The History Panel: Photoshop Users Love It
This is a helpful tip in case you have been working on a file for a long time and you need to go many steps back and go in a different direction. The History Panel gives you the flexibility to go back instantly to the step where you went wrong. It lists the different individual actions that you took to get where you are. The History panel is set up like your layers panel, in that it have different layers for each step that you have taken.
A couple of other features that are handy in the History Panel are found in the icons at the bottom of the panel. The first one creates a new document from the state that you have selected. Select the layer in the history panel, click the icon, and a new document is made in the same dimensions that is the exact same as the image that you had selected in the History Panel.
The other one is the snapshot icon, which creates a snapshot of the current history state selected and puts it at the very top of the History Panel. It is selectable, and you can click that layer to make it visible and work on that file. That makes it so that you can go back to a certain base state in cast you go way past your number of states in the history panel. For example, let’s say that you have a complicated composition, and you get really far into the project. If you get so far into it and like what you have done, you can take a snap shot, and if you go really far later and things aren’t how you like, you don’t have to hit undo 70 times. You can simply click the snapshot layer and go back to a good midpoint in your composition. Compositors, digital painters, and Illustrators that use Photoshop will find this extremely handy.
The default number of History states is 20-25, but you can decide how many states that you have at one time on your document. To do this, go to Photoshop> Preferences> Performance. Here, you can dial in the number of history states that you want to have for each document. Keep in mind that the more history states that you have, the more memory that Photoshop will eat up, and it might slow some computers down, because Photoshop already eats up a lot of memory to begin with.
Add The History Panel to Your Bag of Tricks
When used properly, the History Panel can save a lot of time, and can save you from a lot of frustration. Instead of hitting undo (Command/Ctrl + Z) over and over again, you can take a quick look at your History Panel and click directly on the state that you want to go back to. This can save you a ton of time, and can even save you from having to start over. Taking snapshots can help with this as well. Taking frequent snapshots and adding more history states will make it easier to go back to a good starting point if things go awry. Keep in mind that this takes up more memory, but in my opinion it is worth it. Do you want to sacrifice a second or two of performance, or a couple of hours because you had to do the project over again, or do a Revert to the last save and go back farther than you wanted to? Why do any of that when you can create snapshots and add more history states? Do you have any tips for using the History Panel in Photoshop? If so, share them in the comments section below.
