Therefore, if you’d like to save a specific State before losing it, you can take a Snapshot. Photoshop will forget all States beyond the predefined number set in the preferences. More on optimizing performance settings here. This has the potential to greatly impact overall Photoshop performance. While it may seem logical to increase the amount of States for a more risk-free workflow, it’s important to note that more History States means more RAM and Scratch Disks space are required. However, this number can be changed in the Performance Preferences from a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 1000.
Let’s face it, though, we all like to spam our “ ctrl + Z” shortcuts, and it’s not a bad thing! RELATED: How to Set Preferences & Memory Usage for Peak Performanceīy default, the latest version of Photoshop CC2015.5 keeps track of 50 History States. A more thoughtful, timid and alternate approach would be by clicking on a specific State within the History Panel list itself and continuing on from there. We can use this list of History States to, as I like to say, ‘time travel’ without the need for a flux capacitor.Īs we angrily spam our crtl + Z (Windows) or ⌘ + Z (Mac) after we’ve made a dreadful mistake, we’re actually going back state by state to a time when we were happy with our work, and from that previous State we can start anew. History StatesĮvery move you make, from brush strokes to selections, is recorded and referred to as a History State or State for short, and each State appears in the panel. To access the History Panel, choose Window > History, or click the History Panel tab if it’s already activated in your workspace (highlighted in the Featured image above). The History Panel is a tool which creates a chronological top-down view of everything you do in your working session in Photoshop.