Top 7 Photoshop Hangups That Make You Want to End It All, with Quick Fixes

Goodbye

There are so many modal settings in Photoshop that it can seem like a virtual mine field of things to accidentally click that will screw up your day. When you're in the flow of work it can be a painful productivity hit when you get thrown off by something that is just not working. Here are 7 of the most common hangups that I've found bring me to a standstill. Check it out and join in the discussion if you've got some of your own.

1. All of your palettes are missing. You hit Tab.

OK, I know. Duh. But it happens. Especially if you haven’t been working in Photoshop for a long time this one can have you restarting.

Hitting the Tab key hides all the palettes in Photoshop. Which is nice if you quickly want to clear your screen of any clutter and get a full-frame view of your image.

2. You are trying to enter Transform mode (Cmd + T), and nothing happens. You have an empty path selected in the paths palette.

This has had me shaking a fist at the sky.

You have an empty path selected, and Photoshop thinks you want to Transform it. But you can’t. Because nothing’s there.

Go to your Paths palette and see if one of them is highlighted. To deselect, click elsewhere in the palette, or Cmd + click the active path.

The Photoshop Paths palette

3. You have a selection up, but can’t delete anything. Your Brush only paints light red. You have Quickmask on.

Aaaargh.

Just hit Q to exit Quickmask mode. You can see it active in the document name:

The document header bar in Photoshop - look for “Quick Mask”

It can be extra confusing because when you’re in Quickmask mode, you can still set a selection. The ruby color of your brush or fill will normally tip you off.

4. Your brush and clone cursor are now crosshairs. You’ve hit Caps Lock.

But it’s set to brush size in the Prefs!!!!

Don’t trash your prefs file - when you have Caps Lock on it will turn a lot of your Brush based tools to a Precision cursor.

5. Color looks weird. You have Proof Colors turned on.

Both fists in the air, cursing the gods.

Cmd + Y turns on Proof Colors. Also in the View menu.

Hit Cmd/Ctrl Y in Photoshop to turn Proof Colors On or Off

This feature is essential for anyone working for printed outputs, but if you accidentally have this turned on your image is going to look very different than what you’d expect. Chances are you’d be viewing your image as what it would look at in a CMYK gamut if you’re working in RGB.

Personal story - I actually did a full color pass on an image the other day with this turned on to soft proof in CMYK without knowing it. I kept pushing all of these Saturation moves and just couldn’t get it to budge any hotter. My eyes had actually adapted to the smaller gamut after a while, and after I realized I had Proof Colors turned on and switched it, the image was so bright it made my brain bleed.

6. You are trying to use the Brush, and nothing is happening. You have a selection that is hidden.

Pffft! Stupid. F’ing. Thing! Won’t Paint!!

Shit ok, you hit Cmd + H, did a little work, stepped away to get coffee and forgot.

Hit Cmd + H to unhide or Cmd + D to drop the selection.

This one gets me at least 3 times a week.

7. Photoshop crashes on Save or ‘Cannot Save Because of A Program Error’. Crop your canvas.

Thanks for all the useful info, Photoshop…

This is the most critical one of all. If not for Photoshop CC’s background saves feature this one would have had me jumping off balconies.

Chances are you have been doing some funny things with masks in your file and created mask information outside the canvas bounds that Photoshop does not like. I don’t know what the hell is really going on with this but it has consistently occurred throughout multiple versions of Photoshop.

Simply Select All (Cmd + A) and Image>Crop.

You will lose all pixel information outside the canvas bounds but it will allow you to Save your file. Try this if you’re getting random file crashes too with a single file.

Hope this helps you to more quickly regain your sanity when you are about to trash your prefs, reinstall Photoshop, or just push everything off your desk and onto the floor. Please share any of these soul crushing problems you may have had in the comments!