Shortcut changes in PSCS4

By and large, keyboard shortcut changes suck.  Mature tools are like musical instruments, and you don’t go moving the piano keys or cello strings without a great need to do so.  It’s painful.  We know.

 

Sometimes, though, a little pain enables much better things.  In the CS4 release, we have made some improvements that result in a few shortcuts needing to change.  First, the improvements:

 

  1. Photoshop is now consistent with both Mac & Windows shortcuts for switching among open documents.  The Mac-standard Cmd-~ (technically Cmd-`) now cycles from one open document to the next.  Adding Shift cycles in reverse order.  These shortcuts work on both Mac & Windows.  In addition, Photoshop continues to support Ctrl-Tab/Shift-Ctrl-Tab on both platforms, just as it always has, for the same function.
  2. The app is now consistent with other Suite tools (Illustrator, InDesign, Flash) in setting the zoom level to 100% via Cmd-1/Ctrl-1. (PS will continue to support the existing Cmd-Opt-0 as a duplicate shortcut.)
  3. You can drag-resize any brush cursor by holding down Ctrl-Opt (Mac)/Alt-right click (Win), then dragging.  Add Cmd (Mac)/Shift (Win) to the combo to adjust brush hardness instead of size.
  4. People doing video work in Photoshop strongly requested single-key shortcuts for moving among frames.  You can switch these on/off via the "Enable Timeline Shortcut Keys" command that lives in the Animation panel fly-out menu.
  5. Photoshop supports what we call spring-loaded shortcuts, enabling you to jump from any tool to any other temporarily.

 

Some of these enhancements necessitate some other changes.  This all gets pretty esoteric, so I’m putting the nerdery into this post’s extended entry.  Read on for that.



Photoshop now offers various adjustments (Curves, Levels, etc.) via an Adjustments panel.  This means that instead of dancing into & out of dialogs, you can view and edit your adjustment settings simply by clicking each layer and using the panel.  In particular, this means that you can adjust layer opacity, blending, and masking while continuing to work with the adjustment.  Instead of jamming yet more things into dialogs, we made it possible to use those things while using the adjustment.  Give it a little time & you’ll like it.

 

The move to panel-based adjustments means that we can’t completely replicate the shortcuts that work in the modal (dialog-based) versions of those adjustments.  That is, because a dialog is its own little world, it can use shortcuts that would conflict with those used in Photoshop "proper."  When we put things in a panel, we no longer have that isolated context.

 

 

  • Pressing the = and – keys (what most users will think of as plus and minus) puts focus on curve points, then cycles through the curve points.  Previously this behavior was handled by Ctrl-Tab on both Mac and Windows, but as mentioned above, that shortcut is already taken in Photoshop proper, so it won’t work with the Adjustments panel-based version of Curves.
  • Displaying a channel in Photoshop was previously assigned to Cmd-1, 2, 3, etc.  Cmd-1 would show Red, Cmd-2 would show Green, etc.  Those shortcuts, along with the shortcut for showing the composite channel, have now shifted two places to the right.  Therefore Cmd-2 shows the composite, Cmd-3 shows Red, Cmd-4 shows Green, etc.
  • Targeting a channel in Curves, Levels, Channel Mixer, and other adjustments was previously assigned to Cmd-1, 2, 3, etc.  Cmd-1 would target Red, Cmd-2 would show Green, etc.  Just like the shortcuts for displaying channels, those shortcuts have all shifted two places to the right.  To avoid a conflict with Cmd-2, etc. when using the panel-based adjustments, the shortcuts have changed to Opt-#.  Therefore Opt-2 targets the composite, Opt-3 targets Red, Opt-4 targets Green, etc.
  • The Hue/Saturation and Selective Color commands are slightly different as they don’t map to just RGB/CMYK, but the same general rules apply: Opt-2 selects the Master channel, and Opt-3, 4, etc. select the subsequent items in the list.

 

  • To load luminosity as a selection, use Cmd-Opt-2.

 

  • Tapping \ (backslash) cycles between normal view & displaying the mask on a layer.  Holding backslash, however, displays a temporary preview of the unadjusted state of a document.  (It’s like unchecking the Preview checkbox temporarily.)  Because of the need to distinguish a tap from a hold, there’s a slight delay before the results of the hold behavior become visible.

 

 

Having read all this, you might reasonably say, "Fine, but Photoshop offers a keyboard shortcut editor, so let me switch things back if I’d like."  That’s not possible, for a couple of reasons.  One, the change from modal dialogs to non-modal panel simply means that some commands would now conflict (e.g. hitting Cmd-1 can’t both display a channel & target a channel), so just restoring the old behavior isn’t an option.  Two, the shortcut editor frankly isn’t robust enough to handle certain special-purpose keys (numbers, tilde, etc.), and we didn’t have time to enhance it for CS4.

 

We have, however, created a solution: you can download a file containing a plug-in (Mac)/registry entries (Windows) that remap the channel keys.  That is, you give up using Cmd-~ to switch among open documents, and you lose Cmd-1 for zooming to 100%, but tilde will go back to selecting the composite channel and 1, 2, 3, etc. will go back to selecting/targeting the first, second, third, etc. channels.  The Mac plug-in just needs to be dropped into your Photoshop plug-ins directory, and on Windows you can enable/disable the behavior by double-clicking the reg entries.

 

We’re providing these tools to help ease people into using CS4, but my advice is to try using the new system for a while.

