In photoshop seven when you clicked on a layer and pressed i think it was control.. it automatically selects the layer outline. For example if you rasterised some text, and then clicked in this way it will select the outline making it easy for you to put a stroke on it, or to put a gradient or whatever u wished but applying only to the relevant area on that layer not the full canvas space.
This was a simple yet so useful thing and for some reason it does not work in cs3 (also could not find it in cs2). Im sure this function must be there with a different method?
I know you can use those magic lasso things but its much less efficient, takes longer and less accurate than this way...
I will really appreciate if someone could help me out on this
Selecting layer outlines 
Linear Mode
