrl-F] to repeat the Reduce Noise filter.) To bring back sharp-ness, click on the Sharpness layer, make it visible, and then go to Filter> Other> High Pass. Set Radius to 1 Pixel, click OK, and change the layer blend mode to Overlay in the Layers panel.

▼ Fast ZoomZoom quickly into or out of an area in an image by holding the Command (PC: Ctrl) and Spacebar keys and clicking-and-drag-ging right or left, respectively.

Object, and then double-click the layer thumbnail of the smart object to edit its contents. In the PSB file that opens, change the mode to Lab Color. Now you can add adjustment layers and edit in Lab within an RGB file.

▼ Arrange OptionsOnce you have a stack of layers, you can easily change the stacking order, not only by manually dragging layers in the Lay-ers panel, but also with the commands under Layer>Arrange. These include options such as Bring to Front, Send Backward, and Reverse for situations when you want to turn the stack of layers upside down (in the reverse of the cur-rent order). Just select all the layers you want to affect in the Layers panel before accessing these commands.

▼ Puppet Warp TextWhen you apply a Puppet Warp (under the Edit menu) to a type layer, you can independently edit each letter (while keeping the text editable) by converting the text layer to a smart object (Layer> Smart Objects>Convert to Smart Object). Just add pins to each letter to adjust them. Converting to a smart object also


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▼ Fake Studio Background with Crop Tool

I regularly photograph subjects standing in front of a 69" Elinchrom Rotalux Octa Softbox or even a 60" umbrella to create a white background behind them. Then, to give the illusion that the subject was photographed in front of a white studio wall, in Photoshop, I select the Crop tool (C), press D to set the Background color to white, and drag outside the document bounds to increase the canvas area. The extra area will be filled with the current Background color. (Of course this can be done to increase the background behind the subject no matter the color.)

▼ Enhance Detail in White ClothingBring out more texture and detail in white clothing by first creating a merged layer (Shift-Command-Option-E [PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E]) at the top of the layer stack. Then, go to Filter>Camera Raw Filter, reduce the Saturation to –100, and adjust the Clarity and Contrast until more detail is visible in the white item. Click OK, and change the layer’s blend mode to Luminosity. Hold the Option (PC: Alt) key while clicking the Add Layer Mask icon (circle in a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel to add a black mask, which hides everything on the layer. With a white, soft-edged Brush (B), paint to reveal the detail in the clothing.

▼ Free Transform for Added PowerWhen photographing male physique or sports athletes, I always find that there’s a little something missing that actually reduces their powerful presence. This is very quickly and easily rectified, though, with a sneaky use of Free Transform at the very end of the retouch-ing process. With a merged layer (Shift-Command-Option-E [PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E]) at the top of the layer stack, go to Edit>Free Transform, and then in the Options Bar at the top of the screen, increase the Width (W) from anything between 101% to 105% and press Enter.


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starting point, set Amount to 15%, Radius to 15 Pixels, and Threshold to 0. Always keep the Threshold at 0, and after adjust-ing the Amount, add the same amount in Pixels to the Radius and you’re done.

▼ Don’t Forget Puppet WarpEvery now and again, I’ll browse through unused files with fresh eyes to see if they have any potential. On occasion, just the slight change in the angle of a head or position of an arm can take a picture from zero to hero. So, don’t forget Puppet Warp! You’ll find it under the Edit menu.

▼ Super-Fast Teeth WhiteningA super-fast way to give teeth a bit of whitening treatment is simply to make a loose selection around the teeth with the Lasso tool (L), then add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Layer>New Adjust-ment Layer>Hue Saturation). In the drop-down menu in the Properties panel, change Master to Yellows, and then drag the Lightness slider to the Right.

▼ Get Organized with LibrariesLibraries in the Creative Cloud save me an untold amount of time. Create your own library folder by clicking on the Creative Cloud icon at the bottom of the Libraries panel to enable syncing. Then, from the drop-down menu at the top of the panel, choose + Create New Library. To add items into the library, simply drag-and-drop any open image into the Libraries panel. From then on, the images and files you add into your library will be available across all of your Creative Cloud apps. To add them into a document, as before, just drag-and-drop them and they’ll be added on a new layer in the layer stack.

▼ Quick ContrastOne great way that I like to boost the contrast in my images without affecting the color or adding halos is by using the Unsharp Mask Filter. Simply go to Filter> Sharpen> Unsharp Mask, and then as a

▼ ArtboardsAny Illustrator user will extol the bene-fits of artboards: infinite canvas, flexible presets, and a limitless working space. This major, long-requested feature has landed in a recent update to Photoshop CC. Available as a tool or a new image type, artboards will lighten, broaden, and accelerate how you lay out and design. You’ll find the Artboard tool nested under the Move tool (V) in the Toolbox. And in File>New, you’ll find an Artboard option in the Document Type drop-down menu.


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▼ Adobe StockAccess tens of millions of beautiful, roy-alty-free images, illustrations, and graph-ics directly inside Photoshop (File>Search Adobe Stock). This incredibly powerful new service is also deeply integrated with Creative Cloud Libraries.

▼ Multiple Instances of Layer Styles

As of Photoshop CC 2015, you can dupli-cate and stack layer styles such as Stroke and Drop Shadow on a single layer. Look for the + icons next to several of your layer style options in your Layer Style dia-log. Just click the plus to add additional instances of that style.

▼ Faster LiquifyWhen you have a small section of an image that needs Liquifying, don’t create a layer of the whole image. Use the Mar-quee tool (M) to draw a selection around the spot you need to Liquify, Copy (Com-mand-C [PC: Ctrl-C]) and Paste in Place using Shift-Command-V (PC: Shift-Ctrl-V), and then choose Filter>Liquify. This not only saves file size, but it also will make Liquify run much faster.

▼ Use Adjustment Layers Set to Multiply

Whenever I want to diminish the appear-ance of distracting elements in a back-ground to draw attention to specific areas of an image, I’ll use two random adjust-ment layers (Layer>New Adjustment Layer) set to the Multiply blend mode in the Layers panel. This will make the entire image darker. Just use the Brush tool (B) set to black to paint on the layer masks that came with the adjustment layers to hide the effects on the portion of the image you want to highlight.

