Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 Value of Using Shortcuts

Hi, everyone--Michael Brown back with you; welcome back to Educator.com's Adobe Photoshop Elements Beginning and Intermediate course!0000

In the last couple of lessons, we have been talking about the Editor, workspace, Toolbar, the menu bar, the Options bar, and all of the various functions--and we will be talking about more of them in the next couple of lessons--that you need to do all of your work.0008

But, as we have been moving along, you hear me talking about the value of shortcuts.0024

In this lesson, I'm going to take the time to go over the value of using shortcuts--both 1- and 2-key shortcuts--and the real importance of learning them, and I'm going to show you a specific example, using this image, where I'm going to retouch it twice.0029

I'm going to do it once without using shortcuts, and I'm going to do the same, exact thing a second time, using shortcuts, and you will be able to see exactly how much time we can save using shortcuts.0048

That will really show you the value of them, all right?0061

Let's get started; I want to talk about the basic categories and essential shortcuts.0064

I have broken Photoshop Elements down into four simple categories that really sum up everything you are going to use for your work, with the exception of layers and a couple of other things; but most of the work is right here.0072

In this chart, the red dots indicate a tool, adjustment, or panel that has a 1- or 2-key shortcut for it.0087

The four categories--the most important one is selections; selections are isolating areas so that you can do something to that area or protect another area from having something done to it.0098

These are all of the tools, right here, that you use to do the selections; the red dot indicates that that tool can be accessed by using a shortcut--every single one, with the exception of one.0111

Under the corrections (corrections are exposure, color, and sharpening), the primary exposure control is your levels panel; it can be accessed by using a shortcut.0126

The primary color control panel is hue saturation, and it, too, can be accessed by using a shortcut.0141

Your retouching category is where you are actually removing blemishes from, not necessarily people, but from the images, or imperfections, and cloning things in and creating stuff with tools that manipulate the pixels.0149

The two tools that you use are the Rubber Stamp tool and the Healing Brush, both of which have shortcuts.0164

The manipulation category is where you are cropping, rotating, sizing an image, altering or manipulating, and distorting sections of an image.0173

The primary controls for that are the Transform tools and the Crop tool, and once again, they also have shortcuts.0182

So, you can see that the most commonly-used tools and panels and menus have either 1-key or 2-key shortcuts to access them.0191

In other words, it takes less time--not using them, but getting to them.0203

Of course--we went over this earlier--the Hand tool, the Move tool, and the Zoom tool with their shortcuts; the Selection brush we talked about up here--and the Brushes.0209

Again, almost all of these red-dotted features are your principal features that you use all the time, and they can all be accessed by using a 1- or 2- key shortcut.0222

Each one, and each time you access one, saves you time, and the more time you save, the more time you have to work and improve the images that you are working on, or graphics.0236

All right, let's take a look back, again, at the single-key shortcuts for the Toolbar.0248

What I have done here on the chart is put a blue circle around the tools that you most frequently use; if you notice, it's about half of the letters that are associated.0256

So, if you learn these 14 tools, you have almost everything that you will be needing for a 1-key shortcut.0267

Here are your 2-key shortcuts; and it shouldn't be intimidating, because on a PC, it's the Control key plus a letter; on a Mac, it's the Command key plus a letter; so, all you have to do is associate the letter with a function, and it's Command or Control plus the letter--very simple.0275

What I have done on this chart is highlighted in red the most frequently-used shortcuts, so if you remember those, once again, you will have all of the shortcuts, 1- and 2-key.0295

And I want to show you: you know that they are all on the Toolbar; we went over the menu bar in the last lesson; but I want to show you, very quickly: under the File menu, there are 1, 2, 3, 4 shortcuts that are two keys, right there.0307

Under the Edit menu, there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5--under the Edit menu; under the Image, under Transform (that is the popularly-used tool, right there); under the Enhance menu, there is one right there; and I think that there is another one--there is another one there; there is 2; there is 3, right there; under the Layers menu (let's see, Adjustment Layers...there is another one...oh, there it is, Command+E or Control+E, Control+G) there are 2 there.0324

