Do you love using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to create your own digital scrapbooking supplies or to edit photos? One of the great features of both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements is that if you don’t like the effects or changes that you have done on a photo or scrapbooking supply, you can always undo what you have done and start over! You can view your steps in the History Panel.
The default setting works pretty well when you are doing basic scrapbooking or photo editing projects. But when you do big scrapbooking, or photo editing projects you might notice you are left wishing you go back further and undo more steps. Especially if you make your own digital scrapbooking supplies, having more undo steps is essential!
How do I Get to This Feature? – History Panel
If you have been doing basic scrapbooking or photo editing you have probably used the Undo feature by pressing the undo button (Elements) or using the shortcut key Ctrl + Z (Mac: Cmd +Z), but you might not know that 20 steps are recorded (this is the default) and that you can undo all the way back all 20 steps!
The image above shows the steps you have taken in this project and you can go back to any step! For big projects or when you really want to experiment with your photo or scrapbooking the Undo History is invaluable and works lot better than just using the undo button or shortcut key!
So if your program is not showing the Undo History Panel here is how you get to it! Then in Elements (see image below) go to the top menu Window > Undo History, and then you will see the Undo History Panel. You can move the window to some place it is handy to see and out of the way of the workspace.
In Photoshop if your History Panel isn’t showing then go to – Window > History, then the History Panel will be available.
Now you have the Undo History Panel (or History Panel in Photoshop) showing you can start undoing all the items you don’t want any more in your project!
So How Does it Work?
The Undo History Panel (formerly known as simply the History palette) records almost every step you make when editing in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. At any time, you can click on an earlier “state”, as these steps are called, and revert your image or scrapbooking project to that earlier condition. This allows multiple undo. Until you do a new edit from the earlier state to which you returned, the forward states remain available. You can step forward and backward to make comparisons.
In the image below, I have been doing all sorts of crazy things to this digital scrapbooking supply, it is OK because I know I can experiment without fear because I can go back to any of the steps I have done in this project by looking at the History Panel.
So example, I don’t like any of the things I did to this scrapbooking embellishment, I want to take it back to the beginning, so I just click on the open step and it becomes highlighted. Notice all the other steps are grayed out. This means I have undone all these steps. See image below.
Now if I don’t do anything, I still can move back to one of the grayed out steps, simply by clicking on it. So in the image below I have clicked on the Watercolor filter step I used on my scrapbooking project – see how it changes my scrapbooking supply – but still I could click on the other grayed out steps and go to whatever was happening on that step by clicking on the step. See image below.
Now, once I stop somewhere on the undo history panel and start making new changes to my scrapbooking item or image, then the grayed out area goes away and new steps start from that point!
So notice in the image below that once I moved and resized the bow, that all the grayed steps disappeared and the new transform step was added to the list!
I can still go back to any of the steps on the list but I can’t go to any of the steps that are now missing from the list!
Now you know this little tip – feel free to start experimenting with your photos and scrapbooking! It is easy to undo the steps with “Undo” History Panel!
See the Before — And see the After!
Have some fun and try this tip and see what interesting new items you can come up with using this feature in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements!
Enjoy!
Ps. The default setting gives you about 20 undo “states”, look for the blog tomorrow for information on how to change the settings to get more undo “states”! This will give you more opportunities to really experiment!
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