Work with the History palette
You can use the History palette to jump to any recent state of the image created during the current working session. Each time you apply a change to an image, the new state of that image is added to the palette.
For example, if you select, paint, and rotate part of an image, each of those states is listed separately in the palette. When you select one of the states, the image reverts to how it looked when that change was first applied. You can then work from that state.
You can also use the History palette to delete image states and, in Photoshop, to create a document from a state or snapshot.
To display the History palette, choose Window > History, or click the History palette tab.
- A.
- Sets the source for the history brush
- B.
- Thumbnail of a snapshot
- C.
- History state
- D.
- History state slider
Keep the following in mind when using the History palette:
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Program-wide changes, such as changes to palettes, color settings, actions, and preferences, are not reflected in the History palette, because they are not changes to a particular image.
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By default, the History palette lists the previous 20 states. You can change the number of remembered states by setting a preference. Older states are automatically deleted to free more memory for Photoshop. To keep a particular state throughout your work session, make a snapshot of the state.
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Once you close and reopen the document, all states and snapshots from the last working session are cleared from the palette.
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By default, a snapshot of the initial state of the document is displayed at the top of the palette.
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States are added to the bottom of the list. That is, the oldest state is at the top of the list, the most recent one at the bottom.
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Each state is listed with the name of the tool or command used to change the image.
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By default, when you select a state, the states below it are dimmed. This way you can easily see which changes will be discarded if you continue working from the selected state.
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By default, selecting a state and then changing the image eliminates all states that come after it.
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If you select a state and then change the image, eliminating the states that came after, you can use the Undo command to undo the last change and restore the eliminated states.
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By default, deleting a state deletes that state and those that came after it. If you choose the Allow Non-Linear History option, deleting a state deletes only that state.
Revert to a previous image state
Do any of the following:-
Click the name of the state.
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Choose Step Forward or Step Backward from the History palette menu or the Edit menu to move to the next or previous state.
Delete one or more image states
Do
one of the following:-
Click the name of the state, and choose Delete from the History palette menu to delete that change and those that came after it.
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Drag the state to the Delete icon
to
delete that change and those that came after it. -
Choose Clear History from the palette menu to delete the list of states from the History palette, without changing the image. This option doesn’t reduce the amount of memory used by Photoshop.
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Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS), and choose Clear History from the palette menu to purge the list of states without changing the image. If you get a message that Photoshop is low on memory, purging states is useful, because the command deletes the states from the Undo buffer and frees up memory. You can’t undo the Clear History command.
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Choose Edit > Purge > Histories to purge the list of states for all open documents. You can’t undo this action.
Create or replace a document with an image state
Do one of the following:-
Drag a state or snapshot onto the New Document button
. The
history list for the newly created document will be empty. -
Select a state or snapshot, and click the New Document button. The history list for the newly created document will be empty.
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Select a state or snapshot, and choose New Document from the History palette menu. The history list for the newly created document will be empty.
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Drag a state onto an existing document.
To save one or more snapshots or image
states for use in a later editing session, create a new file for
each state you save, and save each in a separate file. When you reopen
your original file, plan to open the other saved files also. You
can drag each file’s initial snapshot to the original image to access
the snapshots again from the original image’s History palette.Set history options
You can specify the maximum number of items to include in the History palette and set other options to customize the palette.
Set Edit History Log options
You may need to keep careful track of what’s been done to a file in Photoshop, either for your own records, client records, or legal purposes. The Edit History Log helps you keep a textual history of changes made to an image. You can view the Edit History Log metadata using Adobe Bridge or the File Info dialog box.
You can choose to export the text to an external log file, or you can store the information in the metadata of edited files. Storing many editing operations as file metadata increases file size; such files may take longer than usual to open and save.
If you need to prove that the log file hasn’t been
tampered with, keep the edit log in the file’s metadata, and then
use Adobe Acrobat to digitally sign the log file.By default, history log data about each session is saved as metadata embedded in the image file. You can specify where the history log data is saved and the level of detail contained in the history log.
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