Our Photoshop hacks for beginners
Photoshop is an easy tool to use, but a difficult one to master. Since 1990 this software has become the industry standard for graphics editing and digital art. In 2025, the younger generation tend to opt for new tools like Canva, but if you still love using Photoshop for certain tasks, then read on for our top tips.
Please note: the shortcuts used are for Macs and may differ depending on the computer.
Transform: Change the size, rotation and more
Press Cmd + T on your keyboard for a box to appear that will allow you to transform your image as you wish. To resize the image, drag from the corners holding down the shift key, this will keep the image in the correct proportions.
Flip your image by pressing Cmd + T and then right-click, for further options to appear. Select the one you want to use and then press enter. To distort an image, press Cmd + T and place your mouse on the corner you want to distort.
Press Ctrl and hold down your mouse on the corner of the image you wish to morph and drag to the place you would like to move it to. Once you’ve finished press enter to activate.
Basic masks
Masks allow you to cover up a graphic rather than erasing them.
Apply a layer mask Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal, this will give you a layer mask that is filled in white.
To cover things up, use the brush tool and set the foreground colour to be white or black, then paint over what you want to cover up or be masked away. Black hides and white shows.
To create a clipping mask effect — where the bottom layer defines the visible boundaries. Hold down the Alt and position your cursor over the line dividing the two layers in the right panel and then click.
In the layers panel, select the top layer that you want to group and choose layer > create a clipping mask. For example, if you have an image with text written over the top, however, you want the image to only appear through the text.
Spacing
To move multiple layers at the same time, hold down Cmd/Ctrl while clicking on the name of the different layers, then choose the move tool (V). This will then give you a variety of alignment options in the control bar.
2024, Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes Photoshop, has nearly 30 million subscribers
Clone stamp tool
Remove a product name from an image, an unwanted item in a photo or duplicate an item by using the clone tool. Select the clone tool on the left menu and hover your cursor over the part of the image that you want to clone. Then option-click to define the clone source.
Hover your mouse over the area where you want to place the cloned pixels and begin painting.
Tip: When using this tool to touch up images, ensure you resample many times to avoid leaving a stem where you replaced pixels. Paint many times until the touch up is complete.
Remove text using the spot healing brush tool
You’ll need to use the spot healing brush tool when you have text embedded in your image that you wish to remove. This tool, amongst others, will help reconstruct the area covered by the text.
Alt-click on a spot of your image to use as a sample, then pull the mouse over the text to replace it with the sample pixels.
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