Hidden Shortcuts and Modifiers

Hidden Shortcuts and Modifiers
Page 1 of 4

Shortcuts permit you to initiate operations without resorting to the laborious task of choosing commands from menus or clicking a tool icon until your arm falls off. Some shortcuts are fairly obvious. For example, Photoshop lists shortcuts for its commands next to the command in the menu. You can choose File o New by pressing Ctrl+N (a -N on the Mac), choose Edit o Undo by pressing Ctrl+Z (or a -Z), choose Select o All by pressing Ctrl+A (a -A), and so on. But many of Photoshop's shortcuts are hidden. And, wouldn't you know it, the hidden ones are the most essential.
Alt-key combos
Tip Under Windows (sorry Mac folks) you can perform many operations using so-called hot keys, which are the underlined letters you see in menus and dialog boxes. To access one of these functions, press Alt plus the underlined letter. This can be very useful when choosing commands that lack a Ctrl-key shortcut. For example, to choose Image o Adjustments o Channel Mixer, press Alt+I, then A, and then X. After the Channel Mixer dialog box appears, you can press Alt+G to select the Green value, Alt+B for Blue, and so on. You can even access commands that have no underlines. To choose Filter o Sharpen o Unsharp Mask, for example, press Alt+T to bring up the Filter menu, S to highlight Sharpen, Enter to display the Sharpen submenu, and U to choose Unsharp Mask. For Filter o Stylize o Extrude, press Alt+T, S, S, S, Enter, E, E, Enter. I know, it's weird, but try it out a few times and you'll get a feel for how it works. You may love it, you may hate it it's totally up to you. You can also waltz through the menus with the arrow keys. After you press Alt plus the underlined letter to display a menu, use the up and down arrows to highlight commands in the menu. Use the left and right arrows to display neighboring menus. To choose a highlighted command, press Enter. To hide the menus and return focus to the image window, press Escape twice. Tip You can arrow through the menus on the Mac, though for my money, it's hardly intuitive. First press Control-F1. (Or choose System Preferences from the Apple menu, click the Keyboard icon, and turn on Full Keyboard Access.) Then press Control-F2 to highlight the menu bar. Now you're ready to use the arrow keys as described in the preceding paragraph.
The shortcut menu

