Photoshop Text Tips, Tricks And Keyboard Shortcuts

In this Photoshop tips & tricks tutorial, we're going to look at some handy tricks and keyboard shortcuts for working with Photoshop text. We'll be looking at things like how to quickly select words, lines and paragraphs, how to easily switch between fonts, how to quickly access bold and italic font styles, leading, tracking and kerning, resizing, aligning and justifying text, and more!

Selecting All Text On A Type Layer

Here's some sample text that I borrowed from our tutorial on image pixels:

Photoshop Text Tips: Some sample text.

All of this text is on a single Type layer in the Layers palette. To select all the text on a Type layer, simply double-click directly on the Type layer's thumbnail:

Photoshop Text Tips: Double-click directly on the Type layer's thumbnail (the "T") to select all text on the layer at once.

How To Select All Text Layers At Once

How To Select All Text Layers At Once

I went a long time without knowing this trick, and the moment I stumbled upon it, I suddenly wished I could go back and relive all the time I'd wasted selecting multiple text layers one at a time in my Photoshop documents.

Here I have a document open with six layers - the Background layer on the bottom and then five text layers above it:

Photoshop Tips and Tricks: Photoshop's Layers palette showing the Background layer and five text layers above it.

This is just a simple example, but you could run into situations where you have hundreds of layers, with text layers scattered here, there and everywhere throughout the Layers palette. And let's say you needed to select all of them at once. Rather than scrolling through the Layers palette and selecting them one at a time, all you need to do is select one of them, then go up to the Select menuat the top of the screen and choose Similar Layers. And just like that, all of your text layers throughout the document will be selected:

Photoshop Tips and Tricks: After choosing "Similar Layers" from the "Select" menu, all text layers are selected.

This doesn't only work with text layers. Select > Similar Layers will work on whichever type of layer you currently have selected.

Turn Your Mouse Wheel Into The Zoom Tool In Photoshop!

Turn Your Mouse Wheel Into The Zoom Tool In Photoshop!

Tired of always selecting Photoshop's Zoom Tool from the Toolbar whenever you need to zoom in or out of your photos in the document window? You could use the handy keyboard shortcut for quickly accessing the Zoom Tool, which is Ctrl+spacebar (Win) /Command+spacebar (Mac) to zoom in, or Alt+spacebar (Win) / Option+spacebar (Mac) to zoom out, but there's an even faster way. Just use the scroll wheel on your mouse!

You'll find the option for enabling or disabling this feature in Photoshop's Preferences. Go up to the Edit (Win) / Photoshop (Mac) menu at the top of the screen, choose Preferences, and then choose General. You'll see an option called Zoom with Scroll Wheel in the center of the Preferences dialog box. Click inside the checkbox to the left of the option's name to enable or disable the option:

Photoshop Tips: Enable or disable zooming with the scroll wheel in Photoshop's Preferences.

Even if the option is disabled in Photoshop's Preferences, you can still zoom in and out with your mouse wheel. Simply hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key, then use the mouse wheel!

Showing More Than 10 Recent Files In Photoshop

Showing More Than 10 Recent Files In Photoshop

By default, when you go up to the File menu at the top of the screen and choose Recent Files, Photoshop only shows you the last 10 files you've opened. Photoshop actually keeps track of the last 30 files you've opened, but it only shows you the 10 most recent.

We can change that though and have Photoshop show us all 30 recent files if we want by pressing Ctrl+K (Win) / Command+K(Mac) and bringing up Photoshop's Preferences dialog box.

When the dialog box appears, press Next to move to the File Handling preferences, and the option at the very bottom says Recent file list contains. The default value is 10. Change it to 30 or some number between 0 and 30 depending on how many you wish to view, and then click OK to exit out of the dialog box.

Photoshop's "File Handling" preferences.

If you go back up to the File menu and back to Open Recent, you'll now see 30 recent files instead of 10 (assuming you've opened at least 30 files in Photoshop) or however many you set in the File Handling preferences.

Tired Of That Default Gray Pasteboard? Make It Any Color You Like!

Tired Of That Default Gray Pasteboard? Make It Any Color You Like!

Here's something that definitely qualifies as more of a trick than an actual Photoshop tip, but if you're tired of your pasteboard (the blank area all around your photo) being that default gray color, you can actually change it and make it any color you like! Keep in mind that you'll want the pasteboard color to be gray when doing any serious work on your images, but if you just want to have some fun or play a trick on someone else, here's how to change the pasteboard color.

First, select Photoshop's Paint Bucket Tool from the Tools palette. By default, it's hiding behind the Gradient Tool, so you'll need to click and hold on the Gradient Tool for a second or two until a fly-out menu appears, then select the Paint Bucket Tool from the fly-out menu:

Photoshop Tips: Select the Paint Bucket Tool.

Next, click on the Foreground color swatch in the Tools palette:

Photoshop Tips: Click on the Foreground color swatch.

This brings up Photoshop's Color Picker. Select whichever color you want to use for the pasteboard. I'll choose a shade of red. Again, this is just for fun, not for serious Photoshop work:

Photoshop Tips: Select a new color with the Color Picker.

Click OK once you've chosen a color to exit out of the Color Picker. Move your mouse cursor into the pasteboard area, hold down your Shift key, and click on the pasteboard. Instantly, the pasteboard changes to the new color:

Need More Undo's In Photoshop? Just Add More History States!

Need More Undo's In Photoshop? Just Add More History States!

If you find that Photoshop's default number of Undo steps is rarely enough, there's a couple of things you can do. One is to rethink how you're working on your images in Photoshop so you don't need so many Undo steps all the time. The other is to simply add more Undo steps, which you can do by adding more History States. If you're using Photoshop CS2 or earlier, go up to the Edit (Win) /Photoshop (Mac) menu at the top of the screen, choose Preferences, and then choose General. You'll see an option near the top of the dialog box called History States. Simply type in the number of History States you need. Here, I've increased mine to 30:

Photoshop Tips: Change the number of History States in Photoshop's Preferences.

Something important to keep in mind is that the more History States you add, the more memory you'll need in your computer. If you find Photoshop slowing down and having a tough time keeping up with you while you're working on your photos, you'll probably need to either reduce the number of History States or add more memory to your computer.

Reset The Preferences When You Start Up photoshop

Reset The Preferences When You Start  Up photoshopPhotoshop may be the world's most popular and powerful image editor, but like most things in life, especially computer-related things, it's not perfect. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, Photoshop can start acting funny on you. One common cause has to do with Photoshop's Preferences. Sometimes, they can get messed up. Fortunately, Adobe makes it easy to reset the preferences if we need to.

If Photoshop is already open on your screen, close out of it. Then hold down Shift+Ctrl+Alt (Win) / Shift+Command+Option (Mac) on your keyboard and start Photoshop back up. The very first thing you'll see is a dialog box that pops up asking if you want to delete the existing Preferences file (which it calls the "Settings" file):

Photoshop Tips: Hold down Shift+Ctrl+Alt (Win) / Shift+Command+Option (Mac) when you start up Photoshop to reset the preferences.

To reset Photoshop Preferences to the defaults, click Yes in the dialog box. The existing Preferences file will be scrapped and a brand new one will be created.