mac keys for step backwards in photoshop

If youd like the top of the History panel to include thumbnail previews showing what your image looks like each and every time you save the documentin addition to the thumbnail you automatically get by opening the imageopen the History panels menu and choose History Options.

Youve got several ways to retrace your steps, including the lifesaving Undo command.

If you need to go back more than one step, use the Step Backward command instead: Choose EditStep Backward or press Option--Z (AltCtrlZ).

Straight from the factory, this command lets you undo the last 50 things you did, one at a time.

If you want to go back even further, you can change that number by digging into Photoshops preferences, as the next section explains.

You can step forward through your editing history, too, by choosing EditStep Forward or Shift--Z (ShiftCtrlZ).

Note Photoshop only lets you undo changes back to the point when you first opened the document youre working on, meaning you cant close a document and then undo changes you made before you closed it.

Changing How Far Back You Can Go If you think you might someday need to go back further than your last 50 steps, you can make Photoshop remember up to 1,000 steps by changing the programs preferences.

Heres how: Choose Photoshop Preferences Performance (Edit Preferences Performance on a PC).

In the Preferences dialog box sHistory States field, pick the number of steps you want Photoshop to remember.

While increasing the number of history states might help you sleep better, doing so means Photoshop has to keep track of that many more versions of your document, which requires more hard drive space and processing power.

Turning Back Time with the History Panel Whereas the Undo and Step Backward commands let you move back through changes one at a time, the History panel ( Figure 1-10 ) kicks it up a notch and lets you jump back several steps at once.

You can step back through as many history states as you set in Photoshops preferencessee the previous section.) Using the History panel is much quicker than undoing a long list of changes one by one, and it gives you a nice list of exactly what tools and menu items you used to alter the imagein chronological order from top to bottomletting you pinpoint the exact state you want to jump back to.

And, as explained in a moment, you can also take snapshots of an image at various points in the editing process to make it easier to hop back to the state you want.

After you make a few changes to an image, pop open the History panel by clicking its button (circled in Figure 1-10, top) or by choosing WindowHistory.

When you do, Photoshop opens a list of the last 50 things youve done to the image, including opening it.

To jump back in time, click the step you want to go back to, and Photoshop returns the image to the way it looked at that point.

If you hop back further than you mean to, just click a more recent step in the list.

Figure 1-10. Top: The History panel keeps track of everything you do to your images, starting with opening them.

You can even take snapshots of an image at crucial points during the editing process, such as when you convert it to black and white and then add a color tint.

Bottom: If you take a snapshot, you can revert to that state later with a single click.

For example, if youve given your image a sepia (brown) tint and later changed it to blue, you can easily go back to the sepia version by clicking the snapshot you took of it, as shown here, without having to step back through all the other changes you made.

What a timesaver History states dont hang around foreveras soon as you close the document, theyre history (ha).

If you think youll ever want to return to an earlier version of the document, click the Create new document from current state button at the bottom of the History panel (labeled in here).

Mac Keys For Step Backwards In Photoshop