Using the History Panel in Photoshop

One advantage of digital scrapbooking is having the ability to quickly fix mistakes and undo changes. While I often use Ctrl+Z for this, I use the history panel even more. If you aren’t familiar with the history panel, you can make it visible by choosing Window > History.

Dropdown menu showing where to find the history panel in Photoshop

The history panel saves the last 20 changes on your page, and each is listed separately in the panel. Whenever you make a change to your layout, a new “history state” is added to the panel. The screenshot below shows how steps are saved in the history panel.

An example of the information in the history panel

You can use the history panel to go back to a recent state of the image. Just click on the previous state, and the image will revert to how it looked when the change was first applied. You can click between different states, and as long as you don’t make any changes, you can return to the last state (at the bottom of the panel). If you are at a previous history state and make a change, the history states that follow it will be gone. Fortunately, there is a Snapshot Button that can help with this little issue.

The Snapshot Button looks like a little camera and is located at the bottom of the history panel. You can create a snapshot by simply clicking on the button. It creates a temporary copy of that state of the image which is added at the top of the history panel. You can then select a snapshot and work from that version of your layout.

The snapshot button in the history panel

For example, if you want to try different papers or another photo arrangement on a layout, create a Snapshot first and you will be able to compare different versions of the page by clicking on the snapshots in the history panel. You can also create a snapshot before you try out an action or a new technique. If you aren’t satisfied with the results, just select the snapshot to undo all the steps.

Items in the history panel (including snapshots) are stored as long as the image is open in Photoshop. Once the image is closed, the panel is cleared. It can be easier to try creative new things on your pages when you take advantage of the history panel and snapshot tool on your layouts