Photoshop: perhaps the most widely used photo-editing application in the world.

It’s not just used by photographers, though, as I know plenty of graphic designers, website developers, bloggers, print designers, and even social media enthusiasts that make use of Photoshop every working day of their lives.

Sure, it’s more popular in some professions than others (and print designers likely use InDesign or Illustrator more than Photoshop), but still, there’s no doubt that it’s a powerful tool.

As a blogger and freelance designer, I use all three of these applications for my job, and to be honest, I truly doubt that I could live without them (well, I could, but I’d probably have a completely different career).

They make everything I do a whole lot faster, and they also allow me to create things that just ten years ago, I never dreamed I’d be able to create on a personal computer.

The thing is, being able to do these things is great, but if it takes hours and hours to accomplish, you’re going to wind up charging clients crazy amounts of money just to do seemingly simple things (trust me, I’ve been there).

Luckily, though, Photoshop (and the other two applications) feature a number of ways to speed things up, most notably of which: keyboard shortcuts.

I have to admit, I’ve never been the biggest advocate for keyboard shortcuts, but just last week, I stumbled across a life-changing tool that, personally, I found game changing.

Introducing: The Adobe Keyboard Shortcut Visualizer

The tool I speak of is named the Adobe Keyboard Shortcut Visualizer.

But what is the tool, exactly?

Essentially, it’s a tool that allows you to explore the hundreds and thousands of keyboard shortcuts available for Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, without ever having to open up the application itself.

It’s browser based and free to use, and displays all of the shortcuts in a highly visual fashion.

Here’s a quick look at how to go-about using it:

Getting Started: Choose your Application

The tool requires a bit of setting up, in order to ensure that the shortcuts it displays are tailored to your specific setup.

The first step of this process is to choose the actual application that you wish to see keyboard shortcuts for.

This is a pretty simple process: you just select from Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator using the menu.

Important: Only CC keyboard shortcuts are mapped at this stage, but most shortcuts also work with CS6 and CS5.

Next: Choose your OS

If you’re a PC user, you’ll need to use the CTRL key in order to use some of the shortcuts available for the applications.

If you’re a Mac user, on the other hand, you’ll need to use the CMD key instead.

By selecting your OS on the tool itself, you’ll avoid confusion here, as the tool actually accounts for the differences between operating systems.

You’ll notice that the CMD key isn’t even visible if you select Windows or Linux as your OS.

Next: Choose your Region

I’ll take a wild guess and assume that most of you guys are from an English-speaking country, but even so, there are subtle differences in keyboard layout depending on your region.

So, the next step is to select your region. You’ve got English US, English UK, and a few other choices to choose from.

Important: You may notice a slight rearrangement of the keyboard layout (on the on-screen keyboard, I mean) upon your selection, but don’t worry, this is just the tool adjusting to your choice.

Next: Zoom in on Shortcuts

So, you’re up and running now, and should be able to see the default keyboard shortcuts mapped on the on-screen keyboard.

One thing you’ll notice, however, is that the font size of the text on the keys is pretty small.

The good news is that simply by rolling over any key with your mouse, you’ll be able to read the shortcut in a larger font size. No need to click, just hover.

Next: Using CTRL/CMD, Shift + Alt

At this stage, you might be thinking, “I thought you said this thing maps hundreds and thousands of shortcuts? I only see a few”.

If so, don’t worry; you just need to use CMD/CTRL, Shift, and ALT to view the rest.

These keys are known as “modifier keys”, and are used to view other keyboard shortcuts.

Try clicking on the Alt, CMD, or Shift key on the virtual keyboard, and you’ll see what I mean. The mapped shortcuts will change.

You can select these keys in any combination you like, so get experimenting.

Lastly: Find those Difficult-to-find Shortcuts Quickly and Easily

That’s just about everything, so you should be good-to-go.

But, with such a vast amount of shortcuts included on the tool, finding one particular shortcut you may have in mind might be difficult.

If so, you can use the search function.

Just begin typing the name of the shortcut you’re looking for in the search box, and you’ll see a list of matching shortcuts appear instantly.

Download Adobe CC Desktop Wallpapers

Sometimes, it’s nice to have a quick reference of the most widely used shortcuts available at your fingertips; that’s why desktop wallpapers are so popular.

Now, there are a lot of these wallpapers around, but none quite as stunning as these ones from FastPrint.

You can download them for Mac or PC, and there are unique wallpapers for all three applications (i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign).

Plus, they’ve been uniquely crafted to fit most screen resolutions, too.