Selecting tools in Photoshop

To select a tool, simply click it in the Tools palette. A small black triangle in the bottom-right corner of a tool slot indicates that more tools are hidden behind that tool on a flyout menu. To display the flyout menu and reveal the hidden tools, click and hold down the mouse button on the tool. Then drag to the right and down the column of tools, highlight the tool you want, and release your mouse button.

You can also access tools by using keyboard shortcuts:
-->Selecting visible tools: You can access the visible tools by pressing a single key on the keyboard. For example, to select the Move tool, press the V key; to select the Brush tool, press the B key.

-->Selecting hidden tools: For the most part, you can access a hidden tool by pressing the Shift key along with the keyboard letter of the visible tool. For example, to select the Pencil tool, which shares the flyout menu with the Brush tool, press Shift+B.

Photoshop has a couple of exceptions, however. You can press Shift+M to switch between the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee tools, but you can’t access the Single Column and Single Row marquee tools. Press Shift+P to cycle through the Pen and the Freeform Pen; however, the remaining tools — the Add Anchor Point tool, Delete Anchor Point tool, and Convert Point tool — do not have keyboard shortcuts.

You can adjust your preferences if you decide that you don’t like having to press the Shift key to access a hidden tool. Choose Edit➪Preferences➪General (Photoshop➪Preferences➪General in Mac OS X) and deselect the option Use Shift Key for Tool Switch. You can then rotate through the tools by pressing the same letter repeatedly.

You can also Alt+click (Option+click on the Mac) on a tool to cycle through all the tools hidden beneath it. The only exceptions are the Marquee tools and the Pen tools; some of the tools on their flyout menus aren’t accessible this way.

When you hover your mouse over a tool, color control, or icon, you see a tool tip. The tool tip tells you the name of the tool or icon and its keyboard shortcut, if any. This feature is helpful when you first start working in Photoshop, but if it gets annoying after a while, feel free to turn it off. Choose Edit➪Preferences (Photoshop➪Preferences in Mac OS X) and deselect the Show Tool Tips option in the General Preferences dialog box.

If you try to use a tool and all you see is the Cancel or No (the circle with a diagonal line) icon, click the image. Photoshop politely informs you why it isn’t allowing you to use the tool. For example, if you try to apply color with the Brush tool on a shape layer, you get a message that you can’t use the Brush because the content of the layer can’t be edited with that particular tool.