DigiGuy

I hope this one hasn't been posted at least I didn't see it. [innocent]

Have you ever been working on a complex drawing in Photoshop that contained tons of layers? Did you always have to go over to the Pallet menu and click on what you hoped was the right layer?

First of all I hope we all have got into the habbit of naming our layers that will eliminate a lot of hassel.

If you do name your layers then this tip will come in very handy.

If there are lets say 5 objects or layers then this is what you can do.

Hold down the [ CONTROL KEY ] then place your mouse curser over the image you want to select. Then click on that image and that layer will be selected.

If you have tons of layers like I do when working then the last technique doesn't work as well.

In the second scenerio this is what you do.

Hold down the [ CONTROL KEY ] right click your mouse over an image and a window will open giving you options of what layers to pick.

As far as I know this only works with P7 I don't have P6 or 5 to test this with.

If you always name your layers both techniques work very well.

Enjoy! 8) [righton]

Blinky2004

I actually like/use this one a lot also. It's a great function that was introduced with PS6.

It's called "Auto Select Layer". And if you want to, you can make it so this is on all the time. Pick the MOVE tool, and then look to the far left in the Options Bar. You'll see a checkbox for this function. Tick it on and it'll be active all the time.

Personally though i prefer the "active as i need it" routine for this. It CAN be annoying/problematic sometimes.
As DigiGuy has stated, it's the Ctrl/Cmd key that toggles this function on/off 'on the fly'.

Good stuff! [righton] :B

namvet

.. thanks guys, that's gonna be handy ... the number of times I've got into a mess taught me the benefit of naming layers [righton]

wbiss

Great tip DigiGuy! [righton] I didn't know that.... [innocent]

There was a day that I never heard of "Auto Select Layer".
I was getting quite frustrated when PS started to act weird one day (I had the option selected by accident). I even restarted PS a few times and renamed the pref file [bustagut]

It can be very useful for some people, but like Mark I rather prefer the direct way of selecting a layer.

It's good to know that this option exists, so that you know what to do when PS is suddenly acting weird

Lee

That is a fantastic tip. When I was teaching myself to work with a lot of layers in the fodders forum I mentioned that I had not named them like I should have. Had I know about this function it would not have been so problematic. Thanks Randy. [righton]

DigiGuy

LEE

No problem, I can't remember exactly where I got this tip but I think it was from the Training CD that came with PS 7.

Eventually I will purchase some of their training CD's they really go into detail and make it easy.

The people that make the CD's is called Total Training good stuff. :}

I will keep my eyes open for more trick stuff.