Control J & Control G - Revisited

Wow! I am surprised by all of the comments on my recent repost about Control J and Control G! This is such a basic skill that every digital scrapbooker should know. How can you scrap without them? Maybe you are doing them, but not using the keyboard shortcuts?

I often wonder why people who do not know these basics are not taking my classes? How can I get it across to everyone how much you can learn if you take the time to go through all of my tutorials.

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As an overview of Control J and Control G, I will bullet some points.

CONTROL J

• This keyboard shortcut will not only copy a layer (duplicate a layer), it will duplicate/copy/cut anything within a selection.



• Control J is vital to the very basics of digital scrapbooking. It is covered under my (free) cutting paper tutorial.



• You can make a selection of ANY layer and copy/cut that selection from ANY layer. Therefore, you can make a selection out of a template shape layer, with the selection tools, or any other variety of ways to make a selection and use that selection on another layer to cut. Isn't this how everyone creates mats out of paper?



• You can also right click on the layer and choose "copy via layer" instead of using the keyboard shortcut. But who does that?

CONTROL G

• This keyboard shortcut is short for "grouping" layers together.



• When a layer is grouped with another layer, it changes what is visible. For instance, if you group a photo layer (top layer) with a rounded cornered shape layer (lower layer), only the photo layer will be visible and it will take on the shape of the lower layer. Again, if you group an adjustment layer (top layer) with a photo layer (lower layer), then only the adjustment layer will only be applied to the photo layer and not all of the layers beneath the photo layer.



• This keyboard shortcut is utilized most often in templates.



• You can also achieve the same by holding down the alt key and clicking between the layers or through the layer drop down menu.

Hopefully, this little tidbit will help you understand the differences and purposes of Control J and Control G. Of course, I have many digital scrapbooking video tutorials utilizing both of these keyboard shortcuts and I invite you to come and learn!