There are shortcuts for selecting the first and the last layer.
Alt + .
→ Top layer
Alt + ,
→ Bottom layer
Photoshop default keyboard shortcuts
There's also a shortcut for selecting the next layer above and below: Alt + [
and Alt + ]
.
Additionally, there are ways to select layers from the document, which I'm a big fan of. Just point at a layer in the document and click... Especially handy if you're terrible at organizing layers in the layers panel by grouping and naming. Though you probably won't have that issue with just <10 layers.
The Move tool
has this option called Auto-select
:
- When this setting is on, you can
Left click
layers or groups depending on the selection in the dropdown that follows it.
- You can also then
click + drag
to select multiple layers.
- Locked layers are ignored.
- There's also the
Right click
context menu way of selection layers
- You can toggle the
Auto-select
option by holding down Ctrl
(I usually turn the setting off and enable it with Ctrl when needed)
- Using
Shift
modifier with this method allows you to add/remove layers from the selection. So with the auto-select off, the modifier key combination would be: Ctrl + Shift + Left Click
The method I use the most is Ctrl + Alt + Right click
:
- This works similar to the move tool methods, but there are a few differences.
- You don't have to have a specific tool selected to use this. That said I believe there are some tools that won't let you use it, if I'm remembering that correctly.
- This method will select locked layers
- Doesn't select groups
- No context menu option
- No click and drag
- Using
Shift
modifier with this method allows you to add/remove layers from the selection: Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Right click
Switch all Ctrl
modifiers with Cmd
on Mac.