25 Very Useful Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

Working with Photoshop can be quite time consuming for both beginners and advanced users. Once you have worked with photoshop for a while, you will find that lot of the times you are using the same menu items or palette buttons. Photoshop has approximately 690 keyboard shortcuts. Here are some shortcuts for Photoshop users that will significantly improve the editing efficiency when using this software. I use Photoshop frequently to design icons, logos etc for website design and I find these set of shortcuts save a lot of my time when using Photoshop.

Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

1. Decrease brush size – [
Decreases the size of you brush by one size.
2. Increase brush size - ]
Increases the size of you brush by one size.
3. Default Foreground and Background Colors – D
Resets the Fore/Background color to the default color setting of black and white.
4. Deselect – Ctrl + D
Deselects anything that is selected.
5. Merge Layers – Ctrl + E
Merges all the layers into one.
6. New Layer – Ctrl+Shift+N
Creates a new layer.
7. New Layer via Copy – Ctrl+J
Creates a new layer that is the copy of the layer you have selected in the layer palette.
8. Send Backward – Ctrl+ [
Sends a layer behind another layer.
9. Send to Back – Ctrl+Shift+ [
Sends a layer to the bottom of the layer palette.
10. Undo / Redo – Ctrl+Z
Using this function you can undo/redo the last function you preformed.
11. Select All – Ctrl+A
Selects everything in one layer or image.
12. Brush / Pencil / Color Replacement tools – B
Selects the brush, pencil, color replacement tool depending on which tool you have selected from the brush menu.
13. Gradient / Paint Bucket tools – G
Selects the Gradient or Paint bucket tool depending on which tool you have selected from the gradient menu.
14. Eraser / Background Eraser / Magic Eraser – E
Selects the eraser, background eraser or magic eraser depending on which tool you have selected from the eraser menu.
15. Save As – Ctrl+Shift+S
Access the save as function.
16. Save – Ctrl+S
Access the save function this allows you to quickly save your work as you progress.
17. Zoom in – Ctrl+ + / Ctrl+Space
You can you this keyboard shortcut to quickly zoom in on your image.
18. Zoom out – Ctrl+ – / Alt+Space
You can you this keyboard shortcut to quickly zoom out on your image.
19. Step Backward (history) – Ctrl+Alt+Z
Allows you to take a step back using the history file.
20. Liquify – Ctrl+Shift+X
Allows you to quickly access the liquify filter.
21. All panels (show / hide) – Tab
This allows you to Hide/show all the panels i.e. the color, history, brush pallets and etc. This is a great function for you when want to see your image without the pallets showing.
22. Image Size – Ctrl+Alt+I
Brings up the image resize window. This shortcut is great for when you need to resize many images quickly.
23. Invert – Ctrl+ I
This shortcut invert your selection.
24. Grid (show / hide) – Ctrl+ ‘
Show/hides a grid over your image. The grid function is great for when you need to align items or objects perfectly.
25. Curve Menu – Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M
You might need an extra set of hand to use this shortcut, but it come in handy when you need to access the curve menu.