Exploring the Photoshop Ecosystem – Tips & Insights

There was a near identical thread to this quite recently, which of course I can't find now.

For me my favourite tips for streamlining the workflow is the ability to save custom shortcuts, toolbars and menus with custom workspaces.

I have short actions triggered by Function keys that set, and reset, my various workspaces.  Note: the reset is to tidy up the workspace after dragging panels around the screen.  It is intensley satisfying being able to do this with a single key press.

If you have the screen space, then I believe that the defualts for the Function is wasted.  If you are using a small screen, then they might be best used as they are.

I begrudge the time it takes to right click and find functions in the Layers panel for instance.

I use Smart Objects a lot, so F12 makes the layer a Smart Object

Shift F12 creates a New Smart Object via copy.

Ctrl F12 Rasterizes the layer

I have Actions triggered by F keys that add 10 or 100 pixels of canvas all round.  This is useful when editing a Smart Object and need more space (by default the edit window exactly fits the size of the SO).  

Note:  I have not been using that shortcut so much recently, as I have taken to expanding the canvas with the crop tool (Hit the C key and Alt drag a corner handle)

The beauty of saving shortcuts to custom workspaces is that we can repurpose a shortcut according to context. What makes this work so well is having the Actions that set and reset these workspaces, so F5 sets and resets my triple monitor workspace which has most of my non-standard shortcuts. F6 sets and resets a modified Essentials, which has the defualt shortcuts. F7 sets and resets a modified Motion workspace, and this is a useful one, because Motion changes so many shortcuts, and does not have what I consider essential shortcuts when navigating dozens of frames and layers.

I enjoy working this way so much, that I recently bought a Logoitech G515 TKL keyboard, which has the capability to program every single key with macros, character strings (shortcuts).  I have this set up as a second keyboard just for Photoshop shortcuts.  This is still a work in progress, but I am getting there.

So anything that saves an inch of cursor movement, saves a key press (I don't use Shift to switch between nested tools).

I also like to have as many tools always on display, and remove shortcuts from tools I rarely use. i.e. hitting the B key will always get me the Brush tool, and never the Mixer Brush, Pencil etc.

This is my default Toolbar so I can select tools with the mouse.  I have very few tools nested.

I have smaller panels like Character grouped on the right of my main screen. Click on one and it expands. Click again and it collapses.  The other toolbar is for Lazy Nezumi Pro, which streamlines a lot of things all by itself.

I don't like those custom panels that spread functions all over the screen, they add too much clutter, and would slow me down.  The other thing that speeds up my workflow is 25 years of experience, but there are plenty willing to share.  The trick with that is knowing who to follow on YouTube etc.  The Photoshop Traing Channel is easily the best.  Photoshop Cafe not too bad. Fstoppers is excellent. 

There are way too many total shite channels about Photoshop, so my advice is if you want to learn a tool or function, ask on this forum and we'll point you in the right direction (In Our Opinion) i.e. if you want to learn the Pen Tool and workpaths, there is no better recourse than this series of five videos by Michael Hoffman

BTW  When asking advice, always give some context. Like how you use Photoshop: photograp[hy, illustration, cartoons etc.

I use Lightroom-CLASSIC for all my DAM (Digital Asset Management) and Photoshop makes a nice 'Plugin' that works seamlessly with Lightroom-Classic.

https://jkost.com/blog/2024/09/moving-photos-between-lightroom-classic-and-photoshop-2.html

Just do some searching for online tutorials, I am sure you will find thousands with advice on this topic.

https://jkost.com/blog/photoshop-training-videos

Adobe Photoshop Thanks !