How to use History in Photoshop

If you are not familiar with the History function in Adobe Photoshop yet, I suggest you to start using it as soon as possible.

Create a new Photoshop document, you can choose any height and width you want.

File and clik New...

Click OK when done.

Let's now make a few steps, so I can show you the usage of Photoshop History function.

For instance, choose the Brush Tool (B for a keyboard shortcut).

Choose a color of your choice.

And draw something with your mouse.

Then choose some different color.

And draw something with you mouse in one continuous move.

In the menu click Edit and choose Undo Brush Tool (Ctrl + Z for a keyboard shortcut).

We just undid the last thing we did, a brownish square in my case.

If you now again click Edit notice you now have a Redo State Change function in the same place there was an Undo. Meaning if you click it you will get your last undid state back. In my case the brownish square would appear back.

If you want to undo a few more steps you did, then you need to click Edit and choose Step Backward (Alt + Ctrl + Z for a keyboard shortcut).

Or Step Forward if you want to move forward through the steps you made.

You should now have an empty document.

All the steps you made are also visible in the special History windows. You activate it by clicking Windows in the menu and choosing History.

History option need to be checked.

In the History window you should see all the steps that you made and you can test how it works by clicking them and observing your document.

The most recent steps are the steps at the bottom.

I clicked the last step and my awesome looking house reappeared once again.

By default, Photoshop records the last 20 steps you made in its History window, but you can easily change that value. But it can influence on the performance of your computer, meaning it can start running a bit slow if you over do with the History States number.

To change the History value, click  Edit, Preferences and choose Performance...

Change the History States value to tell Photoshop how many steps you want it to record in its history and then click OK.