You probably are already with the clone Stamp Tool. It allows you to clone or copy pixels fromone area to another. If you hold Alt on Windows, Option on theMac, and click on your image you will set the sample source, the area that you willcopy pixels from. The preview will tell you the size of thebrush, and the content that you will paint.
But did you know that you can change the size,rotation, and the offset of the source by using a keyboard shortcut? If you hold alt Shift, Option Shift on theMac, and tap on any of the arrow keys you will offset the sample source. Notice that preview updating as I tap thearrow keys. To rotate the sample source you can hold altShift, Option Shift on the Mac, and tap on the less than or greater than keys. Those are the same keys as the period andcomma keys. And if you hold alt Shift, and tap on thebracket keys you will scale the sample source allowing you to clone something at a differentsize than what you sampled.
Keep in mind that these clone tool shortcutsonly work with North American keyboards. If a shortcut doesn't work for you then youcan go into window, clone source, and use this panel to offset, scale, rotate, and evenreset the clone source. When retouching sometimes you may want totarget either the highlights or the shadows of an image. To quickly select the bright pixels on thephoto you can press Ctrl alt 2 on windows, that's Command Option 2 on the Mac. If you want to target the shadows of the imageyou can then invert the selection by pressing Ctrl Shift i, Command Shift I on the Mac. If you create a color balance adjustment layeryou will see that Photoshop automatically applies a layer mask in the shape of thatselection then you can make an extreme adjustment, and you will see how the adjustment only effectsthe shadows. To invert a layer mask and target the highlightsagain you can click on the layer mask icon, and in the properties panel you can clickon the invert button, or you could also press Ctrl i to invert the contents of the layermask. Notice that the adjustment now only effectsthe highlights of the image.
One useful shortcut for painting or compositingin Photoshop is the lock transparent pixel shortcut. If u press the forward slashkey you will lock the transparent pixels, and you will only be able to paint on pixels that are not transparent. Notice that I'm only painting on the contentsof this layer leaving the transparent pixels intact. To unlock the transparent pixels press theforward slash key again. This is the same example that I used on mymaking custom Photoshop brushes. If you want to learn more about how to makecustom brushes from your photos then checkout on Google, I'll place a link right belowin the description. The liquefy filter is probably one of Photoshop'smost powerful and used tools. You can find it under filter, liquefy.
With the forward warp tool you can distortpixels by pushing them as you paint. You probably already know that you can reducethe distortion that you create by using the reconstruct slider under the brush reconstructOptions. It works much like the fade Command. Drag t othe lefthe distortion decreases. Moving the slider to 0 gives you back youroriginal image and sliding it to 100 gives you the full effect that you applied. This is of course a global adjustment. If you want to target the reconstruction toa specific area then use the forward warp tool while holding alt, Option on the Mac,and paint on the specific areas that you would like to reconstruct. Another powerful distortion tool in Photoshopis the puppet warp tool found in the edit menu. It allows you to place pins on your imagethat you can then click and drag to distort it.
If you don't get the results that you're expectingwhen you drag the pins then hold alt, Option on the Mac, while you hover over a pin thenwhen you see a circle with a double sided arrow click and drag to rotate the pin andadjust the way that the distortion is applied. And then you can keep rotating it until youget the results that you're looking for. If you want to watch a full explanation abouthow this tool works then check out my complete guide on the puppet warp tool, I'll placea link right below in the description. When painting, compositing, or retouchingyou may need to use more than one brush often switching back and forth from two or morebrushes. This can become a tedious process if you haveto keep going back up to the brushes panel to select the new brush. But did you know that you can press the lessthan or greater than keys to cycle between brushes? The less than key allows you to move backwardson the brushes list while the greater than key allows you to move forward on the list.
Another way in which you can save time inPhotoshop is by reducing the time that you spend clicking on the layer thumbnail, orthe layer mask thumbnail. When you're working a layer, and you wouldlike to switch over to the layer mask you don't have to click it. All you need to do is press Ctrl backslash,that's Command backslash on the Mac. Notice that the focus, the white outline,moved to the layer mask, and now you can continue painting and that will of course affect thelayer mask and not the layer. To go back into the layer press Ctrl 2, that'sCommand 2 on the Mac, and the focus will jump back to layer thumbnail, and you can keepworking with the actual pixels of the layer. You probably already know that you can fillwith your foreground color by pressing alt Backspace, that's Option delete on the Mac,and that you can fill with the background color by pressing Ctrl Backspace, Commanddelete on the Mac. But did you know that there is a shortcutthat allows to only fill opaque pixels, so that you don't effect transparent ones? If you add the Shift key to those fill shortcutsyou will only fill over the nontransparent pixels.
For example if I press Shift alt Backspaceon Windows, and Shift Option delete on the Mac, I will fill with the foreground color,but only effect the opaque pixels and not the transparent ones. Shift Ctrl Backspace, or Shift Command deletewill fill with the background color only on nontransparent pixels. When you have a selection active sometimesyou may run a Command that disables it, or you simply disable it to do something else. If you want to bring back a selection rememberthat you can press Ctrl Shift D, that's Command Shift D on the Mac, to restore the last activeselection. One fast and easy way to change the size andhardness off your brush is to hold Ctrl alt on Windows, Command Option on the Mac, thenright-click and drag left and right to adjust the size of the brush. And drag up and down to adjust the hardnessof the brush. Sometimes when working with Photoshop youmay get carried away and apply a bunch of adjustments, filters, or distortions thatit's best to simply start from scratch. When this happens you can press the F12 keyto revert the file back to the last save point. If you haven't saved the document since youopened it Photoshop will restore it back to the opening state.
Another way of getting to the revert functionis by going into the file menu and selecting revert. When working with text sometimes you may needto adjust the spacing between two letters. One fast and easy way of doing so is to placethe cursor between the two letters that you would like to adjust then hold alt, Optionon the Mac, and tap on the left arrow key to decrease the space between the two character,or tap on the right arrow key to increase the space. This next example is not really a keyboardshortcut Command, but it is a great time saver that I think qualifies as a shortcut. As you know with the eyedropper tool you canclick on your image to select a color. But did you know that you could select a colorfrom outside of Photoshop? If you drag the application window to theside to reveal any other application, you can click and hold inside of Photoshop toselect the color then if you drag out of the Photoshop window without releasing the mousebutton you will see that Photoshop will start selecting colors from outside the application. Once you find the color that you like, releasethe mouse button, and that color will be set to the foreground color inside of Photoshop. This keyboard shortcut is one that everyoneshould know. If you have been using Photoshop for a whilethen you probably have run into this problem before.
With a painting tool selected such as a brushtool you can see the preview of the brush. If you tap on the caps lock key you will switchover to the crosshair cursor. This could be very useful in some cases, butif you inadvertently activate it it can be extremely frustrating especially if you don'tknow how to disable it. When I was just starting out in Photoshop,I actually uninstalled the app to try to fix this issue. Little did I know that all I needed to doto disable it was just to hit that caps lock key. Let me know in the comments if this has everhappened to you. It will make me feel a whole lot better toknow that I wasn't the only one who ran into that problem. This next shortcut will be a bonus. This is a fun Easter Egg that you can useto play a funny prank on a friend or coworker. If you click on the three dot icon in thetoolbar, and go into the toolbar editor you can hold Shift, and click on done. Doing so will replace the three dots witha banana. The icon doesn't do anything. It's just a funny little icon that surelywill freak out your friends. To remove it go back into the edit toolbarmenu, and hold alt on Windows, Option on the Mac, and click on done.
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