Photoshop Help
I have learned a few tricks over the years. Below I've listed some things I know how to fix Photoshop problems. For anything beyond that please contact me.
To jump right to the official Photoshop Help online. In addition to an online manual Adobe has some pretty well-rounded support forums and as a last-ditch effort you can always search online for whatever your Photoshop issue is.
1. How can I find where something is in the menus?
To find a menu item go to the Help Menu and type the function in to the type bar at the top of the menu. If you're looking for functions or how to do something, use the Photoshop Online Help option. Adobe has an extensive on-line help library that you can access through the help menu. Then, of course, there is Google and YouTube. I can pretty much guarantee you that you aren't the first one to experience whatever is giving you troubles.
2. Photoshop isn't working/doing what I want it to.
There are all kinds of reasons your Photoshop might not be doing what you want it to do. Try these things to see if it clears up:
3. Photoshop won't let me use hotkeys
Are you trying to use hot keys but your tool won't change? If so, you've found on of Photoshop's most annoying, persistent, glitches. For some unknown reason hot keys become frozen. The only way to unfreeze them is to toggle between two open documents. (Command Tildé).
4. Photoshop is doing something screwy
If nothing in 2 & 3 fix your problem, try these things in sequence. If at any point the glitch goes away, you're good to go.
5. Photoshop is frozen
6. I've lost my file or my file has become corrupted and won't work
This is where a backup file becomes really handy. Hopefully you've saved a previous version on an external hard drive or storage cloud that you can go back to. If not, you can try having the file retrieved by a Techie, but mostly you just have to start over again, sorry. The good news is that usually the 2nd time around you'll remember to save a backup copy.
7. I deleted something important in my Photoshop file on accident
If you have not yet saved, closed, and reopened your file you may be able to step back in your history to where you deleted the layer. Open your History panel in Window Menu > History and click up through the steps until you find where you deleted the layer. If there aren't enough steps to go back through, you may be out of luck. If this happens you can try closing the file and NOT saving your progress and then reopening it in it's previous state. Also, FYI, you can increase your history state cache in File Menu > Preferences > Performance. Photoshop's default is 20 history states. I suggest not raising this number over 50. Any higher then 50 and your computer will probably start slowing down.
8. I'm trying to move something on my document but it keeps "popping" or "snapping" into a different spot.
9. All of my panels and tools vanished!
10. All I can see is my document, but not any tools, panels, or menus
11. Photoshop is agonizingly slow!
This could be a number of things but usually means that there is not enough RAM available to handle running Photoshop. To the average Joe the amount of RAM your computer has determines how many programs/functions it can multi-task between. Follow these steps in sequence and see if any of them work.
To jump right to the official Photoshop Help online. In addition to an online manual Adobe has some pretty well-rounded support forums and as a last-ditch effort you can always search online for whatever your Photoshop issue is.
1. How can I find where something is in the menus?
To find a menu item go to the Help Menu and type the function in to the type bar at the top of the menu. If you're looking for functions or how to do something, use the Photoshop Online Help option. Adobe has an extensive on-line help library that you can access through the help menu. Then, of course, there is Google and YouTube. I can pretty much guarantee you that you aren't the first one to experience whatever is giving you troubles.
2. Photoshop isn't working/doing what I want it to.
There are all kinds of reasons your Photoshop might not be doing what you want it to do. Try these things to see if it clears up:
- Are you on the right layer? Check your Layers panel. If the layer you are trying to affect is blue then it is the active layer. If the layer is dark grey like the other layers it is not active. Try clicking on the layer you want to affect to make it active.
- Push Command Return. It is possible that you are in the middle of a transform function and pushing Command Return will end it, allowing you to move on to other things.
- Push Command D to Deselect. It's possible you accidentally created a selection and you are unable to affect any pixels outside of it.
- When you look at your layers panel, is the active layer light grey instead of blue? If it is grey you might be in Quickmask mode. Push the "Q" key to toggle out of quickmask mode. This should make the active layer blue again.
3. Photoshop won't let me use hotkeys
Are you trying to use hot keys but your tool won't change? If so, you've found on of Photoshop's most annoying, persistent, glitches. For some unknown reason hot keys become frozen. The only way to unfreeze them is to toggle between two open documents. (Command Tildé).
