Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

The Power of Undo

Thankfully, Photoshop is extremely forgiving: It’ll let you back out of almost anything you do, which is muy importante, especially when you’re getting the hang of things.

You’ve got several ways to retrace your steps, including the lifesaving Undo command. Just choose Edit→Undo or press ⌘-Z (Ctrl+Z). This command lets you undo the very last edit you made.

If you need to go back more than one step, use the Step Backward command instead: Choose Edit→Step Backward or press Option-⌘-Z (Alt+Ctrl+Z). Straight from the factory, this command lets you undo the last 50 things you did, one at a time. If you want to go back even further, you can change that number by digging into Photoshop’s preferences, as the next section explains. You can step forward through your editing history, too, by choosing Edit→Step Forward or Shift-⌘-Z (Shift+Ctrl+Z).

Note

Photoshop only lets you undo changes back to the point when you first opened the document you’re working on, meaning you can’t close a document and then undo changes you made before you closed it.

Changing How Far Back You Can Go

If you think you might someday need to go back further than your last 50 steps, you can make Photoshop remember up to 1,000 steps by changing the program’s preferences. Here’s how:

1. Choose Photoshop→Preferences→Performance (Edit→Preferences→Performance on a PC).

2. In the Preferences dialog box’sHistory States field, pick the number of steps you want Photoshop to remember.

   You can enter any number between 1 and ...