ABSTRACT
The Tools panel, shown in Figure 1.38, contains 65 separate tools. Clicking any tool automatically displays the tool Options bar (if it is currently hidden) from where you can manage the individual tool settings (see page 30). Many of the tools in the Tools panel have a triangle in the bottom right corner of the tool icon, indicating there are extra tools nested in this tool group. You can mouse down on a featured tool, select any of the other tools in this list and make that the selected tool for the group (see Figure 1.37). You will notice that most of the tools (or sets of tools) have single-letter keystrokes associated with them. These are displayed whenever you mouse down to reveal the nested tools or hover with the cursor to reveal the tool tip info (providing the ‘Show Tool Tips’ option is switched on in the Photoshop Interface preferences). You can therefore use these key shortcuts to quickly select a tool without having to go via the Tools panel. For example, pressing v on the keyboard selects the move tool and pressing j will select one of the healing brush group of tools (whichever is currently selected in the Tools panel). Photoshop also features spring-loaded tool selection behavior. If instead of clicking, you hold down the key and keep it held down, you can temporarily switch to using the tool that’s associated with that particular keystroke. Release the key and Photoshop reverts to working with the previously selected tool again. Where more than one tool shares the same keyboard shortcut, you can cycle through the other tools by holding down the S key as you press the keyboard shortcut. If on the other hand you prefer to restore the old behavior whereby repeated pressing of the key would cycle through the tool selection options, go to the Photoshop menu, select Preferences ➯ General and deselect the ‘Use Shift Key for Tool Switch’ option. Personally, I prefer using the Shift key method. You can also A-click a tool icon in the Tools panel to cycle through the grouped tools. There are specific situations when Photoshop will not allow you to use certain tools and displays a prohibit sign ( ). For example, you might be editing an image in 32-bit mode where only certain tools can be used when editing 32-bit images. Clicking once in the image document window will call up a dialog explaining the exact reason why you cannot access or use a particular tool.
