I was reading through a thread in the scrapbooking section where someon was asking what programs are good for digital scrapbooking. In the last post, Cindy Piper said this:
...I do like them all, but get frustrated having to go to the layer palette to select your layer first in PS and Gimp. PSE, you can grab your layer in the work area. In PI, anything you do in it, draw, shapes, whatever, automatically makes it's own layer. I do like the layer palette when I have so many layers on top of one another I can't see what I'm doing. It does come in handy!! ...
This reminded me of a little trick I use in PSCS5 and PSPX.
When I first started forcing myself to use my PSCS5 this year, I was frustrated too by always having to click on the layer palette to go to the layer I wanted to work on. But, what I discovered, and you all may know this already and I might just be a slow learner, is that you can just put your cursor over the element you want to work on and right click. It will bring up a pop up list of the layers and then you just select which layer to you want to go to. It seems easier to do it this way than scrolling through the layers palette (which I usually have really small so I can see all my styles).
This also works in PSPX, so I'm assuming it would be carried through to new version. Of course, the popup menu is a little different, but you don't have to go scrolling through the layers menu.
Hope that helps someone out...
Great tip Cat. I checked on CS6 and yes it does. You right click on the element and it brings up the element first with other layers. Select the element, which selects the layer.
Very cool tip, Cat. I had no idea that was possible. I love learning new things! Thanks for telling us about that.
You can also tick on the "auto select" option in the upper tool bar (in the full versions of PS anyway) while you have the move tool selected. Once that option is selected, any item you touch on your canvas with your cursor is automatically selected for you and you can quickly move things around without messing with the layers palette at all.
And this is me not mentioning how long I used PS before I noticed that box and tried it out . . .
I get stuck in a rut and never think to try things out. I just get use to doing it one way, then one day I'll try something and its like "hey! I didn't know I could do that!".
This also works in Photoshop Elements 11. Thanks for this tip....I too have a tendency to just stick with what I know instead of trying out new stuff!
Thanks for this great tip!
Thanks for making my life easier!
Cat I didn't know this tip, so thanks. I'll be trying that today!