▼ Additive Noise for Blur GalleryThe Blur Gallery filters (Filter>Blur Gallery) are lightning-fast ways to add creative softening to an image, but one drawback has been that areas that are syntheti-cally blurred are especially obvious when applied to grainy or higher ISO imagery. Consider this fixed-and-then-some with the new Noise panel in the Blur Gallery in Photoshop CC 2015. In fact, the changes here make this not only the best place to add a blur, but to add grain.

▼ Content-Aware Move Adds ScaleThe Content-Aware Move tool (CAM) can be a huge timesaver by automatically removing, adding, and blending image content. You’ll find it nested under the Spot Healing Brush tool (J) in the Toolbox. CAM is a great tool for many workflows. The problem is, it has never allowed you to scale that content, so you’ve always been limited to the same plane as your original. This is no longer true thanks to a new transform on drop (scale) option. Now after you select the area you want to move and drag it to a new area, you’ll be presented with a Free Transform bound-ing box for scaling and rotating.


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▼ Color Dodge EyesTo add eye dimension, paint 50% gray on an empty layer over the irises. Then, change that layer’s blend mode to Color Dodge, and double-click to the right of its name in the Layers panel to bring up the Layer Style dialog. Play around with the two sliders on the Underlying Layer bar in the Blend If section. The objective is to have the lightening effect show up only on the lighter striations in the irises. Hold down Option (PC: Alt) when you click on one of the sliders to divide it, which will help feather the edges where the effect is visible or hidden. Make sure you keep looking at the iris as you drag the sliders. The last step is to decrease the Opacity slider near the top of the Layer Style dia-log until it looks realistic.

▼ Use Clipping MasksLet’s pretend you’re working on a land-scape image where you’ve already cre-ated a mask on an adjustment layer so that it only darkens the sky. You then realize that you’d also like to increase the saturation of the sky, so you create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and pump up the saturation. Instead of cre-ating a second mask on the Hue/Satura-tion layer, simply choose Layer>Create Clipping Mask, and the added saturation will only be visible where the mask of the darkened sky adjustment layer (the layer underneath it) is white.

▼ Paint Away Flyaway HairsIf you have a lot of flyaway hairs in your shot, try using the Filter>Noise>Dust & Scratches command on a duplicated Background layer. Play with the Radius slider until the hairs you wish to remove disappear from the layer, then click OK. Next, Option-click (PC: Alt-click) the Add Layer Mask icon (circle in a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel to hide that layer under a black mask, and paint in with white over the hairs you want to remove. Disclaimer: The success of this method depends greatly on the photo. It works great for backlit subjects and very blurry backgrounds.


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▼ Use Corners to Your AdvantageHere are a couple of tips for scaling any-thing that has a bounding box, such as Free Transform. When you drag a corner of the bounding box, all four sides of the bounding box will be scaled from the opposite corner. If you hold down Option (PC: Alt), all four sides of the bounding box will be scaled from the center. Add in the Shift key to constrain the shape, and you can transform with one quick drag.

▼ Freely TransformingWhen you need to change the size, angle, or shape of an object, Free Transform (Command-T [PC: Ctrl-T]) is the go-to tool. You’ll see a bounding box around your object with eight transform handles. You can use modifier keys to do a variety of transformations, but if you don’t want to memorize them all, Right-click inside the bounding box and use the context-sensi-tive menu. You’ll see such options as Scale, Rotate, Skew, Distort, Warp, and more.

▼ Inverted High Pass LayersYou’re probably aware you can use Filter>Other>High Pass on a duplicate layer set to the Overlay blend mode to sharpen an image, but if you Invert (Command-I [PC: Ctrl-I]) the layer (not the mask) of a High Pass layer, you can easily create a smoothing effect. Use this to quickly smooth your clients’ eye whites and diminish the look of fine veins.

▼ Filling Selections and LayersThe fastest way to fill a selection or layer with a color is to use the keyboard: Press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill with the Foreground color; press Com-mand-Delete (PC: Ctrl-Backspace) to fill with the Background color. Press Shift- Delete (PC: Shift-Backspace) to open the Fill dialog where you can choose differ-ent color options, such as custom col-ors, patterns, and the amazing Content- Aware Fill.

▼ Duplicating ThingsThere’s a really easy way to duplicate things such as layers, objects, layer styles, masks, gradient stops, and more. All you need do is press-and-hold Option (PC: Alt) and click-and-drag. A duplicate copy will appear as you drag, and you can drop it wherever you like.


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▼ Making Masks BetterHere are a few shortcuts to make layer masks even more powerful: Shift-click on the mask thumbnail in the Layers panel to turn it on and off; Option-click (PC: Alt-click) to show the black-and-white mask on the image; and press the Back-slash key (\) to show the mask overlay (Rubylith color).

▼ Avoid this Masking TrapThis is a simple tip, but it will help you avoid a slippery trap. When you’re com-positing different layers in Photoshop, it’s common to change the canvas size during a project. It’s also common to apply a mask, fill it with black to hide an entire layer, and use a white brush to paint back just the areas you want to show. Here’s the trap: If you fill a mask with black, and then resize the canvas, the edges of the mask will show. Instead of filling with black, hold Option (PC: Alt) while clicking the Add Layer Mask icon (circle in a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will create an inverted mask (black). If the mask is already cre-ated and you want to change it to a Hide All mask, click on the layer mask thumb-nail and press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to Invert the white mask to black. Now when you resize the canvas, the entire mask will still be filled with black, and you can let the trap spring on some other unsuspect-ing Photoshop user.

▼ Photoshop ResetWeird things happening in Photoshop can often be fixed by resetting the Pref-erences file. Luckily, you don’t have to search for that file as we did in the past: Just quit out of Photoshop, locate your Photoshop launch icon (the actual one, not the alias in your task bar), and hold Option-Command-Shift (PC: Alt-Ctrl-Shift) as you launch Photoshop. A dialog will pop up asking, “Delete the Adobe Photoshop Settings File?” Click Yes to start with a new set of preferences.

