Keyboard shortcuts have major benefits in improving speed and efficiency when working with Photoshop. Shortcuts allow use to quickly switch to a different tool without going to the tools panels. This can save a considerable amount of time when working with PS.

I previously wrote a post on the keyboard shortcuts for Photoshop which can be found here. The shortcuts from this post were from the default Adobe website. However, I found an excellent resource for shortcuts over at: morris-photographs. The photographer Trevor Morris has a great series of Photoshop keyboard shortcuts for most versions of Photoshop. I believe the version range from PS5 to PS CS4 which is seven series. These shortcuts are available to download in PDF format for free. To download these files, simply right click and select save as.

If you want to find out about quick tip for Photoshop then checkout this series.

In this tutorial you will learn how to extract the background from an image using the extract filter in Photoshop. Extracting removes the background and leaves the object in place. You can also use the pen tool or the quick mask tool to remove the background, but I find using the extract filter easier.

Using the extract filter in Photoshop

Step 1

Open an image in Photoshop. I have used a free stock image, but you can use whatever image you wish.

Step 2

Select the Extract filter by going to Filter > Extract. On the Tool options to the right, adjust the brush size to your liking. Then paint over the areas of the image to create an edge of where you want to retain like below. Notice that you don’t have to be too accurate with the paint brush as any mistakes can be later corrected.



Step 3

Select the Fill tool (G) on the tools panel on the left and fill in the selection. The selection will appear in a blue colour. If you wish to see what your image will look like you can click the preview button, otherwise click ok.



Step 4

My extracted image has not come out perfectly, but this can easily be fixed. Select the History Brush tool and recover any missing areas. Then select the eraser tool to remove any extra areas.


Once you have corrected the damaged area you will be left with the following image.


Now you can add any background of your choice to the image.

This is part 23 of the Photoshop quick tip series where you will learn how to clear the purge cache. The purge cache is basically the temporary files such as the undo states that Photoshop stores so that data can be easily retrieved at any point.

The process of storing all these files will cause Photoshop to slow down considerably especially if you have an older machine. This will also depend on the length of time you used Photoshop, so if you use PS for a short period of time then everything should be fine. However, if you use PS for longer periods of time, you may start to notice a slow down in the performance as PS is consuming lots of RAM memory. If you have an update to date machine with plenty of free RAM then clearing the purge should not be a problem.

To clear the purge in Photoshop, go to the menu bar then select Image > Purge this will remove all the temporary files, and your computer should run faster.

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In this quick tip you will learn how to open two windows in Photoshop. For more quick tips, checkout the article on the Photoshop quick tip series.

When you are zoomed into an image in Photoshop making modifications, you sometimes need to see the overall result of your work. This involves zooming in and out of an image to see the results which can be rather time consuming. There is an easy solution to this problem. Simply go to menu bar and select Window > Arrange > New Window.




This will basically open up a new window of your current PS document. So if you make changes to the zoomed image, the results will be updated immediately in the new window. This allows you to see the overall PS document when you making modifications.