CHANGE these 7 Settings in Photoshop RIGHT NOW

Change these photoshop settings for a more efficient Workflow and to save time. Colin Smith shares some Photoshop tips to help you work smarter and faster.

00:00 intro
00:15 Get rid of the Welcome Screen
00:40 Better ai selections
01:35 Load up the Bags of Free Goodies
02:37 Put useful stuff at your fingertips
03:12 Where did I put that File?
03:40 Personalize the Interface
05:08 Pin that Taskbar
05:18 Color Settings

#Photoshop #howto

[FotomakerAcademy]

I use a lot of them already, but didn't know I could expand the Open Recent list. That's great! 👍

[sonjon]

Many thanks, one of the most useful tutorials around!

[ralphpayne]

A brilliant video that is really useful to keep things easy, especially if used everytime there's an update! A useful written link as well! Obvious to do but result forgotten about so big thanks Colin!

[mrgoldy]

I love these types of videos that show you all the little things

[londonken]

Not being a very technical person, I find this very useful indeed, AND you talk its slowly.

[birdie]

Very helpful. I didn’t know quite a few of these settings. Thanks.

[TrevorDennis]

I'll add a few things to your list Colin.
I always turn off using the Shift key to toggle through nested tools, because why on earth would you use two keys when one works the same?
I remove the shortcuts from seldom used tools that nested with useful tools. Best example is B will always select the ordinary Brush tool, and P always selects the ordinary Pen tool etc. If I want one of the other tools, I use the mouse and toolbar. Tools like the History Brush are removed completely, because they make no sense at all. Same thing for the Slice and one pixel selection tools.
What makes the above so powerful are Custom Workspaces and the ability to save custom toolbars and menus to custom workspaces. I love and use the Michael Ninness Window > Arrange shortcuts from his Power Shortcuts presentation at MAX (2014 ish). So if I need the default for Free Transform Step & Repeat, I switch to the default Essentials workspace. I have short actions that set and reset my most used workspaces, that are triggered by Function keys. The F key defaults might make sense for a tiny laptop screen, but if you have the screen space, they are far too valuable to waste on their default.
I also use F keys, and modified F keys, that do things like Make Smart Object, add canvas, Trim, Rasterize layer, etc. I absolutely hate having to right click a layer and search through what has become an ever longer list of options.
Turn off Auto collapse and Auto open panels in Preferences, because it saves me wanting to through my computer out of a window. I like Show Tool Tips, but not Rich tool tips, obviously. Also remember to use Discover if you can't remember where something is.

[DigitalLadySyd]

Love the tips! Thought I would add that I added a Tool Presets Panel above my Layers/Channels/Paths panels and saved my most-used brushes to it. It holds my favorite Clone Stamp Brush, Eraser, Smudge Brush, Mixers, etc - great time saver when doing clean up work especially - no more scanning through all the brushes in the Brush Panel. And it can be swapped out by saving and creating new ones for different projects.

[garylee]

The Gradient tip was useful. I personally prefer to have the device set as default rather than the cloud purely for privacy

[ReidVV]

Man, you houl🎉d be on the Adobe payroll under interface development guru. I am NOT kidding. These are so good that they should be standard in every new version of PS. Thank you.

[robertstonephoto]

The legacy photographic toning gradients are terrific, especially the Platinum gradient, for B&W conversions.

[blue_ranger]

Settings I need are time-saving 'actions' I recorded, like I've made a create new and paste from clipboard for ctrl+f12, or another defaults the brush back to a standard hard round or text instantly to Helvetica 30, or applies my favourite LUT/preset, another convert to smart object and open camera raw.

[jackprice]

These were great setting tips! Thanks!

[julesselmes]

Thank you for giving the greatest gift possible…..time!

[lschiz-photography]

Excellent thank you!!!
Many things iv wondered why where how and this is most of them
Thank you
Appreciate so
Much your teaching training and style.
Scott

[JFW]

I use several of those settings. I also have my toolbar docked on the right hand side so I don't have to reach over to the left to select a tool, although I use keyboard shortcuts for the more often used tools.

[MaximKhantaev]

hi ! AWESOME tips man !!! I totally love your work ❤)) Do you know how to bring back the OLD swatches panel instead of the nonsense they do now ? Thanks a ton !

[BenSussmanpro]

Thanks, very helpful. And why did pshop relegate photo toning gradients to legacy? I found them useful a long time ago.

[baf_mcnab]

Excellent tips and you got me poking round in those settings, but have you seen how powerful the remove tool is now ? You have four choices when you select it, use AI (programme will decide if AI is better to replace what you are removing), always use AI (self explanatory) and never use AI, fourth choice is to find people in the background.

[HansvanPutten]

thank very much. It is driving Mr insane that with updates or if I buy a new computer all my preferred tools, settings workspaces disappear. This really helps me fix this if not totally then at least partially. Tks!!