Sometimes I come across people who use Photoshop in a different way than me. So I decided to tell a bit more about the way I use it. Although Photoshop puts almost any shortcut in the action-menu, you might not have made it a common habit to use them all. If you are serious about Photoshop, I would recommend learning the shortcuts for the actions you use on daily base (write the things you have to do down and practice it a few times, within minutes you’ll never forget it again). Not only it save time, it also reduces the time you use the mouse, and thereby the change you get RSI.

I hardly use Photoshop for photos though, it’s all webdesign. So if you are planning to do a lot with photos you might want to look at an other list of shortcuts. Here I focus mainly on the keys I use for webdesign. So lets assume you want to make prototypes and wire-frames of websites with Photoshop, In order to plan ahead, and make clients happy without actually having to code.

Trough the years I learned some shortcuts to handle Photoshop much quicker, many you probably already know, but some might come in hand.

first the single keys (just push the key to select the function)

V move tool, first push V, than keep the cntrl pushed down, and than click with the left mouse button on any object to select it, and move it around. Knowing this shortcut increased my Photoshop speed by 40% I think, you never need to look things up in the layer-pallet anymore.
A (arrow) Comes in hand to change vector objects, make sure it’s the white colored angle, so you can change vector objects)
M (marquee) make a selection
W (wizard) make a selection based on the colors
F push f and you switch to another view of Photoshop (push F four times and you are back where you begun)
Tab hides the pallets (push 3 times F and one time tab, and you have an empty screen)
T selects the text edit function, push T, click on a text field and you can edit it. Push cntrl+T to get yourself out of the text field again.
B brush (click anywhere in the document with the right mouse button to change the properties)
I eyedropper-tool - to select a color.
G fill bucket - most used by me in the combination of I (select a color) V + left click, G + left click, to fill a layer with the color of an other one.
Z - zoom use it in combination with ctrl + = or ctrl + - to zoom in and out quickly
Spacebar - keep the spacebar pushed down, click left, and move your mouse to move to the document.

Those where the key’s I used more often, you can check the whole alphabet if you want to know the secret behind every key. Now lets move on the the shortcuts

Shortcuts

shift + cntrl + alt + s save for the web, my most used combination saves your file for the web
alt + I + I changes image size
cntrl + A select all
cntrl + shift + C copy all layers
cntrl + V past image in new layer
cntrl + D deselects the selection again
cntrl + N and cntrl + v gives you an image in a new document
cntrl + R gives you rulers around the document (in properties you can set the distance in pixels instead of inch)
cntr + ; show the line guides, you can create and move them by pushing V and start dragging from the ruler to the document
in the view menu you can change if objects should snap to rulers
cntrl + T transform the object; standard on making it smaller or bigger, but if you click right on the object, you’ll get more options to change the object. Use cntrl+ Enter to do the transformation, or esc to escape it again.
cntrl + E merges to current layer with the one bellow
shift + cntrl + J cut out the current selection and put it into a new layer

This is about it, if you know more handy photoshop tricks, please fill me in on the comments. Thanks!