Give yourself a productivity boost by mastering essential photoshop keyboard shortcuts saving you precious time and energy. Learn these handy tips and get the best out of the program we all love!
I remember back when I was first introduced to photoshop my tutor at the time said

“I dont want anyone to use the Tool Palette! You must all learn and remember every single keyboard shortcut from the tool palette!”

Note: This list does not cover all shortcuts that photoshop has, only the main ones that I use on a regular basis.

The Basics

• [ q ]
  Pressing the “q” key will enter Quick Mask mode, pressing q again will exit.
• [ d ]
  Pressing the “d” key will return the colour palete to its default colours of Black and White.
• [ x ]
  Pressing the “x” key will switch the foreground and background colours from the tool palette.
• [ f ]
  Press the “f” key to cycle through the different screen modes, this is handy when you want to view one document full screen.
• [ TAB ]
  Press the Tab key to hide and show all current palettes.
• [ ctrl + r ]
  This combination will display the ruler guide.
• [ crtl+ ; ]
  This combination will display the visual guides.
• [ crtl+ ‘ ]
  This combination will display the grid.
• [ crtl + [ ]
  Moves the current layer down one.
• [ crtl + ] ]
  Moves the current layer up one.
• [ crtl + e ]
  This will merge the current layer with the layer below.
• [ crtl + t ]
  Transforms the object. Holding the shift key and dragging from the corners will maintain the image’s aspect ratio. Holding the ctrl key will skew the image from the chosen corner.

Palettes

• [ ctrl + m ]
  Opens the Curves palette.
• [ ctrl + l ]
  Opens the Levels palette.
• [ ctrl + b ]
  Opens the Colour Balance palette.
• [ ctrl + u ]
  Opens the Hue / Saturation palette.

Tools

• [ v ]
  Move Tool.
• [ m ]
  Rectangular Marquee Tool.
• [ shift + m ]
  Changes the Marquee Tool from rectangular to circular and vice versa.
• [ b ]
  Brush Tool.
• [ [ ]
  While on the Brush Tool pressing [ will increase the size of the brush.
• [ ] ]
  While on the Brush Tool pressing [ will decrease the size of the brush.
• [ l ]
  Polygonal Lasso Tool.
• [ w ]
  Magic Wand Tool.
• [ c ]
  Crop Tool.
• [ When Cropping ]
  Right click to confirm or cancel the crop action.
• [ p ]
  Patch Tool.
• [ s ]
  Clone Stamp Tool.
• [ g ]
  Gradient Tool.
• [ e ]
  Eraser Tool.
• [ t ]
  Type Tool.
• [ u ]
  Rounded Rectangle Tool.
• [ i ]
  Eye Dropper Tool.
• [ z ]
  Zoom Tool.

Combinations

• [ 1, 2, 3, ……. 9, 0 ]
  Pressing any of the numeric keys will change the opacity of the current layer. 1 = 10%, 2 = 20% etc. 0 will return the layer to 100% opacity. Also entering a number in quite succession will work also, 53 = 53% opacity for example.
• [ Marquee Tool ]
  Once you have drawn a selection right click to bring up other the options which are available. Holding down the Shift key will add to the current selection and holding down the ALT key will reduce from the selection.
• [ ctrl + + ]
  Increases the zoom level.
• [ ctrl + - ]
  Decreases the zoom level.
• [ ctrl + alt + 0 ]
  Returns the document view to 100%.
• [ alt + backspace ]
  Fills the layer with the foreground colour.
• [ shift + backspace ]
  Gives you more fills options as well as selecting a pattern fill.
• [ ctrl + alt + 0 ]
  My favourite, returns the current document to 100%.
• [ ctrl + f ]
  Applies the last applied filter action.

Document

• [ ctrl + TAB ]
  Switch between current opened documents.
• [ right click the document panel ]
  This handy action will give you various options such as image size and canvas size.