Five Powerful Photoshop Shortcuts That Most Photographers Don’t Know

You know that you have a spent a significant amount of time in Photoshop when you have a collection of keyboard shortcuts that have become second nature for you to use. This video introduces five more that are incredibly effective but are new to most photographers.

One of the best things about watching other people edit is that you will often learn several new shortcuts that you didn’t know existed. Sometimes, they provide a faster way of editing. Other times, they perform a function that you weren’t aware that Photoshop was capable of doing. These shortcuts are timesavers, and when you learn a new one, it changes the way you edit. In this video, Colin Smith of photoshopCAFE shares five unknown shortcuts that you should learn immediately.

One of my favorite recent discoveries, which Smith happens to mention in his video, is the ability to create a composite layer. A composite layer is a new layer that is a combination of all the layers you have selected. Essentially, you are flattening as many layers as you want, while still retaining the layers you are combining into the image. For my editing workflow, this was a gamechanger, and it is now a function I use every day. Smith shares all about composite layers as well as four other helpful shortcuts in the video above.

Are these keyboard shortcuts new to you? If you have a favorite shortcut that you don’t think most photographers know about, share it in the comments below.

Lead image by Pixabay user Free-Photos, used under Creative Commons