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Set up your History states panel so that you can go back much further than the default 20 times that PhotoShop gives you. 

Exercise files

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Quick reference

Topic

Get to know your history states panel.

When to use

Set up your history states panel so that you can go back much further than the default 20 times that PhotoShop gives you.

Instructions

To view your history states panel

  • Call up the history panel via Window/History

To extend your history states beyond 20

  • Go to: Photoshop/Preferences/General (Command- or Control-'K')
  • Go to the Performance section
  • Go to the History and Cache/History States slider and increase

 

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  • 00:04 Today we are going back in time. Actually I want to make sure you can go back
  • 00:09 as far as you like without running out of history to explore.
  • 00:13 When you launch Photoshop for the first time you can undo up to 20 times before
  • 00:17 hitting a brick wall.
  • 00:18 This means that if you need to go back twenty one steps to get to a previous
  • 00:22 state, well, tough luck .
  • 00:22 Fortunately your history states can be increased in Photoshop's
  • 00:27 preferences.
  • 00:28 To access your preferences you can find it under the Photoshop menu on a Mac
  • 00:32 or the Edit menu on Windows, or you can use the Command or Control
  • 00:36 'K' shortcut. Once the preferences are visible,
  • 00:39 jump into the 'performance' section and take a look on the right side
  • 00:42 under 'history and cache'. The 'history states' value is what you want to adjust,
  • 00:47 which by default is set to a measly 20. This value can be increased
  • 00:52 up to 1,000 states, but keep in mind, the more state you use,
  • 00:56 the more scratch disk space is required by Photoshop, as
  • 00:59 every step is temporarily saved until the document is closed.
  • 01:02 So if you typically work on large projects with a lot of steps,
  • 01:06 you may want to increase the history states to ensure you can safely undo
  • 01:10 without running out of space.
  • 01:11 Of course, if Photoshop starts to become slow or an error message pops up that
  • 01:15 suggests you're running out of scratch disk space,
  • 01:18 you may want to dial back on the amount of states that Photoshop stores.

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