Change Opacity With Airbrush Turned On

If you have the Airbrush capabilities turned on in the Options Bar, the standard shortcut will no longer work to change the Opacity (normally you can press 1 for 10, 3 for 30, etc.) Once you’ve turned the Airbrush option on, that number shortcut will change the Flow rather than the Opacity.

To change the Opacity with the Airbrush option on, use Shift and the number, for example, press Shift-4 to change the Opacity to 40%.

A Better Patch Tool?

Use "standard" selection techniques to select with the Patch tool: Shift to add to the area, Option to remove from the area. If you are starting a new patch selection, holding down the Option key and using single clicks turns the Patch tool into the Polygon Patch tool. You can also switch to a selection tool, add more feathering and then return to the Patch tool to complete the operation.

Refresh the File Browser

Don’t be fooled by the fact that F5 is the shortcut to show the Brushes palette. When the File Browser is active, F5 becomes the shortcutto refresh the File browser.

Default Setting for Global Light

If you find yourself always changing Global Light in Layer Styles to some setting other than the default, change the default. Here’s how: with no document open, go to the Layer menu and choose Layer Style>Global Light. Change the settings and you’ve just created your own default for Global Light.

Bigger Filter Preview

You can create a bigger preview window for any filter in the Filter gallery. Just click on the arrow button [insert filter preview] to expand the preview. Click the button again to collapse the preview window and see the filter list.