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CALENDAR - All Photography and Photoshop related Events & Trainings in North America we could find!

This page will cover the different tools within the Photoshop Tool Palette.

Tools that are Pressure Supported mean that if you are using a Wacom Pen Tablet that you will see an extra benefit to using these tools. These tools usually allow you to do things that can not be done with a mouse, like controlling and varying the actual size of a brush, or controlling opacity levels, as you apply pressure to the tablet with the pen. In Photoshop, there are 18 tools on the Tool Palette and 6 more tools in the Liquify Filter Tool Palette.

Tool:	Name:	Key:	Description:	Pressure Sensitive:
	Rectangular Marquee Tool	M	Select portion or all of the image with in a square or rectangle area.
	Elliptical Marquee Tool	<Shift> M	Select portion or all of the image with in a circle or oval area.
	Single Row Marquee Tool		Select an area one pixel high, by the width of the image.
	Single Column Marquee Tool		Select an area one pixel wide, by the height of the image.
	Move Tool	V	This tool allows you to move a selected layer or portion of your image around.
	Lasso Tool	L	Selection tool that allows you to freeform draw your selection. This tool is much easier to use with a tablet, than with a mouse.
	Polygonal Lasso Tool	<Shift> L	Selection tool that allows you to go point to point to make a selection.
	Magnetic Lasso Tool	<Shift> L	Will make a selection around an image based on color differences.
	Magic Wand Tool	W	Selection made based on a single pixel color clicked on. You can increase the number of relative colors to that pixel by increasing the Tolerance value. The higher Tolerance value, the more colors that will be selected.
	Crop Tool	C	Used to cut or crop the size of your image.
	Slice Tool	K	Creates image slices for an image map (for the Web).
	Slice Select Tool	<Shift> K	Select slices created with the Slice Tool

Get Rid of the Annoying Checkerboard Pattern Any time you create a new layer, by default Photoshop puts a checkerboard pattern behind the transparent areas of your layer. The idea is so that you'll know which areas are transparent. We've always felt we had something that would tell us which areas were transparent - our eyes. So we (and many other users) turned this annoying checkerboard off as soon as we learned how. Here's how: In Mac OS X, go under the Photoshop menu, under Preferences, and choose Transparency & Gamut (in Windows, Preferences can be found under the Edit menu). In the dialog change the Grid Size from medium to none. That's it - click OK and the annoying grid is gone. (Want to play a Photoshop prank? Go to a friend or coworkers computer and change their Grid Size to Large and the Grid Colors to Dark. If that doesn't send them into rehab, nothing will.)

Tool:	Name:	Key:	Description:	Pressure Sensitive:
	Healing Brush Tool	J
	Patch Tool	<Shift> J
	Color Replacement Tool	<Shift> J
	Brush Tool	B
	Pencil Tool	<Shift> B
	Clone Stamp Tool	S
	Pattern Stamp Tool	<Shift> S
	History Brush Tool	Y
	Art History Brush	<Shift> Y
	Eraser Tool	E
	Background Eraser Tool	<Shift> E
	Magic Eraser Tool	<Shift> E
	Gradient Tool	G
	Paint Bucket Tool	<Shift> G
	Blur Tool	R
	Sharpen Tool	<Shift> R
	Smudge Tool	<Shift> R
	Dodge Tool	O
	Burn Tool	<Shift> O
	Sponge Tool	<Shift> O

Moving Multiple Layers From Document to Document Want to move more than one layer at a time from one document to another? It's easy, as long as you know where to drag from. First, link your layers together, then make sure that you drag your layer from within the document itself, rather than trying to drag the layer from the Layers palette. Dragging a layer from the Layers palette to another document is fine, as long as you only want to drag one layer at a time.

Tool:	Name:	Key:	Description:	Pressure Sensitive:
	Path Selection Tool	A
	Direct Selection Tool	<Shift> A
	Horizontal Type Tool	T
	Vertical Type Tool	<Shift> T
	Horizontal Type Mask Tool	<Shift> T
	Vertical Type Mask Tool	<Shift> T
	Pen Tool	P
	Freeform Pen Tool	<Shift> P
	Add Anchor Point Tool
	Delete Anchor Point Tool
	Convert Point Tool
	Rectangle Tool	U
	Rounded Rectangle Tool	<Shift> U
	Ellipse Tool	<Shift> U
	Polygon Tool	<Shift> U
	Line Tool	<Shift> U
	Custom Shape Tool	<Shift> U
	Notes Tool	N
	Audio Annotation Tool	<Shift> N
	Eyedropper Tool	I
	Color Sampler Tool	<Shift> I
	Measure Tool	<Shift> I
	Hand Tool	H
	Zoom Tool	Z

Hide Your Other Layers in the Blink of an Eye To hide an individual layer, click on the Eye icon in the first column next to that layer in the Layers palette. To make the layer visible again, click on the spot where the Eye icon used to be. If you want to keep one layer visible and hide all the others, hold the Option key (PC Alt key) and click on the Eye icon beside the layer you want to keep visible again, repeat the process.

CALENDAR - All Photography and Photoshop related Events & Trainings in North America we could find!

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