Tips and Tricks for Adobe PhotoShop Windows and Mac Users

PhotoShop users have complained for years that PhotoShop can be quirky, unyielding, stubborn and generally difficult. Here are just a few tips and tricks that which you might not be able to locate in the Adobe PhotoShop manual when you need them. These will definitely make the Adobe PhotoShop work more easily for you. Most of these ideas will work on many versions of PhotoShop. 

By and large, these same tips and tricks work on PhotoShop for a Mac as well. The difference is that instead of using the Control key, Mac users will be using their Command key.

Layers Palette
When you start to work on an image in PhotoShop, check your Layers Palette first!

Don’t see the Layers Palette? No problem. Click on WINDOW (at the top of the PhotoShop screen, towards the right hand side) then click on Layers. The Layers Palette will appear on the screen.

If your Layers Palette has one layer, and the title of that layer is “Background,” you will need to change the title. As long as it says “Background,” quite a few options will be “grayed out” and will not allow you to use them when you click on them. This has been a huge source of frustration to new PhotoShop users for years now.

The solution is to double-click on the word “Background.” A new window will pop up which is called “New Layer.” 

Look for ” Name: Layer 0” ...fFind it? Good! Highlight “Layer 0” with your mouse and type the letter “a” (or any other letter or number key you prefer) and hit OK (After this, whenever you double click on a layer title to change it, you will not get the pop-up window anymore. The title will simply become highlighted allowing you to type in a new name for that layer).