▼ Scrubby SlidersClick-and-drag your mouse left or right directly on any word that appears next to a field where you can input a number (such as the Opacity field in the Layers panel) and watch the number in the box change.

▼ Refining Really Good EdgesRefine Edge is a very powerful tool for cleaning up selections. It has one set-ting that can make a huge difference, and that’s the Edge Detection Radius. This is the “decision zone” where Photoshop decides what should be selected and what shouldn’t. A high Radius is great for hair and soft edges, while a smaller Radius is great for clean, precise edges. The key to getting a good Radius is to turn on the Show Radius checkbox (J) and then adjust the Radius slider.

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▼ Missing White Balance Presets If you’re wondering why you don’t see White Balance presets such as Shade, Daylight, or Tungsten like you normally do in the Basic panel, here’s what’s up: you’re working on a JPEG, TIFF, or PSD image which already has the white bal-ance embedded into the image. Those other presets are only available when you’re working with a RAW image.

▼ Hiding the Filmstrip for a Larger View

If you have multiple photos open in Cam-era Raw, double-click directly on the divider line between the filmstrip and the main image preview to collapse the filmstrip, giving you a larger preview of your currently selected image. Now you can use the Up and Down Arrow keys on your keyboard to move through the other open images. To bring the filmstrip back, double-click on the divider bar again.

▼ Better Results from UprightThe new Upright feature in the manual tab of the Lens Corrections panel automates the process of correcting lens problems, and it does a pretty darn good job of it, if you do these two things. First, before you click any of the Upright buttons, go to the Profile tab and turn on Enable Lens Profile Corrections. With this turned on, it works better. Second, use the Auto button (the one with the A on it) because it generally makes the best overall correction, usu-ally because it doesn’t go overboard like some of the other choices. Adobe calls it a “balanced correction,” and that’s right on the money.

▼ Open RAW Files as Smart ObjectsOnce you’ve finished working on your RAW files in Adobe Camera Raw, and you’re ready to send them into Photoshop, do so as smart objects. To set up Camera Raw so that every image opens as a smart object, click on the blue line of image details below the preview area, and in the Work-flow Options dialog that appears, select Open in Photoshop as Smart Objects, and click OK. To open images as smart objects on the fly, simply hold down the Shift key, and the Open Image button will change into Open Object.

▼ Adobe Camera Raw: UprightThe Upright feature in Camera Raw (found in the Manual tab of the Lens Cor-rections panel) allows you to automati-cally straighten image content. Using four modes, you can quickly and automati-cally correct skewed images and choose the result you like best. You have to see this magic at work to appreciate it—try it with wide-angle architectural shots.

▼ Check Your Sharpening at 100%If you double-click the Zoom tool (its icon looks like a magnifying glass), it zooms your image to 100%, which is prefect when you’re in the Detail panel and you want to really see the effects of your sharpening.

▼ Better Views When You’re Work-ing with Multiple Images

If you have multiple images open, press Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A) to select all the images in the filmstrip along the left, then when you use the Zoom tool (Z), the magnification you choose is synchro-nized across all the selected photos—great for quickly comparing images. The Hand tool (H) also moves all the selected images at once.

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▼ Saturation Isn’t BadThe Saturation slider in Camera Raw has received an undeserved bad reputation lately, but it’s really not bad at all. The problem is when you use it on photos with people in them because it makes their skin tones tend to look bad, but for landscape photos, you’ll find a little Satu-ration works great.

▼ Even More ClarityThis works well for skies or anywhere you want an edgy/detailed look. Based on the tip below, you can paint Clarity into parts of a photo with the Adjustment Brush, but the brush setting for Clarity maxes out at +100. What if you may want more? No problem. Click the New button to add another brush adjustment and paint even more Clarity on top of the last one. You can add all the adjustments that you like on top of each other for a more intense effect.

▼ Better DuotonesIn Camera Raw, go to the HSL/Grayscale panel and turn on the Convert to Gray-scale checkbox. Now go to the next panel over, the Split Toning panel. You’re not going to touch any of the Highlights set-tings or the Balance slider, so don’t be tempted. In the Shadows section, move the Saturation slider to 25 (so you can see the color) then drag the Hue slider to the color you want for your duotone. That’s it!

▼ Graduated Filter for Blue SkiesPhotos taken at sunrise and sunset always look great when we add warmth to them using the White Balance sliders in Camera Raw or Lightroom, but you’ll notice that by increasing the warmth, you inadver-tently make the sky more yellow. Next time, try using the Graduated Filter (G) on the sky, and move the Temperature slider toward the left to add some blue back in.

▼ Clarity for SkiesClouds and skies love the Clarity slider in Camera Raw and Lightroom, but if you just crank the slider up to +100, you’ll start to see some fake detail and contrasty effects in the rest of the photo. Instead, go to your Adjustment Brush (K) and make the brush small enough to fit inside the clouds. Increase the Clarity setting to around +50–75, and paint inside the clouds. If they look okay, you can even try moving the Clarity slider up to +100.

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layer’s thumbnail to open it in Camera Raw. Change the portions of the picture you want to push or pull, and click OK. Then, click on the Add Layer Mask icon (cir-cle in a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel, and use the Brush tool (B) to mask those changes into the original picture.

▼ Auto White and Black PointsA little-known feature in Camera Raw is that it has an auto levels adjustment that automatically sets your white and black points for you, just like the Auto Levels button does in Photoshop. Just hold the Shift key and double-click directly on the slider knob for Whites and then Blacks. It works great!

▼ Waterfall Trick for Getting More Texture

Most photos of waterfalls and moving water should use a long enough expo-sure to make the water look smooth and silky, but if you’re shooting in bright light (and don’t have a neutral density fil-ter with you), it’s sometimes hard to get a long enough shutter speed to allow the water to blur without overexposing the photo. Next time, try doing just that: Make sure you shoot in RAW mode, and overexpose the heck out of the photo (of course, take a well-exposed photo, too). Open your photo in Camera Raw or Light-room and reduce the Exposure and High-lights settings. You’ll be amazed at how much detail is in those bright areas.

