If you’re a photographer, no matter your level of experience, we have a new course that’s chock full of expert photography tips and techniques to help enhance your digital and scanned images. Taught by industry expert Andy Anderson (who is a photographer himself!), our Techniques for Photographers training course is sure to teach you Photoshop skills that can take your photos to the next level.
When Andy was just 9 years old, his father built him a darkroom, gave him a camera, and left him to learn – in fact, the cover image for this post is Andy’s first camera! Since then, Andy’s been a photographer, and is constantly working on improving his skills. He will show you how Photoshop has impacted the industry of photography. If you don’t know how to use Photoshop, this course will definitely make your images look better. Some of the things you’ll learn about are curves and levels, which Andy says are the two secrets to good photography. You’ll also learn about color balancing – how to get images to look older by going grayscale, and you’ll explore some of the new features in Photoshop. While we will be talking about new features in Photoshop CC, most of these tips and tricks Andy will teach you can be applied in all versions of the program.
Andy provides a few of his “power tips” – things that can help save you time and allow you to work more efficiently in Photoshop. Here are some of those tips:
Tip 1: When you’re working in Photoshop, you might have a tendency of moving things around, such as dragging out the layers panel in order to better work with it. This will clutter the image you’re trying to work on. So, to get rid of everything you’ve moved around so you’re just seeing the image, simply press the TAB key. Alternatively, if you want to see the image but also want to have access to the tool bar, then hold the shift key down and press TAB. Pressing TAB again will bring everything back.
Tip 8: The simple CAPS LOCK key. Sometimes you want a more precise type of tool, for when you’re outlining things and need a precise line, etc. If you press the CAPS LOCK key down, all of your tools go to a nice precision indicator with a cross shape, allowing you to outline exactly what you need to in your image.
Tip 9: Quick selection of layers from the layers panel. If you turn on the Auto-Select option and select Layer, when you click on an object it will select it (just like how Adobe Illustrator is object-oriented). If you don’t want to keep that on all the time, you can hold down the command key on a Mac (control on Windows) and click on the object you want to select. It’s a quick way to select any layer you want.
By incorporating these shortcuts into your workflow, you will save valuable time while working in Photoshop. Find out all of Andy’s power tips by watching the video below, taken from our Techniques for Photographers training course.