7 Top Lesser-Known Techniques to Get the Best of Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor for Windows and macOS created and marketed by Adobe Inc. It was founded in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since its inception, the software has become the standard for raster graphic editing as well as digital art. The usage of interesting and eye-catching eLearning visuals can significantly improve the quality of your course! Adobe Photoshop can assist you in creating and editing great graphics and objects for you to add to your courses.

There are practically a million ways to accomplish your designs using Photoshop, which is great for creativity, but it also means you don’t know about every single function or shortcut that you can access. Designers who have been using this tool for decades feel as though they have merely scratched the surface of what Adobe has to offer.

So here are some of the lesser-known techniques that can be employed to make working on Adobe Photoshop much easier and ultimately help improve your workflow.

Lesser-Known Techniques to Leverage Adobe Photoshop

1. Arrange Multiple Tabs

Isn’t it annoying to work on an image that has been zoomed into by 300 percent and still have errors appear when the image has been zoomed out? However, now, you can have numerous windows of the same image open on your screen at one go.

This not only saves you time, but also allows you to perfect your projects. This feature is simple to use. You can create a new window by clicking on “Window” and selecting “Arrange.” Using this feature, you can also magnify your image from different angles and not worry about zooming in and out on a single window.

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2. Resize the Brush

When you select alt + right click using your mouse, and drag right or left, you can increase or decrease the size of the brush. When you move the mouse while pressing the same shortcut keys up and down, you can increase or decrease the size of the feather. In case you are working on Windows, you need to select the control key and drag your mouse to perform the same functions.

3. Tool Switch

You can choose each feature on Adobe Photoshop by pressing a key on your keyboard. For example, when you select “J”, the spot healing brush tool will appear. Other brushes such as the healing brush and the patch features can also be selected using the keys on your keyboard. This can be useful, but it may be counterproductive because it switches features every time you press their activating keys.

Here’s a quick way to pick one or move between brushes and other tools as well. To switch between brushes, press shift + J (J for the spot healing brush). You can change the key depending on the feature. All you need to ensure is that the “use shift key for tool switch” is checked. This is one of the preference options that can be found by clicking on Edit > Preferences > General.

4. Select and Mask

Select and Mask is a useful and essential feature. If you want to choose a character, use the rapid selection feature, and then click on “select and mask”. There are a couple of possibilities in the view mode area.

When you select the dropdown, you can look at a few options. You can choose a few alternatives such as “on black”, “on white”, and “overlay”. The backdrop will be included when you select a view. Now you have a clear vision of how your image will appear when your design is complete, and you can get started.

(Note: in previous versions of Adobe Photoshop, this feature was known as “Refine Edge”).

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5. Duplicate Object

When you press the alt key and drag an object, you can duplicate it. You can also duplicate a layer and its effects on other layers.

6. Paste Special

This feature is rarely used; however, it is an easy, intuitive, and useful choice. This feature can be accessed by selecting Edit > Paste Special. You have three choices in this feature. The first is paste in position, the second is paste into, and the third is paste outside. The first option is used to paste whatever you have copied.

However, the second option has a unique feature. You can choose a location for the object you want your image to be placed in. Your object will no longer be able to move outside the selected area.

Similarly, if you choose a location and then use the Paste outside option, your object disappears from that specified area.

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7. Blend if

When working with layers and blending layers, you can use the ‘Blend if’ feature. This feature uses the slider supplied for “this layer” and the “underlying layer” on a grayscale. When you import a picture and use the “this layer” slider and slide from the darker side to the lighter side, you can eliminate the dark pixels, viewing the image with a white shade.

And if you do the same to the lighter side, white pixels will be eliminated from the image. The “this layer” slider affects the current layer, whereas the “underlying layer” slider affects the background layers.

Parting Thoughts!

Photoshop is a powerful software used to create beautiful images with a plethora of capabilities. It can be intimidating at times. However, mastering techniques and shortcuts can save a lot of time and improve your workflow. You can improve your game by leveraging Photoshop’s visual content capabilities in a timely, efficient, and non-stressful way.

The world of media has a bright future. There is a growing preference for visual content. However, visuals are merely one of the features included in any eLearning trends list.

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This blog is co-authored by Nikhil Bhogaraju.