▼ The Quick Way to Delete Multiple Images in Camera Raw

When you have multiple images open in ACR, you can click on a photo and press Delete (PC: Backspace) to mark it for dele-tion. When you click the Done button, it automatically moves those marked files to the trash. If you mark one for deletion by accident, press the Delete key again to unmark it.

▼ Using Multiple Instances of the Same RAW File

If you have an image that suffers from blown-out highlights, you’re going to want to really push and pull the image in Camera Raw to recover those highlights. Open the RAW image as a smart object in Photoshop (in Camera Raw, you can hold the Shift key to change the Open Image button to Open Object). Once open, Right-click on the layer’s name and select New Smart Object via Copy. This will create a second RAW smart object layer that you can edit. Double-click this

▼ Create Export PresetsIf you export your JPEG files directly from Camera Raw, you can build export presets (kind of like those in Lightroom) that save all your favorite export set-tings. To find these export presets, click on the Save Image button at the bot-tom left of the Camera Raw window to open the Save Options dialog. At the top of the dialog you’ll see a Preset pop-up menu. Enter all your favorite settings and choose New Save Options Preset from that pop-up menu, and now you can apply all those settings with one click.

▼ Use the Adjustment Brush MaskWhen you’re using the Adjustment Brush (K), if you want to see the areas you’ve already painted (the mask), just press the letter Y on your keyboard. What’s nice about this is you can continue painting, and it will paint in the mask’s default


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of your brush. Drag left to make it smaller and right to make the brush larger.

▼ Always Open JPEGs in Camera Raw

Do you want your JPEG images to auto-matically open in Camera Raw for pro-cessing before you head into Photoshop? (I sure do!) Then go to Photoshop (PC: Edit)>Preferences and the last item in the menu will be Camera Raw. When the Cam-era Raw Preferences open, down at the bottom, under JPEG and TIFF Handling, choose Automatically Open All Supported JPEGs from the JPEG pop-up menu.

color of red, so you can better see what you’re painting as you go. When you’re done, press Y again.

▼ Don’t Clip Highlights or ShadowsIf you want to set your Whites and Blacks manually (rather than using that auto lev-els trick mentioned earlier), but not clip either the highlights or shadows, just hold the Option (PC: Alt) key as you drag the sliders. The screen will change to solid black (for Whites) or solid white (for the Blacks slider), and any areas that start to clip will appear in the opposite color.

▼ Undo UnlimitedHere’s another little-known shortcut—Camera Raw actually has unlimited mul-tiple Undos. Just press Option-Com-mand-Z (PC: Alt-Ctrl-Z) and each time you press it, it undoes another step. You can go back undoing as far as you’d like for the current session. Pressing Shift-Com-mand-Z (PC: Shift-Ctrl-Z) will give you multiple Redos.

▼ Auto CorrectIf you want to let Camera Raw take a crack at correcting your image for you, press Command-U (PC: Ctrl-U). If you don’t like the results, you can always undo it by pressing Command-Z (PC: Ctrl-Z).

▼ Adjustment Brush Size Quick-Change

Here are two quick ways to change your Adjustment Brush size without going to the Size slider. The first way is to use the Bracket keys on your keyboard (they’re to the right of the letter P). The Left Bracket makes your brush size smaller; the Right Bracket makes it larger. The second way is to Right-click-and-hold the Adjust-ment Brush in the preview area and a two-headed arrow appears in the center

▼ Hidden Preview ControlsCamera Raw has a lot of the awesome preview features (like the ability to see side-by-side before and afters of your image), but as always, they kind of hid the options. To find them, click-and-hold for a moment on the Y before/after but-ton at the bottom-right corner of the Pre-view window and a pop-up menu will appear. If you choose the Preview Prefer-ences choice at the bottom of the menu, it brings up a dialog where you can cus-tomize how your preview appears.


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▼ Flipping the CropOnce you have a crop border in place, you can flip it from tall to wide (or vice versa) by pressing the letter X on your keyboard.

▼ Sharpening for PortraitsIf you’re sharpening a bridal portrait, or a portrait where you want the subject’s skin to remain soft (regular sharpening will bring out texture), go to the Detail tab, hold the Option (PC: Alt) key, and drag the Masking slider to the right. When you first click on the slider, the screen will turn solid white, which tells you that the entire image is being sharpened equally. As you drag to the right, any parts of the image that turn black are no longer being sharp-ened, and as you drag further to the right, it starts to mask the skin, leaving only the detail areas (the areas you want to remain sharp such as the eyes, eyelashes, lips, etc.) still appearing in white (only the white areas get sharpened).

▼ Back to ZeroTo reset any slider back to 0 (zero), double-

click directly on the slider’s knob.

▼ Two-Click Reset for the Adjustment Brush

If you use the Adjustment Brush (K) and you move a lot of sliders, you can reset them all to 0 in two clicks. First, click the plus sign (+) to the right of any slider. That resets all the Adjustment Brush sliders to their default position of 0 except the one you just clicked on, which gets set to +25 (or +0.50 for Exposure). To get that slider set back to its default, just double-click directly on the little slider “nub” (the but-ton on the slider itself that you drag), and it resets that slider.

▼ Onscreen Adjustments for Camera Raw

When you’re working in Camera Raw, don’t you wish there were some onscreen adjustments where you could click-and-drag on the image like you do in a Black & White adjustment layer? If you click-and-hold on the fifth icon from the left at the top (the Targeted Adjustment tool [T]), you’ll see several options, including Para-metric Curve and Luminance. Choose any of these and click-and-drag on your image to change those properties under-neath where you click.

▼ Camera Raw ShortcutsTwo tools that you’ll probably use all the time in Camera Raw or the Camera Raw Filter are the Adjustment Brush with the weird keyboard shortcut of K, and the Graduated Filter with the more normal shortcut of G.

▼ Open in Camera RawIf you’re in Adobe Bridge and you have multiple images that you want to open in Camera Raw instead of straight into Photo-shop, then simply select all of the images and press Command-R (PC: Ctrl –R).

▼ Skip Camera RawIf you’ve already applied settings in Cam-era Raw and want to open the file in Pho-toshop without going through Adobe Camera Raw, use the Shift key. Whether you use Bridge or File>Open in Photo-shop, hold down the Shift key and the file will open with the current Camera Raw settings, without stopping in Camera Raw.


