> KELBY ONE.COM
[ 69 ]
USEFUL SHORTCUTS
When the channel looks like the mask
you need, hold down Command (PC: Ctrl)
and click on the channel to load it as the
selection. Click back on the RGB channel in
the Channels panel.
For this example, back in the Layers
panel, I made a mask from the selection and
put a new sky photo below the layer. n
Here are a couple of shortcuts to add to your
Photoshop skills:
- Press X to swap the Foreground and Back-
ground color (incredibly useful for switching
between painting with black and white). - Press the Left Bracket key ([) on your keyboard
to reduce your brush size, and the Right Bracket
key (]) to increase the brush size. - Press the first number of the Opacity you
want to use for your brush (e.g., 2 for 20%,
4 for 40%, etc.). Press 0 to bring the brush’s
Opacity back to 100%. - Shift-click on the layer mask thumbnail to
hide the mask; Shift-click again to show
the effect of the mask. - To switch your brush to Overlay mode using
only the keyboard, press Shift-Option-O
(PC: Shift-Alt-O). To set the brush back to
Normal blend mode, press Shift-Option-N
(PC: Shift-Alt-N).