- If you only have one document open, create a new document and then push Command Tildé to switch between windows.
- Make sure you're keyboard is plugged in.
- Restart Photoshop
- Restart your computer
- If that still doesn't work delete Photoshop's settings file by holding Command Option Shift when you restart Photoshop.
- If it's still not working, do an internet search for the problem. Ultimately you can uninstall/reinstall Photoshop if you have to.
4. Photoshop is doing something screwy
If nothing in 2 & 3 fix your problem, try these things in sequence. If at any point the glitch goes away, you're good to go.
- Quit and restart Photoshop
- Quit Photoshop and restart your computer
- Try resetting the workspace
- Delete Photoshop's settings file by holding Command Option & Shift when you restart Photoshop. This will reset everything to Photoshop's default settings (be warned, if you programed any hotkeys they will have to be redone).
- If none of these work, you'll have to ask someone else for help. If you're on your home computer you may have to reinstall Photoshop, but message me before you do and let's see if we can figure it out.
5. Photoshop is frozen
- If nothing is responding at all in Photoshop and you've tried all the tips in #1, you may need to force quit Photoshop. On a mac this is done by pushing Command Option Esc. to get the Force Quit Applications window. Click on Photoshop and then Force Quit.
- If not even the force quit window appears, you've probably frozen your computer and it needs to have a "hard restart". Hold down the power button until the computer completely shuts down. Then power it up again the normal way.
6. I've lost my file or my file has become corrupted and won't work
This is where a backup file becomes really handy. Hopefully you've saved a previous version on an external hard drive or storage cloud that you can go back to. If not, you can try having the file retrieved by a Techie, but mostly you just have to start over again, sorry. The good news is that usually the 2nd time around you'll remember to save a backup copy.
7. I deleted something important in my Photoshop file on accident
If you have not yet saved, closed, and reopened your file you may be able to step back in your history to where you deleted the layer. Open your History panel in Window Menu > History and click up through the steps until you find where you deleted the layer. If there aren't enough steps to go back through, you may be out of luck. If this happens you can try closing the file and NOT saving your progress and then reopening it in it's previous state. Also, FYI, you can increase your history state cache in File Menu > Preferences > Performance. Photoshop's default is 20 history states. I suggest not raising this number over 50. Any higher then 50 and your computer will probably start slowing down.
8. I'm trying to move something on my document but it keeps "popping" or "snapping" into a different spot.
- Go to View Menu and uncheck the Snap option (Shift Command Semicolon)
- Or go to the Snap To option and uncheck or check specific items.
- You can also "nudge" the object by holding Command key and using your arrow keys which will move the layer in tiny increments.
- Holding Command Shift and using the arrow keys will nudge the layer in slightly larger increments.
9. All of my panels and tools vanished!
- Try pushing the Tab key which will toggle panels off and on
- Go to the Window Menu and choose the panels you want back open
- Reset the workspace: Window > Workspace > Reset workspace
10. All I can see is my document, but not any tools, panels, or menus
- Push F to toggle through the different view modes
11. Photoshop is agonizingly slow!
This could be a number of things but usually means that there is not enough RAM available to handle running Photoshop. To the average Joe the amount of RAM your computer has determines how many programs/functions it can multi-task between. Follow these steps in sequence and see if any of them work.
- You may have too many applications open. Close other applications that you aren't using. On a mac you can easily see what programs are open by holding the Command key and pushing Tab. On the PC - it's ALT-TAB.
- You may have too many Photoshop documents open, or layers within your document. You can try closing other open documents and/or simplifying your layers if you have over 100.
- Photoshop may need to be restarted.
- Your computer may need to be restarted.
- Is your computer storage nearly full? You may need to back up some files and remove them from your computer.
- If none of these options have helped you may have an issue with your computer. You can try running a maintenance software which may improve the computer's performance. There is free software out there that can do this if you don't wish to pay for one. Maintenance for Mac is one that I use on a regular basis.
- If nothing else works (and you're desperate enough) you can completely wipe your computer and reinstall everything, though this is certainly a last-ditch measure. However this is something I do to my computer about once a year to keep it running like new. If you're not sure how to go about this I highly suggest having a professional tech worker take care of it for you which brings me to my last suggestion:
- Take your computer into a computer repair shop and have the pros look at it.