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▼ Realistic Wrinkle Removal in Camera Raw

Start by using the Spot Removal tool (B) with the Type drop-down menu set to Heal to completely remove the wrinkles. Then, lower the Opacity slider in the Spot Removal options panel to bring back some of the wrinkles. That way, you don’t remove the wrinkles entirely (which looks obvious), and instead you only reduce the wrinkles for a more natural look.

▼ When to Turn Off the Auto Mask Checkbox

When you’re painting with the Adjust-ment Brush (K) with the Auto Mask check-box turned on, you’ve probably noticed that the brush moves slower, and that’s because Auto Mask is trying to determine if there are any edges where you’re paint-ing (so it doesn’t stray off target). When you’re painting over something like a large sky, however, it keeps slowing down for clouds and stuff you probably want to paint over. So any time you’re paint-ing over a large area, turn the Auto Mask checkbox off until you get near the edges of important areas, and then turn it on to do the detail work. Think of it like painting a wall in your house with a roller, but then switching to a detail brush for the trim.

▼ Resetting Your White Balance to “As Shot”

One reason I don’t mind experimenting with different White Balance settings is that it’s so easy to return to the original “As Shot” White Balance so you can start over from scratch. Any time things start to look funky, just double-click directly on the White Balance tool (I) up in the Tool-bar and it resets the White Balance to the “As Shot” out-of-the-camera settings.


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▼ Drag-and-Drop Straight Into Lightroom (It’s Smarter Than You’d Think)

You can drag-and-drop an image (or a number of images for that matter) from your desktop, or from a folder on your computer, right onto the Lightroom icon (or the Dock icon if you’re using a Mac) and it not only brings up the Import win-dow, but it selects the folder (or desktop) where those images appear. And it’s even smarter: if you have 20 or 30 images on your desktop (or in your folder), only the images you dragged onto that icon will have checkmarks by them for importing. That way, it ignores the other images on the desktop (or in that folder) and only imports the ones you selected.

▼ Changing Your Grid View Thumbnail Size

You don’t have to have the toolbar at the bottom of the center Preview area visible to change your thumbnail size in the Library module’s Grid view—just use the + (plus sign) and – (minus sign) keys on your keyboard to change sizes. The cool thing is that this works in the Import window, too.

▼ You Can Import and Edit PSDs and More!

In earlier versions of Lightroom, you could only import and edit RAW images, TIFFs, and JPEGs, but in Lightroom 3, Adobe added the ability to import PSDs (Pho-toshop’s native file format), along with images in CMYK mode or Grayscale mode.

▼ Save Time Importing into Existing Folders

If you’re going to import some photos into a folder you’ve already created, just go to the Folders panel in the Library module, Right-click on the folder, and choose Import to this Folder from the pop-up menu. This brings up the Import window with this folder already chosen as the destination for your imported photos.

▼ Seeing Just Your Video ClipsFirst choose All Photographs from the path pop-up menu at the top-left side of the Filmstrip. Then, in the Library module go up to the Library Filter at the top of the window (if it’s not visible, press the \ [backslash] key), and click on Attribute. Over on the far-right side, to the right of Kind, click on the Videos button (its icon is a filmstrip and it’s the third icon from the left) and now it displays nothing but all the video clips you have in Lightroom (pretty handy if you want to make a regu-lar collection of just your video clips).

▼ Turning Your Filters On/OffJust press Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L) to turn your filters (flags, ratings, metadata, etc., in the Library Filter bar) on/off.

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▼ Auto Hide the Top TaskbarAs I mentioned, the first thing I do is turn the Auto Hide feature off (so the panels stop popping in/out all day long), and instead I show/hide them manually as needed. But you might consider turning on Auto Hide just for the top taskbar. It’s the most rarely used panel, but people do seem to like clicking to jump from mod-ule to module, rather than using the key-board shortcuts. With Auto Hide turned on, it stays tucked out of sight until you click on the gray center triangle to reveal it. Then you can click on the module you want to jump to, and as soon as you move away from the top taskbar, it tucks away. Try it once, and I bet you’ll totally dig it.

▼ Use Keyword SuggestionsWhen you click on a photo and Light room sees you’ve tagged it with a keyword, it instantly looks to see if you’ve tagged any other photos with that keyword. If you did, it lists the other keywords you applied to those photos as Keyword Suggestions (in the middle of the Keywording panel) fig-uring you’re likely to use some of these same keywords again for the current photo. To add these suggested keywords, just click on ‘em (it even adds the comma for you).

▼ Create Search PresetsAt the far-right end of the Library Filter is a pop-up menu with handy filtering pre-sets. If you find yourself using a particu-lar type of search often, you can save your own custom search presets here, too, by choosing Save Current Settings as New Preset from this same menu.

▼ Locking In a FilterIn previous versions of Lightroom, when you turned on a filter in the Library Filter bar (let’s say you turned on the filter to show just your 5-star photos), that filter was only turned on for the current collec-tion or folder you were in. When you changed collections or folders, it stopped filtering. Now, if you want to move from collection to collection and only see your 5-star images, click on the padlock icon at the right end of the Library Filter (at the top of the Grid view; if you don’t see the Library Filter, press the / [back slash] key).

▼ More Options for the ToolbarBy default, Lightroom displays a number of different tools and options on the tool-bar below the center Preview area, but you can choose which ones you want (including some you may not have real-ized were available) by clicking on the lit-tle triangle at the toolbar’s far-right side. A menu will pop up with a list of toolbar items. The ones with checks beside them will be visible—to add one, just choose it.


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▼ Separating Your Virtual Copies from the Real Images

To see just your virtual copies, go up to the Library Filter bar (if it’s not visible, press the \ [backslash] key), and then click on Attribute. When the Attribute options pop down, click on the little curled page icon at the far right of the bar to show just the virtual copies. To see the real original “master” files, click the filmstrip icon just to the left of it. To see everything again (both the virtual and original masters), click the None button.

