On the Floor

Photoshop is one of those applications that takes years to master. I've been using it for about 8 years now, and I'm still learning new things, or better methods of performing a certain task etc.. Here are 5 tips which can boost your productivity - even if by only a couple seconds at a time.

Draggable Fields

Instead of typing in a numeric value in a text field (the text size field, for instance), move your mouse just to the left of the field and you'll notice that your cursor now includes a left/right arrow. If you click and drag sideways, you can adjust the value in that field. This works for most of the text fields in your palettes - go ahead and give it a try!

Move a Selection

If you've made a selection (either rectangular or circular), but you're not happy where you placed it's origin, don't worry - you can move it around. While still holding the mouse button, hold down the space bar and move it around. By holding down the mouse button, you can still control the height and width of your selection. NOTE: This also work's in the OS X Finder's screen capture shortcut (Command + Shift + 4).

Toggle Through Tools

Some tools like the brush, the eraser and the pen have a few tools hidden in one icon. You can access these easily with your keyboard by pressing Shift + the letter of the tool you want. So for example, Shift + P will toggle through the various pen tools.

Opacity

To quickly alter the transparency value of a layer, simply press a numeric key while the layer you want to alter is selected. Pressing 4 will reduce the layer to 40%, pressing 5 to 50% and so on. If you want to bring your layer back up to 100% (not transparent) press 0. NOTE: you can also enter exact values by quickly typing in the percentage in rapid succession.

Frequently-Used Elements

To speed up the design phase, it's a good idea to create a document containing frequently-used design elements. This allow you to simply drag and drop these elements into your new design. Feel free to use the one we use, and add your own social media icons, buttons, tabs and even font styles. Download the PSD here.