Share some of your own Photoshop Tips!

Every Photoshop pros once started out as a newbies sometime in their earlier lives. What are your top three tips you think is a must learn in order to master or got you this far in where you are at today.

 

Mine top three probably are:
1. Learn how to use masking to select the area you want to photoshop.
2. Understand the benefits of layers which is not destructive.
3. Simple enough must learn all your keyboard shortcuts will speed your workflow.

 

1. Practice often and strive to improve. Be honest about how far you've gotten compared to where you started. A few hundred hours of practice in a year would probably make you a pro or at least an advanced user.
2. Learn the ways you can "automate" the image editing, like instead of trying to free-hand draw a straight line, try using the shift button.
3. hot keys will speed your process by a lot.

 

Layer styles, layer masks, filtering.

 

1. Non-destructive techniques. ( Masks, vectors, smart filters, etc... )
2. Hotkeys. Learn them all.
3. Work slow and precise.

Also, I'd suggest to work always in bigger dimensions. Let's say you need to make a 500x500 design...work in 750x750 then after finishing just modify it to 500x500.

 

1. Don't over edit your pictures (Makes them look like a 15 year old girl using some online filter)
2. Learning the important hotkeys helps you work as fast as possible.
3. Using effects how they're meant to be used

 

I like that you added work slow and precise and work bigger. Who knows when you gonna need to crop later, right?

 

Good tips! One important thing that some people forget (myself sometimes too ;-) ) is choosing proper color mode. If you design for print select CMYK and you will avoid future complications.

 

learn the tools and the basics and that helps keep me fresh when a new version comes
out when I don't use it often enough

 

1. Experiment
2. Start with the Fundamentals
3. Find an Expert to Follow

And Participate in Groups and Get Feedback