▼ Quickly Flatten Your CurveIf you’ve created a Tone Curve adjustment (in the Develop module) and you want to quickly reset the curve to a flat (Linear) curve, just Right-click anywhere inside the curve grid and choose Flatten Curve.

However, you might find it easier to move the TAT over the area you want to adjust, and instead of dragging the TAT up/down, use the Up/Down Arrow keys on your key board, and it will move the slid-ers for you. If you press-and-hold the Shift key while using the Up/Down Arrow keys, the sliders move in larger increments.

▼ Copy What You Last CopiedWhen you click the Copy button in the Develop module (at the bottom of the left side Panels area), it brings up a Copy Settings dialog asking which edits you want to copy. However, if you know you want to copy the same edits as you had previously (maybe you always copy every thing), then you can skip hav ing that Copy Settings dialog pop up completely by pressing-and-holding the Option (PC: Alt) key, then clicking the Copy button (it will change from Copy… to Copy).

▼ Shortcut for Adding New EditsWhen you’re making a local adjustment, if you want to quickly add a new pin (with-out going back to the panel to click on the New button), just press the Return (PC: Enter) key on your keyboard.

▼ Shrinking the Brush OptionsOnce you’ve set up your A/B brushes, you can hide the rest of the brush options by clicking on the little downward-facing tri-angle to the right of the Erase button.

▼ Tip for Using the Targeted Adjustment Tool (TAT)

If you’re using the Develop module’s TAT to tweak your image, you already know that you click-and-drag the TAT within your image and it moves the sliders that control the colors/tones underneath it.

▼ Scroll Wheel TrickIf you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can use the scroll wheel to change the Size amount of your brush.


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▼ Choosing Tint ColorsIf you want to paint with a color that appears in your current photo, first choose Color as your Effect, then click on the Color swatch, and when the color picker appears, click-and-hold the eye-dropper cursor and move out over your photo. As you do, any color you move over in your photo is targeted in your color picker. When you find a color you like, just release the mouse button. To save this color as a color swatch, just Right- click on one of the existing swatches and choose Set this Swatch to Current Color.

With an Adjustment Brush effect, use the Up and Down Arrow keys.

▼ Seeing/Hiding the Adjustment Mask

By default, if you put your cursor over a pin, it shows the mask, but if you’d pre-fer to have it stay on while you’re painting (especially handy when you’re filling in spots you’ve missed), you can toggle the mask visibility on/off by pressing the let-ter O on your keyboard.

▼ Inverting Your GradientOnce you’ve added a Graduated Filter to your image, you can invert that gradi-ent by pressing the ’ (apostrophe) key on your keyboard.

▼ Scaling the Graduated Filter from the Center

By default, your gradient starts where you click (so it starts from the top or the bottom, etc.). However, if you press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key as you drag the gradient, it draws from the center outward instead.

▼ Changing the Intensity of the Effects

Once you’ve applied a Graduated Fil-ter, you can control the amount of the last-adjusted effect by using the Left and Right Arrow keys on your keyboard.

▼ Changing the Color of Your MaskWhen your mask is visible (you’ve got your cursor over a pin), you can change its color by pressing Shift-O on your key-board (this toggles you through the four choices: red, green, white, and gray).

▼ Doubling the EffectTo double the effect of an adjustment, Command-Option-click (PC: Ctrl-Alt- click) on an active Edit Pin and drag just a tiny bit away from the original to make a duplicate of your original, then drag it right back on top of the original. This duplicate “doubles” the effect (like stack-ing effects one on top of the other). If you need to adjust the bottom Edit Pin, just drag the top one a tiny bit to the side, and then click on the bottom one, make your changes, and then drag that other pin back on top.


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▼ Increasing/Decreasing SoftnessTo change the softness (Feather) of your brush, don’t head over to the panel—just press Shift-] (Right Bracket key) to make the brush softer, or Shift-[ (Left Bracket key) to make it harder.

▼ Auto Mask TipWhen you have the Auto Mask check-box turned on, and you’re painting along an edge to mask it (for example, you’re paint ing over a sky in a mountain land-scape to darken it), when you’re done, you’ll probably see a small glow right along the edges of the mountain. To get rid of that, just use a small brush and paint right over those areas. The Auto Mask feature will keep what you’re painting from spilling over onto the mountains.

▼ Resetting Sliders vs. Starting Over

This one surprises a lot of folks because if you click the Reset button at the bot-tom of an adjustment panel, it doesn’t reset your sliders, it deletes all the adjust-ments you’ve created like you’re totally starting over from scratch. If you do just want to reset the sliders for your cur-rently selected edit pin, just double-click directly on the word “Effect” at the top left of the panel, right above the sliders.

▼ Auto Mask ShortcutPressing the letter A toggles the Auto Mask feature on/off.

▼ Painting in a Straight LineJust like in Photoshop, if you click once with the Adjustment Brush, then press- and-hold the Shift key and paint some-where else, it will paint in a straight line between those two points.

▼ Deleting AdjustmentsIf you want to delete any adjustment you’ve made, click on the pin to select that adjustment (the center of the pin turns black), then press the Delete (PC: Back-space) key on your keyboard.

▼ A Gaussian Blur in Lightroom?If you need a subtle blurring effect, kind of like a light amount of Gaussian Blur (well, probably more like a subtle version of the Lens Blur filter), just get the Adjust-ment Brush, choose Sharpness from the Effect pop-up menu (to reset the sliders), then drag the Sharpness slider all the way to the left (to –100), and now you’re paint-ing with a little blur. Great for creating a quick shallow-depth-of-field look.


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▼ Making Your Current Settings the New Defaults for That Camera

When you open a photo, Lightroom applies a default set of corrections based on the photo’s file format and the make and model of the camera used to take the shot (it reads this from the built-in EXIF data). If you want to use your own custom settings (maybe you think it makes the shadows too black, or the highlights too bright), go ahead and get the settings the way you want them in Light room, then press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and the Reset button at the bottom of the right side Panels area changes into a Set Default button. Click on it and it brings up a dialog showing you the file format or the camera make and model of the current image. When you click Update to Current Settings, from now on, your current settings will be your new start-ing place for all images taken with that camera, or in that file format. To return to Adobe’s default settings for that camera, go back to that same dialog, but this time click on the Restore Adobe Default Set-tings button.

displayed from 0% (black) to 100% (solid white). However, when you turn on Soft Proofing, these values change to a more traditional printing read scale, which measures 256 shades, ranging from 0 (solid black) to 255 (solid white) de -pend ing on which color profile you have selected. A lot of photographers who are into printing and have moved to Light-room from Photoshop (which has always used the 0–255 readout scale) are cheer-ing this subtle, but important change.

