Here is another one of those simple, universal time savers for Adobe Photoshop CS and CS2. It may be easier to show than it is to describe.

In almost any Photoshop dialog box you can quickly adjust values by clicking on the name of a value and dragging the cursor side-to-side to “scrub” to a larger or smaller value. A quick way to fine-tune any settings.

Tip #1: When your cursor is above a name that can be scrubbed, the cursor icon will change to a hand with two arrows:

Tip #2: If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, once you click on the name you can adjust with the wheel. Plus, with a mouse that has horizontal scrolling, you can also adjust in larger increments than with the vertical scrolling. Cool!

Tip #3: Add the Shift-key while dragging (or using a scroll wheel) and Photoshop adjusts the values in larger increments.

This technique should work with almost any Photoshop CS or CS2 dialog that uses numerical data.

Source: This tip comes up occasionally during one-on-one Photoshop coaching sessions. The scroll wheel tip was contributed by Russ Alman with Alternative Business Solutions, specializing in Daylite based sales/marekting systems in the Olympia-Tacoma area. The Shift-Key tip comes from a comment by Alan Degasis. Thanks for contributing!