8 Replies Latest reply: May 14, 2011 8:58 AM by Hobotor RSS

    Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?

    perfectblue Community Member

      I find myself saving numerous iterations of my files, because the defualt settings only let step backwards a few times. Is there a way to greatly increase the amount of times you can step backward? I though perhaps the history window would let me double back on many of my actions, but even that did not go far back enough.

        • 1. Re: Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?
          dandru Community Member

          This will be my first post here but I'll give it a go. From what I've heard, you've got 20 undo's by default, one on Ctrl Z and 19 on Ctrl + Alt +Z. If you want to increase this number then go Ctrl + K, select Performance tab and alter history states to required number.

          • 2. Re: Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?
            Hobotor Community Member

            Dandru is correct. You can set the number of history states in your preferences. However, more history states= more ram usage + extra risk of losing your work. If you save multiple copies, like you do now, you'll always have a backup in case something goes wrong.

            You could also make use of the snapshot function, if you really find saving too cumbersome. This has the same issues as the history states though: power out or crash= data lost.

             

            I personally have reduced my history states to 10 even and just use multiple "save as-es". undo.jpg

            • 3. Re: Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?
              Noel Carboni Community Member

              Hobotor wrote:

               

              more history states= more ram usage + extra risk of losing your work

               

              I'm curious why you think maintaining more history states evokes extra risk of losing your work.  Are you saying this just because Photoshop has to maintain more stuff in RAM?  Are you actually finding a deeper history is causing instability on your system?

               

              If anything it seems to me maintaining more history states actually can save you from losing work.

               

              In my view, if anything, having more history states means you have access to more of your document's past states, which means if you discover you did something wrong quite a while ago, you can go back (or you can do things like combine your current work with a very old history state).  I normally keep my history states set to 100.

               

              -Noel

              • 4. Re: Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?
                Hobotor Community Member

                Yes, like you said, I was referring to the fact that all your edits are stored in ram. Should an elephant fall on your pc, or for some unknown reason decide to quit on you, you lose hours of editing work.

                Of course, it hugely depends on how you use PS.

                Your way of approaching thing is just as valid of course. I could easily imagine myself using 100 history states or more when drawing/painting stuff by hand. It would be kind of cumbersome to constantly have to save after every couple of brush strokes.

                However, for my purposes ( beauty and fashion images) I rarely find myself goin back more than 2 or 3 states while editing, so 10 states is plenty for me.

                I love layers, masks and multiple copies of a file

                • 5. Re: Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?
                  Noel Carboni Community Member

                  I'm not fully sure I follow you in this logic yet...  I apologize if I'm being dense.

                   

                  Saving your work occasionally is always a good idea, REGARDLESS of the number of history states.  Even if you keep only 10 history states you'll lose just as much work if you haven't saved anything since the last several hundred steps and elephant droppings unexpectedly shut down your PC.

                   

                  The important thing I'd like to note is that my choice of the number of history states, from what I have observed, does not seem to change the stability of Photoshop in any way.

                   

                  If you find choosing a larger number of states does destabilize Photoshop on your system, perhaps you have RAM problems?  Or maybe configuration issues?  What do you have your RAM usage limit set to?

                   

                  Your example about brush strokes is actually a good one to make my point that a deeper history can be a Good Thing.  For example, if I touch up 75 spots (hot pixels in an astroimage, for example) with separate applications of the Spot Healing Brush, then I want to compare before and after images but I forgot to make a layer copy way back when, I can copy the image, go back 75 steps in the History, and paste the result over the original from an old history state to blink a before/after comparison.

                   

                  The thing that's not been mentioned here is Efficiency.  I have purposely populated my workstation with a lot of high reliability RAM (16 GB ECC).  You might find Photoshop's efficiency going down if your system doesn't have enough RAM to be able to easily manage a deep history...  Efficiency matters too, and hammering the scratch disk with a lot of I/O can not only slow things down for you but can also sometimes expose latent instability in a system.

                   

                  -Noel

                  • 6. Re: Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?
                    Hobotor Community Member

                    uhm...

                    I think you're reading way too much into this. I nowhere mentioned that extra history states destabilize my system.

                    And yes, I specifically mentioned the brush strokes to say that "your" way is just as valid.

                     

                    In short what I mean is: don't rely on extra deep history states as backup instead of saving often.

                    • 7. Re: Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?
                      Noel Carboni Community Member

                      Hobotor wrote:

                       

                      I think you're reading way too much into this.


                      Again, I apologize for being dense then, but why reduce the history states from the default of 30 to 10?

                       

                      You said having a larger number of history states causes extra risk of losing your work (post 2).  I couldn't think of another way to interpret that.

                       

                      I'm not attacking you nor critical of what you've written, I'm just trying to understand why you wrote it.  Are you saying, then, that having a deep history might lull the user into a false sense of security so that they neglect to save their work?  As I mentioned, I just don't see how the two are related.

                       

                      -Noel

                      • 8. Re: Increase the amount of times you can "Step backward" alt+cntrl+z?
                        Hobotor Community Member

                        The reason I reduced my amount of states, is just because 1) I barely go further back than 3 or 4 states 2) I keep my panels open, so I don't want a huge list populating my screen.

                         

                        I believe you interpreted that I meant that the extra usage of ram for more history states would destabilize your system.  This is not the case.

                         

                        Yes, that last part is exactly what I mean: " Oh I won't need to save as often, because I can always go back in history"