▼ B&W Conversion TipClicking on B&W in the HSL/Color/B&W panel converts your photo to black and white—kind of a flat-looking con version, but the idea is that you’ll use those color sliders to adjust the conversion. How-ever, it’s hard to know which color sliders to move when the photo is in black and white. Try this: once you’ve done your con -version and it’s time to tweak those color sliders, press Shift-Y to enter the Before & After split-screen view (if it shows a side-by-side view instead, just press Shift-Y again). Now you can see the color image on the left side of the screen, and black and white on the right, which makes it easier to see which color does what.

▼ How the RGB Readouts Change When You Turn on Soft Proofing

In the Develop module, when you move your cursor out over your image, the red, green, and blue (RGB) values of what’s under your cursor are displayed directly under the histogram, in the top of the right side Panels area, and they’re


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▼ Get Different Versions of Photos Without Making Virtual Copies

Think of snapshots as another way to have one-click access to multiple ver-sions of your photo. When you’re working in the Develop module and see a version of your photo you like, just press Com-mand-N (PC: Ctrl-N) and how your photo looks at that moment is saved to your Snapshots panel (you just have to give it a name). So, that way, you could have a B&W version as a snapshot, one version as a duotone, one version in color, one with an effect, and see any of those in one click, without having to scroll through the History panel to try to figure out where each look is.

final output is print, you might have to use a little more grain than you think you should.

▼ Create White Balance Presets for JPEG and TIFF Images

With JPEG or TIFF images, the only White Balance pre set available to you is Auto. However, here’s a cool work around to get you more choices: Open a RAW image and only make one edit—choose the White Balance preset Daylight. Now, save just that change as a preset and name it White Balance Daylight. Then do that for each of the White Balance presets, and save them as presets. When you now open a JPEG or TIFF image, you’ll have these one-click White Balance presets you can use to get a similar look.

▼ Getting a Film Grain LookIf you want to simulate the look of film grain, there’s a feature that does just that in the Effects panel (to really see the grain, you’ll first want to zoom in to a 100% [1:1] view). The higher you drag the Grain Amount, the more grain is added to your photo (I don’t generally go over 40 as a maximum, and I usually try to stay between 15 and 30). The Size slider lets you choose how large the grain appears (I think it looks more realistic at a fairly small size) and the Roughness slider lets you vary the consistency of the grain (the farther to the right you drag the Rough-ness slider, the more it’s varied). Lastly, Grain tends to disappear a bit when you make a print, so while the amount may look right onscreen, don’t be surprised if it’s barely visible in print. So, if your

▼ Getting a Before/After of Your B&W Tweaking

You can’t just press the \ (backslash) key to see your before image after you’ve done the edits to your B&W image, be cause you’re starting with a color photo (so pressing \ just gives you the color original again). There are two ways to get around this: (1) As soon as you convert to black and white, press Command-N (PC: Ctrl-N) to save the conversion as a snapshot. Now you can get back to your B&W original


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▼ Painting DuotonesAnother way to create a duotone effect from your B&W photo is to click on the Adjustment Brush, and then in the options that pop down, choose Color from the Effect pop-up menu. Now, click on the Color swatch to bring up the color picker, choose the color you want, and close the picker. Then, turn off the Auto Mask checkbox and paint over the photo, and as you do, it will retain all the detail and just apply the duotone color.

anytime by clicking on that snapshot in the Snapshots panel. Or, (2) after you convert to black and white, press Command-’ (PC: Ctrl-’) to make a virtual copy, and then do your editing to the copy. That way you can use \ to compare the original conversion with any tweaks you’ve been making.

▼ Using the HSL/Color/B&W Panel? Color Correct Your Photo First

If you’re going to be using the B&W panel to make your B&W conversion, before you go there, start by making the color image look right first (balance the expo-sure, blacks, contrast, etc., first, then you’ll get better results from the B&W panel).

▼ You Can Always Start Over—Even with Virtual Copies

Since none of your edits in Lightroom are applied to the real photo, until you actually leave Lightroom (by jumping over to Photoshop, or exporting as a JPEG or TIFF), you can always start over by pressing the Reset button at the bottom of the right side Panels area. Better yet, if you’ve been working on a photo and make a virtual copy, you can even reset the virtual copy to how the image looked when you first brought it into Lightroom.

▼ What to Do If You Can’t See Your Adjustment Brush

If you start painting and can’t see the brush or the pins it creates, go under the Tools menu, under Tool Overlay, and choose Auto Show. That way, the pins disappear when you move the cursor outside your photo, but then if you move your cursor back over it again to start painting, they reappear.


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▼ Fixing “Pet Eye”If you photograph pets, you’ve probably already realized that the Red Eye Cor-rection tool doesn’t help much when it comes to fixing eye reflection problems on pets, but now the tool has a new Pet Eye button, which corrects for the most common pet eye discoloration problems. It works just like the Red Eye Correction tool, but there’s also a checkbox you can turn on/off to add a small white catch-light to the pupils, and you can click-and-drag directly on the catchlight to move it.

▼ New Common Print Sizes Cropping Overlay

Lightroom has different cropping over-lays, like a grid, the rule of thirds, the golden spiral, and so on, but it also has one that shows you print aspect overlays (like a 5x7 crop, a 2x3, etc.). To get to this Aspect Ratios overlay, get the Crop Over-lay tool, then press the letter O until you see the overlay with the ratios appearing.

▼ Customizing the Crop Overlay Tool’s Aspect Ratio

You’re not stuck with the print size ratios Adobe chose for the Crop Overlay tool’s new Aspect Ratios overlay. Choose the ratios you want to see by going under the Tools menu (in the Develop module), under Crop Guide Overlay, and select-ing Choose Aspect Ratios to bring up a dialog where you can choose which of the preset sizes you’d like displayed.

