10 Essential Photoshop Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are extremely important and make any graphic designer’s life more easy.You gain more time and the work flow is considerably faster. So here are 10 shortcuts that any Photoshop user should know and use.

1. D — Pressing this key resets foreground and background colors to default ( black and white).

2. X — Swap your foreground and background colors. This shortcut comes in very handy when working with

3. Ctrl + ‘+’/’-’ — This Shortcut allows you to quickly zoom in or out without changing your current tool.

4. Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N — Inserts a new empty layer on top of the active layer.

6. Ctrl + Click on the Layer icon to select the whole content of that layer.

7. Ctrl + J — Can be used to duplicate the active layer onto a new layer. If a selection is active , this command will only copy the selected area into the new layer.

8. Ctrl+ Shift+ I - Inverts the current selection by selecting the opposite of what is already selected.

9. [ / ] ( the bracket keys) - These keys increase or decrease the size of the brush.

10. Shift + [ /] - A very useful shortcut for increasing or decreasing the hardness of the brush.