The Selection menu has two of them; the Filter menu has one; the View menu has 1, 2, 3 right there, and even the arrangement for windows has a shortcut.0355

These are things that you use all of the time, so it's very, very valuable to learn them.0369

Now, you have heard me talk, and you say, "Show me!"; OK, I'm going to show you.0373

Here is an image right here; I'm going to discard these two layers, and I'm going to create two more layers.0381

What I want to do is take this image, and we're going to retouch it; we're going to (and I'll show you exactly what we're going to use) use the Zoom tool and the Hand tool to zoom up and move in and get this isolated.0388

I'm going to take the lasso tool and make a selection around this so that we don't retouch into the building; it protects the edge.0401

I'm going to be using this tool to do the retouch; then, we're going to deselect it and bring it back down to size.0410

I'm going to do that twice: once without shortcuts (and we're going to time it) and once with shortcuts, and we're going to time that, and we're going to compare the two and show you how much time you can actually save!0417

Let's get to it; I have about 15 seconds here; I'm going to set the tools properly; we have that one; I want this one on that; the Brush down to 0; I want this one right there, and the Brush is 0; I'm going to be in the Brushes; here we go; 2-1...0429

We're going to do this one without shortcuts.0444

Zoom tool--zooming up to 200%; the Hand tool to move it down so I get it in position; I'm going to take the Selection tool, the lasso, and use this one here to put a quick selection and protect the building from the retouch work.0448

I'm going to get the retouch tool and increase the brush size to a usable size, right here; and then, I'm going to retouch out the tower and the antennas.0465

I'll do this very quickly, and then I'm going to deselect, and then I'm going to go back to the Zoom tool and fit the screen0485

We started at one minute, and it took 49 seconds to do that entire job.0492

What we're going to do...I'm going to call this Without Shortcuts so we can have that; I'm going to make a text layer, and I'm going to say, "Without Shortcuts was" what--45 or 46 seconds?--"46 seconds."0498

I'm going to apply that, and I'm going to take these two layers (wait, make sure that is the right one--yes), and we're going to combine those, so that is in there, and now it says, "Without shortcuts, 46 seconds."0526

OK, move that down; move the other one up; I'm going to call this "With Shortcuts," and we're getting close.0541

I want to reset my tools; there, this one down here, Zoom tool over there...all right; 6 seconds; we're ready to go; 4-3-2-1, Go!0550

This is all shortcuts; Hand tool brings it down; all I have to do now is take the lasso tool, and I'm going to make that selection again and get my healing brush and get that out of here, and just make the brush size come up, and do the retouch work.0564

Deselect it, and bring it back down; and we are at 33 seconds.0594

So, that took 33 seconds with shortcuts; "With Shortcuts, 33 seconds" to do exactly the same thing.0600

We're going to combine those two, and there they are.0615

So, with the shortcuts, it was 33 seconds; without the shortcuts, it was 46 seconds; you can see right there, we saved approximately 33%; one-third of the time that it took to do it is extra time.0620

Out of 46 seconds, we gained 15; that extra 15 seconds piles up; that was 15 seconds in less than a minute!0638

So, if you imagine working on your image for an hour or two--you may not save that much on each move, but it's going to pile up and give you lots and lots of time.0648

What that proved is that, in the end, you can save a lot of time by using 1- or 2-key shortcuts.0658

Now, these three charts will be available underneath this lesson, in the Quick Notes, as a PDF, and it will also be in almost every lesson in this course, because I feel that they are so valuable.0672

Once again, you can see: without shortcuts, it took 46 seconds, and with the shortcuts, it took 33 seconds; so, we saved 33% of the time; that is extra time to work.0689

This proves to you the value and the time that you're going to save in using 1- or 2-key shortcuts.0705

Learn them as we go along, and I will see you back in the next lesson!0712