Part of what makes Photoshop such an incredibly powerful and pleasurable program to use is its well-thought out implementation: the interface is polished and uncluttered and easily customizable (despite its vast arsenal of tools and commands). In fact, there is a surprising amount of "hidden" functionality within Photoshop; so much so, that despite the number of years you work with the program, you will undoubtedly keep discovering more and more about it. I doubt anyone could claim that they know "everything" about Photoshop (except maybe Adobe's software engineers ;-).

The 120 tips below should help you (whether you are a beginner or a seasoned expert) to harness some of Photoshop's "hidden" functionality to streamline your work, perform complex tasks more quickly or efficiently, or teach yourself something you had no idea Photoshop was capable of!

For your convenience, the tips have been organized into the following ten categories:

Interface Tips [ 18 Tips ]

Tool Tips [ 11 Tips ]

Command Tips [ 21 Tips ]

Selection Tips [ 8 Tips ]

Layer Tips [ 14 Tips ]

Tips for Guides & Rulers [ 7 Tips ]

Navigation & HotKey Tips [ 7 Tips ]

Tips for Duplicating [ 10 Tips ]

Type Tips [ 10 Tips ]

ImageReady Tips [ 14 Tips ]

Here are a couple of notes before you begin:

• I tend to prefer hotkeys (e.g. [Ctrl+D] ), but I have provided equivalent alternatives (e.g. Select » Deselect - which denotes a menu command) wherever possible

• Mac Users: Ctrl = Apple, Alt = Option (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+D = Apple·Option·D); right-click = Option·click