One of the best hidden tricks in Photoshop is right-clicking. If you use a Mac and your mouse doesn't offer a right button, press the Control key and click. When you click the right mouse button (or Control-click) in the image window, Photoshop displays a shortcut menu of commands tailored to your current activity. For example, if you right-click with the lasso tool while a selection is active, you get the list of commands shown in Figure A-1. Although you can apply other commands to a selection, these are some of the most common.
mk:@MSITStore:E:\Photoshop.eBooks.&.Tut%20-%201\eBooks\All%20chms\Photosho...
28-Nov-12
Page 2 of 4
Figure A-1: If you grow confused and wonder where you are, right-click to bring up a shortcut menu of helpful commands. The shortcut menu is context sensitive, which means it changes to suit the active tool and the current state of the image (selected or not). You can access context-sensitive pop-up menus also in many palettes. For example, right-click a layer name in the Layers palette to see a list of actions you can perform on that layer. Tip As with the regular menus, you can press the up and down arrow keys to highlight commands in the context-sensitive pop-up menus. To choose a command, press Enter. To hide the menu, press Escape.
Toolbox shortcuts
Usability has always been one of Photoshop's great strengths. One of the ways Photoshop expedites your workflow is to let you select tools from the keyboard. This way, you can use one tool, press a key, and immediately start in with another tool without losing your place in the image. Best of all, the shortcuts work even when the toolbox is hidden. Most of the time, the only reason I even look at the toolbox is to monitor which tool is selected. Figure A-2 tells the whole, wonderful story. Press the appropriate key, as shown in the figure no Ctrl key, Option key, or other modifier required. Many of the shortcuts make sense. M selects the marquee tool, and L is for lasso tool. But then there are the weird ones, such as O for dOdge, R for bluR, and my favorite, I for Idropper.
28-Nov-12
Page 3 of 4
Figure A-2: Press these keys to select tools and activate controls. The white bold letters indicate keys that toggle between alternate tools or settings. Letters shown in bold reverse switch between one or more tools that share a common slot. By default, you have to press Shift in combination with one of these letters to toggle to an alternative tool. But you can eliminate the need for Shift by choosing Edit o Preferences o General (Ctrl+K) and turning off the Use Shift Key for Tool Switch check box, as explained in Chapter 2. Tip Notice that the top of the toolbox in Figure A-2 sports a small pop-up menu arrow. You probably don't see this on your toolbox because it's usually hidden. If you use a PC (alas, it's not available on the Mac), press the F key twice to view the image against a black backdrop. Assuming the menu bar is hidden, click the right-pointing arrow at the top of the toolbox to open a top-secret stash that includes every single one of Photoshop's commands. It is the very essence of coolness.
Palette shortcuts
Photoshop also lets you access palette options from the keyboard. I've documented these options in the following list. As with the tool keys, each of these shortcuts works even when the palette is hidden:
Palette function keys: Press F5 to show or hide the Brushes palette. Press F6, F7, F8, or Alt+F9 (Option-F9 on the Mac) to toggle the display of the Color, Layers, Info, or Actions palette, respectively. If for some weird reason the Options bar is hidden, press the Enter or Return key to bring it back. Hide or show all palettes: Press Tab to hide or show all palettes, including the toolbox, Options bar, and the status bar on the PC. To hide or show the standard palettes only that is, everything except the toolbox, Options bar, and the status bar press Shift+Tab. Brush size: Press a bracket key, [ or ], to decrease or increase the brush size when a paint or edit tool is active. Brush hardness: Press Shift with a bracket key to change the hardness of a brush. Shift+] gives the brush a sharper edge; Shift+[ makes it softer. Again, a paint or edit tool must be active. Brush preset: Press the comma (,) or period (.) keys to cycle between preset brushes. If this doesn't work for you, try pressing Shift+comma, which selects the first preset, the single-pixel brush. Then press period to move forward. Shift+period jumps to the last preset brush. Gradient style: Select the gradient tool and press [ or ] to switch between the five gradient styles.
28-Nov-12
Page 4 of 4
Gradient preset: Press the comma or period key to step backward or forward, respectively, through the predefined gradients. Press Shift+comma or Shift+period to switch to the first or last gradient in the list. Shape layer styles: Select any of the shape tools and press the comma or period key to step backward or forward through the predefined layer styles. Press Shift+comma or Shift+period to jump to the first or last style in the list. Shape attribute: With the rounded rectangle tool active, press [ or ] to decrease or increase, respectively, the corner radius. Select the polygon tool and press [ or ] to decrease or increase the number of sides in the next polygon or star you draw. For the line tool, [ or ] decreases or increases the line weight. Custom shape preset: Select the custom shape tool and press [ or ] to step backward or forward through the predefined shapes. Press Shift+[ or Shift+] to switch to the first or last shape in the list. Brush opacity: When a paint or edit tool is active, press a number key to change the Opacity, Strength, or Exposure value in the Options bar. Press 1 to change the value to 10 percent, 2 for 20 percent, up to 0 for 100 percent. Or enter an exact value by typing two numbers in a row. For example, type 87 for 87 percent or 05 for 5 percent. Airbrush: If a tool offers an airbrush icon in the Options bar, press Shift+Alt+P (Shift-Option-P on the Mac) to turn it on or off. Airbrush flow: If a tool offers the airbrush, it includes both an Opacity value and a Flow value. When the airbrush is turned off, press Shift with a number key to change the Flow value. When the airbrush is on, press a number key to change the Flow value; press Shift with a number key to change the Opacity value. Layer opacity: When any tool other than a paint or edit tool is selected that is, any tool in the first, third, or fourth group in the toolbox pressing a number key changes the Opacity value for the active layer. Again, press one number to modify the Opacity setting in 10-percent increments; press two numbers to specify an exact Opacity setting. Fill opacity: Press Shift with a number key to change the Fill value for the active layer, which modifies the opacity of the pixels in a layer without affecting the layer effects. Brush mode: When a paint or edit tool is active, you can cycle through brush modes by pressing Shift+plus (+) or Shift+minus (). Shift+plus takes you down the brush mode pop-up menu and Shift+minus takes you back up. Blend mode: When some other tool is selected, Shift+plus and minus affect the blend mode applied to the active layer. You can also access a particular blend mode by pressing Shift and Alt (or Option) with a letter key. For example, Shift+Alt+M selects the Multiply mode; Shift+Alt+S selects Screen; Shift+Alt+N takes you back to Normal. Lock setting: Press the forward slash ( / ) to turn on and off the Lock icon that controls transparency in the Layers palette. If one or more of the Lock icons is already active, press / to turn off all four. Press / again to return the options to their former configuration. Layer locking can be extremely useful for protecting the contents of layers, as I explain in the "Locking layers" section in Chapter 12. Switch layer: Press Alt+] to ascend through the layers. Press Alt+[ to descend. Press Shift+Alt+] to activate the top layer in the composition. Press Shift+Alt+[ to go all the way down to the bottom of the stack, usually the Background layer. Arrange layer: Press Ctrl+] (or a -] on the Mac) to move the active layer one level forward in the stack; press Ctrl+[ to move it back. Press Ctrl+Shift+] to move the layer to the top of the stack. Press Ctrl+Shift+[ to move it to the bottom, usually just in front of the Background layer.
28-Nov-12

Hidden Shortcuts and Modifiers

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hidden Shortcuts and Modifiers

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hidden Shortcuts and Modifiers