8 Mind-Blowing Features in Photoshop I Didn't Know About (And They Don't Include AI)

I went to the Adobe Max 2024 conference hoping to learn about some amazing new features of Adobe products coming soon – instead, here are the 8 mind-blowing features I learned about in Photoshop and I was amazed when I heard that they all were actually there the whole time. Despite the longevity of Photoshop Since it is a top editing program, I was surprised to learn about these features. None of these features involve AI at all. So if you prefer a more traditional Photoshop workflow, these tips are for you.

8 The “Ps” button opens documents faster

Work smarter and faster, not harder

When I open a Photoshop document, I usually fiddle around in the menus, adjusting document sizes, color profiles, or other variations of settings. Had I known that by clicking the Photoshop logo—the blue “P” in the top left corner of the Home screen—I could easily open my documents, I could have saved myself countless hours of time over the years.

While you still need to set the document size, you may want to simply drag an existing document into Photoshop and open it. Pressing the Ps key allows you to open the app without having to open a file in the same motion.

7 Set a background color adjustment instead of a color layer

Offers faster and more efficient results

To set a background in Photoshop, I usually draw a colored rectangle or simply use the fill tool set to my ideal color. This adds pixels to my document, making it work heavier and a little slower.

To set a background, you should use the Background tool in the Layers panel instead. At the bottom of the Layers panel, select the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon (which looks like a semicircle) and choose Solid Color.

Select your ideal background color there and it will appear. But actually it's just a layer mask, which is non-destructive and easy to edit without affecting the pixels.

Default settings are not always the best for you

Admittedly, I knew this top tip – I just didn't realize how useful it could be to put it into practice. Your Photoshop workflow (and other Adobe software too) should meet your needs. If you continue to display the default tools and toolbars, your workflow will become less streamlined and, in some cases, even slower.

If you don't use certain tools, you can hide them. You can also remove any icons, brushes, swatches, and other Adobe-provided elements that are simply taking up space. Make your machine run more efficiently.

Go to Window > workplace to customize the toolbars displayed. You can also go to Edit > Toolbar to customize the tools that appear by default in your tools window. Everything in the Extra Tools panel can be found by selecting … Toolbar icon – they are still there, just hidden for convenience.

5 Add a banana symbol (or mocha coffee cups).

Who says your workplace can't be fun?

You may have seen this little gold icon on various developers and educators' Photoshop panels. If you're wondering whether the banana icon serves a function, the answer is no (except yes, that function is fun). But why not add something different to your interface if it will bring a smile to your day?

To add a banana icon to your toolbar, go to Edit > Toolbar. With the pop-up window open, hold down the Shift key while clicking the Done button in the pop-up. The popup will be deleted and your banana will be displayed. It's just a cute banana (but it visually replaces the artboard icon that appears when selected).

Thirsty too? If you want coffee with your light snack, go for it Settings or Preferences > interface. For Mac users, click Ctrl + option + command + layer – basically all the buttons you can hold down at the same time – while you select one of the color theme swatches and enjoy your choice of coffee color themes.

There are other Easter eggs too, like the Layer Monkey and Toast – but I'll leave you to figure those out at your own pace.

4 Remove layer boundaries for better layer visualization

See the artwork within the layer, not the layer surrounding the artwork

Having a piece of art in a layer often means that from different angles your layer panel looks like an open sea with floating pieces of garbage – good garbage, artistic garbage. There is too much space around each element because the thumbnails show the entire artboard with the element included, rather than just focusing on the element in that layer.

You can tidy up your Layers panel so that each layer's thumbnail shows only the art on the layer, rather than the layer with a small floating piece of art in the corner.

Go to Layers hamburger menu > Panel options > Thumbnail content > Level boundaries to display the layer contents in thumbnail view without the surrounding negative space. This helps display your layers to see which artwork is on which layer much more quickly and efficiently.

3 Optimize your layer views with the eye icon

The eye symbol works in reverse when visualizing layers

If I want to see a layer individually, I usually spend time going up and down in the Layers panel and turning off visibility using each layer's eye icon. Although this is not a tedious task, it may take some time when working on multiple layers.

I didn't know that you could turn off the visibility of all layers in the opposite way to turning on the visibility of a layer. Hold down option (Mac) or Old (Windows) Selecting the eye icon of any layer turns off visibility for all other layers, leaving only the selected layer visible. It really is that simple.

2 You can enlarge individual layer elements with one click

Save time zooming in on your elements

I hate to admit it, but in all these years I've actually only ever zoomed in a click or a pinch – a slow process when you need to zoom in on a specific element, especially if you can't find it in a messy one Artboard.

As I recently learned, you can zoom directly to a layer's element with a single click. This will save you a lot of time zooming and scrolling to find the element in the mass of other artistic elements in your design.

Mac users can press and hold option when selecting a layer and Windows users can hold down Old while selecting your specific level. Your artboard will zoom directly to the main element of the selected layer and fill your screen. This contributes greatly to speed and efficiency. How did it take me over a decade to learn this?

1 Use Layer Comps to save your sanity

Share variations easily

As a Photoshop user for about half of my life, I've spent many of those years seeing “layer comps” somewhere in the menus and completely ignoring them. The name never seemed obvious to me, and if I couldn't tell the tool's purpose from its name, then I dismissed it as a tool probably not worth using.

During the Adobe Max 2024 conference, Paul Trani – Adobe Principal Evangelist – taught a room of about 100 people about Layer Comps, and the silent shock followed by nervous giggles showed that I wasn't the only person in the room doing this learned time for the first time. We're experts in our field until someone shows us a tool that's been around since about 2005 and we've never touched it.

Layer Comps allows you to create variations of similar designs to easily share with customers or shareholders. You don't have to recreate your artboard and save multiple versions of the same file. You can simply create a new layer comp to export, leaving your original file intact. You can switch between views to make exporting, sharing, viewing and editing easier.

Layer comps are great for creating color variations of the same design, alternative branding options in a similar layout, or language variations in a design for a global audience. Choose to save with unique aspects such as placement, visibility, appearance and inclusion of smart objects. For even more efficiency, you can even create scripts to save renamed versions of each composition.

Photoshop remains future-proof

So many new Adobe and Photoshop features focus on AI toolsand while they have their uses, it's refreshing to know that there's still so much to learn and benefit from Photoshop's traditional features. As the saying goes: Every day is a learning day. Whether you're learning tips and tricks for more efficient workflows or brand new features that can change your entire editing game, these amazing features in Photoshop might be more useful than you can imagine. You'll never feel like you've learned everything you can about editing software. There's always more hidden in those deep, dark menus that you don't know about.