▼ Auto Upright Auto Crops for You

When you click the Upright Auto button for correcting a perspective problem, you’re basically saying, “Do it all for me,” so it usually will automatically crop the image down to size, as though you had Constrain Crop turned on (even if you don’t). By the way, you noticed I said it “usually” will automatically crop. Some-times, depending the image, it doesn’t. One more thing: if it does auto crop, you can no longer adjust the cropping at all—even if you click on the Crop Overlay tool, it won’t show you the original uncropped image. You can only crop what’s left tighter, unless you go back to Upright and either turn it off or choose a different Upright Auto correction, like Vertical or Full. It’s weird. I know.


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▼ Deleting Multiple Spot Repairs at the Same Time

If you’ve repaired multiple areas of your photo using the Spot Removal tool (maybe you used it to remove sensor dust on your image, or a spot or speck on your lens that now shows up on your image), you can remove any individual spot repair by pressing-and-holding the Option (PC: Alt) key and clicking on that individual spot. To remove multiple edits at once, press-and-hold the Option key, but then click-and-drag out a selection around the repairs you want to remove, and it instantly removes all those edits inside that selected area. If you want to remove all your repairs at once, just hit the Reset button at the bottom of the Spot Removal tool panel.

▼ Exporting Your Catalog ShortcutIf, instead of just exporting a photo, you want to export an entire catalog of photos, press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key, and the Export button in the Library mod-ule changes into the Export Catalog button.

▼ Have Lightroom Remember Your Zoom Position

If you want Lightroom to remember the amount of zoom and the zoom loca-tion between images, go under the View menu and choose Lock Zoom Position. Now, as you swap between images and click to zoom, it will zoom to the same amount and position automatically. Helpful when you’re comparing the same area between multiple images.

▼ Sharing Your Export PresetsIf you’ve come up with a really useful Export preset that you’d like to share with co-workers or friends (by the way, if you’re sharing Export presets with friends, maybe you need some new friends), you can do that by pressing Command-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Shift-E) to bring up the Export dialog. Then, in the list of presets on the left side, Right-click on the preset you want to save as a file, then choose Export from the pop-up menu. When you give this Export preset to a co-worker, have them choose Import from this same pop-up menu.


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▼ Zoom Multiple Photos in a Photo Book

If you’re working with more than one photo on a page, and you want to zoom all those photos in tighter, just select the first photo, press-and-hold the Shift key, select any other photos you want zoomed on the page, and then drag the Zoom slider, and all the selected photos will zoom at the same time.

▼ Tweaking an Image on a Photo Book Page

If you’re looking at an image in your book and you feel like it needs to be lighter, darker, more contrasty, etc., just click on the image, then press the letter D to take that image over to the Develop module. Make your tweaks there, and then press Com-mand-Option-4 (PC: Ctrl-Alt-4) to jump back to the Book module and pick up right where you left off.

▼ A Bigger View for Sorting Your Pages in Multi-Page View

When you start to do your page sorting (sorting the order of two-page spreads in your book), try this: press Shift-Tab to hide all your panels, which gives you a much larger view of your book, and it’s easier to move spreads around when you have more space like this.

▼ Getting Larger Multi-Page Views of your Photo Books

One thing a lot of folks miss when they’re in Multi-Page View mode (the mode where you can see the two-page spreads in your book) is that you can change the size of your thumbnails, so you can either see more pages in the same space, or have a larger view of your spreads. You do this on the far-right side of the toolbar (right under the Preview area)—you’ll see a Thumbnails slider. This works particu larly well when you use the next tip (pressing Shift-Tab before you enter Multi-Page View mode).

▼ Four Keyboard Shortcuts That Save a Lot of Time

You don’t have to learn a bunch of short-cuts for making books, but these four will make the process that much faster for you: (1) Command-E (PC: Ctrl-E) switches you to the Multi-Page View; (2) Com mand-R (PC: Ctrl-R) switches you to the Spread View; (3) Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) switches you to Single Page View; and (4) Command-U (PC: Ctrl-U) switches you to Zoomed Page View (zoomed in really tight), which is parti cularly handy when you need to quickly check some caption text for a typo.


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highlight the page number on that page, go to the Type panel, and choose white for its color (and now all the other page num-bers can be edited individually, as well).

▼ Adding Captions Under Multiple Photos

If you have a page with multiple images (let’s say a page with three cells), and you want a caption to appear under each indi-vidual image (rather than just one caption for the entire page), start by clicking on the first photo, then press-and-hold the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and click on the other two images to select all three. Now, go to the Text panel and turn on the Photo Text checkbox and now each of the selected images will have their own separate caption field right under them.

▼ Custom Page Save “Gotcha!”When you create a custom page design and save it as one of your own custom pages, it remembers how many cells you had and what their positions were, and it even remembers if you had a text field, along with its position. The “gotcha” is what it doesn’t remember. It doesn’t remember whether you had these cells set to Zoom Photo to Fill and it doesn’t remember your text formatting (font, size, etc.), or whether your text had mul-tiple columns. Hey, they have to have something to fix in the future, right?

▼ Changing the Format of a Page Number for Just One Page

By default, page numbers automatically added to your book using the Page Num-bers feature in the Page panel all share the same formatting (they all use which ever font, size, and other formatting choice you make). But, what if you have a full-page image that’s dark, and you need to have that one page have its page num-ber appear in white? Or what if there are a handful of pages where the font is either too dark, too light, or the wrong size? In that case, you can Right-click directly on the page number itself on the page where you need to change the color (size, etc.), and from the pop-up menu that appears, choose Apply Page Number Style Globally to turn it off. Now, you can

▼ Locking a Text Caption’s PositionIf you’ve positioned a text caption some-where on your page and you want to make sure it doesn’t get moved acciden-tally (when you’re swapping out images or moving cells), just click on the square with a small black square inside that ap pears on the edge of the caption field. It will fill with yellow, showing that its position is now locked. To unlock it, click on that same little square again.


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Date post:	11-Feb-2020
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