Photoshop tip finding that one layer without turning them off one at a time!

malcolm

I just realized this, sorry if I am the last person on earth to start using this workflow.

Hold ctrl and right click some pixels in your open document that has multiple layers. It will show a pop up with that layer's name that your mouse pointer is over. Select the layer name from the pop up and it selects that layer in the layer's palette. Works with overlapping layers. It is also additive selection if you hold ctrl + shift for the next layer so you can get multiple layer selections. This just changed my life forever in Photoshop. I'm in CS4 not sure if it works in previous versions.

LoTekK

Nice find! I've normally relied on ctrl-clicking (and ctrl-shift-clicking) with the Move tool selected, but that only selects the top-most layer. This'll be handy for sure.

Kbrom12

Very nice find, I can see this definitely making my life easier in Photoshop, works great in CS5

cptSwing

great tip!

another obvious tip: pressing alt and leftclicking a leyer toggles all other layers off.

Bruno Afonseca

Works in CS3. Thanks!

SpeCter

As far as i know this funtionality was always there o.O

WarrenM

Yeah, but there's always someone who doesn't know about something you do. It's amazing. Almost every tutorial I watch, the guy will do something unrelated to what he's actually showing and I have to back up and watch again - and I learn a new shortcut or feature that I never knew existed!

Brendan

In older versions, you'd just press V (like the move tool) and you could click on a pixel and it would select the layer. Very handy for individual grass blades and what not, saves you having to dig through menus looking for the layer.

Thanks for the tip, I don't know why Adobe changed it!

kodde

Nice.

One thing that bothers me is that the ctrl+move tool click on a layer does not work if they are nested in groups. The ctrl+right click works fine even when nested.

Will Faucher

What you can also do is use the move tool (v), right click, and a menu will show up, listing all the layers that share that pixel you clicked on.

Noren

@kodde: You can decide if PS will select the individual layer or the whole group in the details/option bar of the move tool.

Ken Benson

Wow! My favorite shortcut of the day! This is much better than toggling the auto-select setting.

kodde

Noren> Thanks! Never noticed that option before.