Chapter 14: Changing History and Erasing Pixels

Overview

In This Chapter

• Undoing operations

• Choosing the Revert command

• Using the Eraser, Magic Eraser, and Background Eraser tools

• Erasing using the Pencil tool

• Discovering the powerful History palette

• Using the Erase to History option and the History Brush tool

The Undo command is standard equipment with just about every Windows and Macintosh program out there. With one press of Ctrl+Z (z+Z on a Mac) — the Undo command’s keyboard equivalent — your previous operation disappears for good, leaving you one step backward in time.

But Photoshop doesn’t stop there. You’re also lucky enough to have access to multiple undos by way of the amazing History palette. Not only can you undo as many as 100 actions, but also you can actually skip previous steps. In other words, if you have performed five actions and want to return to the way your image looked after your second action, you aren’t required to first undo steps five, four, and three. You merely select step two in the History palette.

In this chapter, I explain all the Photoshop methods for regaining the past so that you can edit worry-free, safe in the knowledge that almost everything you do can be undone. But before you explore the wide and wonderful world of the History palette, look at the Photoshop old-and-trusty ways of undoing what’s been done.