Julieanne Kost's Blog

Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) -drag on a gradient stop to duplicate it.

If you choose to view your swatches (or styles) as a list, you can double click on the name of the swatch to rename it (this is true for any panel that displays it’s items as lists (Actions, Layer Comps etc.).

Instead of navigating the panel menus, Control (Mac)/right mouse (Win) -click in the Swatches panel (over any of the swatches) and choose to Create New Swatch, Rename a Swatch or Delete a Swatch. Note: this shortcut also works with the Styles panel. In addition, clicking in a blank are of the Swatches/Styles panel will create a new swatch/style.

Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) -click on a color swatch to delete it in the Swatches panel. Note: this shortcut also works on the Styles panel and in the Preset Manager (Edit > Preset Manager). The advantage to using the Preset Manager is that you can click on one swatch, then Shift-click another to select multiple contiguous swatches (or Styles, Brushes etc.) and delete them all at once. In addition, the Preset Manager enables drag-reordering items which is not possible in the individual panels.

Shift -click on the Color panel’s color ramp to cycle through the available color modes.

To change the color sliders on the Color panel, click the panel’s drop down menu and select from Grayscale, RGB, HSB, CMYK, LAB, or Web Color Sliders.

On the Brushes panel, there are lock icons to the right of the attributes (such as Shape Dynamics, Scattering etc.). Clicking the lock icon will lock the attributes allowing you to move freely between brush presets while retaining specific attributes.

In order to create a “dotted” line instead of a solid paint stroke, display the brushes panel and click on Brush Tip Shape. Drag the Spacing slider to the right until the desired amount of space falls between each stroke. Because this simply changes the tip shape of the brush it can then be used with other painting tools such as the Pencil (great for squares), History, Eraser and Stamp tools, as well as Dodge, Burn and Sponge, and Blur, Sharpen and Smudge tools.

On the Brushes panel, it’s fairly evident that clicking the line items such as Shape Dynamics or Scattering displays their corresponding options. However, because Brush Tip Shape doesn’t have a similar check box (because it’s always on and wouldn’t make sense to turn it off), it sometimes goes undiscovered which is a shame because it controls the Shape (roundness and angle) of the brush as well as spacing. Give it a test drive.

If you have a brush configured (for example maybe you have the Shape Dynamics Size Jitter set to Pen Pressure and the Scattering set to Both Axis), and you simply want to change the tip of the brush but non of the other settings, on the Brushes panel, click Brush Tip Shape and select another shape. Notice how the other settings don’t change.

When a painting tool is selected that supports the Airbrush attribute, you can certainly enable it by clicking the icon in the Options bar, or by checking the Airbrush option in the Brushes panel but it’s probably easiest to use the the keyboard shortcut Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) + Shift + P. Note: using the shortcut again will toggle the Airbrush attribute off.

‘,’ (comma) or ‘.’ (period) goes to previous or next gradient swatch in the gradient picker
”,’ (comma) or ‘.’ (period) + Shift goes to first or last gradient swatch in list

The Gradient tool has multiple styles to choose from (Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected and Diamond). ‘[' or ']‘ will move you quickly from one to the next gradient style.

When using the Gradient tool, be sure to check “Dither” on in the Options bar if you want to minimize banding over long gradients.

The Paint Bucket can fill with not only the Foreground color but also a Pattern. With the Paint Bucket selected, simply choose which option you prefer in the Options bar. Note: the Fill command (Edit > Fill) also has the pattern option, but the Paint Bucket may be faster than using a dialog box.