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Photoshop is a bit complicated. Maybe that’s what makes it so powerful. With all the tools & features, the design workflow can be too slow. And you definitely don’t want to spend your entire day creating content for your social media, right? Hey, don’t worry. There is a way to speed up your content design workflow. How?

You guessed it right. Shortcuts.

Unlike success in real life, there are shortcuts for success in Adobe Photoshop. (Oh! That’s deep).

But, there are way too many shortcuts. It’s even hard to remember all of them and you are an alien if you can remember all those. And it’s a mistake to not learn and use the shortcuts. So, what’s the solution?

Well, that’s what this article is all about.

I’ve listed only 30 shortcuts only in this article and these are the shortcuts I mostly (95%) use in my social media design process.

PS: To learn and remember things that I’ve mentioned in this article, you need to be familiar with Photoshop. If you are not, you can read the photoshop basics article.

Photoshop Shortcuts

Do you know? You can customize the keyboard shortcuts as per your needs, although I’d recommend using the default hotkeys. And here is another thing you might not know.

You can view all the keyboard shortcuts by clicking on “Edit” in the top menu and then go to “Keyboard Shortcuts”.

Note: I just gave this info just in case if you want to remember and use more shortcuts than what I am gonna mention in this article.

So, let’s say I want to create a shortcut for “Convert To Smart Object” (Photoshop doesn’t give a shortcut for this by default). Since we work with smart objects a lot, let’s see how we can create a shortcut and use it.

You can find this in the layers section in the shortcut window.

Don’t type something that conflicts with the already existing shortcuts.

Instead, choose something that’s not used. So, I chose “Opt + CMD + X”. Once you see that there is no warning of conflict, click on “Accept” and then hit “Ok”.

You can follow the same process to create any kind of new shortcuts.

Ok, let’s get to the main topic.

From opening the photoshop to creating the design and exporting it, here is the list of all the essential photoshop shortcuts for social media content creators: (Note: Replace Opt, CMD, Delete with Alt, Ctrl, Backspace respectively if you are using windows)

Getting Started

Create a new document: CMD + N

Open a new document (PSD) or a media file: CMD + O

To fill the canvas with the foreground color: Shift + Delete

To fill the canvas with the background color: CMD + Delete

To swap the background and foreground colors: X

To change the canvas size: CMD + Opt + C

Undo: CMD + Z

Redo: CMD + Opt + Z

To move around the canvas after zooming in: Hold Space + Drag (with Mouse)

Fit on screen: CMD + 0

Tools

Spot healing brush, clone tool, etc. there are some tools I believe that most social media designers use (don’t need), at least not that quite often. So here are shortcuts for some of the most common tools I use almost every time.

Move Tool: V

Type Tool: T

Shape Tool: U

Marquee Selection Tool: M

Lasso Selection Tool: L

Object Selection Tool: W (Magic Wand Tool & Quick Selection Tool – Use “Shift + W”)

Eyedropper Tool: I

Brush Tool: B

Increase or Decrease the brush size: ] or [

Paint Bucket Tool: G (Gradient Tool – Use “Shift + G”)

Layers

Show or Hide the layers panel: fn + f7

Create a new layer: CMD + Shift + N

Duplicate an existing layer: CMD + J or “Opt + Hold and drag the layer’

Convert a layer into a smart object: CMD + Opt + X (custom shortcut)

Transform layers (or objects): CMD + T

Activate Layer Mask: CMD + \

To move the layer to the extreme top or extreme bottom: CMD + Shift + ] or CMD + Shift + [

To see the ruler: CMD + R

To hide or unhide the guides: CMD + H (CMD + ; also works)

Export

To “Save As”: CMD + Opt + S

To export an image: CMD + Opt + Shift + S

Conclusion

To make sure you create content fast, just try to use these shortcuts. Start with a few shortcuts and once you get the hang out of it, then add more.

Related Articles:

A Complete Guide To Non-Destructive Workflow In Adobe Photoshop

10 Social Media Content Creation Tools & Resources I Use Regularly

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