0 thoughts on “Shortcut changes in PSCS4

  1. A couple years ago I would have screamed in displeasure about #1, but changes in my work assignments (and thusly, work habits) have made me think otherwise. This will be a welcome change for me.
    [Yeah, the more time has gone by, the more people have gotten used to Cmd-~ for switching documents. –J.]
    #2 is going to hurt… Cmd-opt-0 is part of my muscle memory, but I agree it makes more sense.
    [Sorry, I forgot to mention that we’ll continue to support Cmd-Opt-0 as a duplicate shortcut. I’ll update the entry. –J.]
    #3: Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!
    #5: I don’t understand what’s new here. Isn’t this like using the spacebar to temporarily switch to the Hand Tool? And Cmd-Spacebar for Zoom, etc? (Like what Ps has had since at least v2.5 when I started using it?)
    [Yes, it’s exactly like that, except it works with all tools, not just with the few to which special keys (Cmd, Space, etc.) are assigned. You can, for example, jump from Brush to Rotate View and back simply by holding down R, clicking and rotating the view, and releasing. That means one keystroke instead of two. –J.]

  2. As a frequent user of selective color adjustment layers, the remapping of the channel shortcuts will definitely take some getting used to. Opt-3 to jump to reds is very ergonomically different than Cmd-1.
    [Yeah, it definitely requires a greater twist of your wrist if using your left hand on a Mac. On Windows, oddly enough, it probably means less twisting, as Alt is nearer your thumb than Ctrl. (I’ve always hated how Windows puts Ctrl outboard, making me either use my (weaker) pinky on it or move my thumb to activate it.) –J.]
    However, I’m willing to accept change for improvement.
    The ability to change brush size and hardness via dragging should prove to speed things up. Can’t wait to try that out.
    Can you expand on loading luminosity as a selection with Cmd-Opt-2? Does this work in any case, or only if the composite channel is selected? Either way, this should be a great alternative to going in and out of Lab mode to make a luminosity mask.
    [I actually don’t recall the details on this one, so I’ll have to look for more info. –J.]

  3. I can deal with changes, if they make sense (therefore I can remember easily) and your explanations help a lot!
    I really welcome every little step to unified shortcuts (mac and windows). Teaching Photoshop to Photographers, nothing is more annoying than the standard sentence: “well thats on mac, on windows, you have to…” !
    Thanks you (and your team) for a great new release! Design Premium is installed and (so far) running sweet.

  4. Thanks for these regular updates. They are very helpful to one and all.
    On the Curves keyboard controls:
    What you list works as advertised. However, the thing I’m missing is how to place points on the a curve using the keyboard. It used to be: Place the cursor over the image and command-click to add a point to the curve displayed in the Curves dialog; or, shift-command-click to add points to each of the color channel curves.
    A post on the PS forum said that activating the TAT and then clicking on the image would add a point to the curve. In my beta version, that doesn’t work. Also, we need a way to add points to each of the color channel curves with one click (like the old shift-command-click.)
    Can you offer any guidance here?
    Thanks,
    Rick

  5. You can use CMD-Opt-# to load the luminosity of any channel. Very cool!
    RE: Can you expand on loading luminosity as a selection with Cmd-Opt-2? Does this work in any case, or only if the composite channel is selected? Either way, this should be a great alternative to going in and out of Lab mode to make a luminosity mask.

  6. Great.
    Now get to work standardizing keyboard shortcuts between Camera Raw, Photoshop, and the Lens Correction Filter. There’s no excuse for not having the same navigational and zoom shortcuts, and the same shortcut for displaying the display grid.

  7. And then you have LR which uses different shortcuts from PS/ACR and sometimes for no good reason. I use ACR and LR a lot and it would be so nice if they had same shortcuts for same tools/actions.

  8. Awesome!
    I can’t wait to be able to adjust blending modes while in other dialogues!
    [Just to clarify, it’s not that you can adjust blending modes, etc. while in a dialog; it’s that we replaced the dialog with a non-modal panel, meaning you can do anything that PS proper does (paint a layer, adjust visibility and opacity, etc.) without losing access to the adjustment. –J.]

  9. Does this mean that I have to buy new keys for my logickeyboard keyboard ?
    Is adobe in kahootz with logickeyboard?
    [I don’t understand what you’re saying/asking. –J.]
    Sound frustrating maybe I’ll wait to upgrade till CS5
    when Adobe changes back the shortcuts.
    [They’re not changing back. –J.]
    I am Big on keyboard shortcuts.

  10. Brilliant! All very good compromises, especially when you take the time to explain the reasoning. You’ve all really out-done yourselves with the attention to details with this new version!

  11. There seems to have been a fair bit of evolution [to piano and cello design]. –J.
    Yes, but the basic arrangement of strings and keys and how they are played has remained constant for centuries.
    There’s a complicated logical fallacy hiding behind a comparison of musical instrument evolution and Adobe’s almost arbitrary key combo changes (although I’m sure they don’t seem arbitrary to the guys making the changes).

  12. John-
    The “UseOldShortcuts” doesn’t seem to work on my system – it seems to disable the 4,5,6 commands but doesn’t make the channels available in the panel.

  13. Speaking of shortcuts – does anyone have a probem with Photoshop CS4 (trial) stealing ESC key whenver it is running in the background on Vista x64?
    I tried investigating that issue and found out that it might be caused by Catalyst Drivers for Vista x64 on ATI graphics card (since it worked ok before installing them), yet – it’s just a blind shot and might be something different.
    I tried googling the issue and it seems there’s quite a few people affected by it on PS CS3, but there are no real answers, just annoying workarounds.
    I’ll be glad if anyone that has this issue could share their $0.02.

  14. Thank you for FINALLY making the 100%zoom level uniform. It’s driven me nuts for years, and I’ve actually gone as far as duplicating PS’s shortcuts in Flash, illustrator, etc. Now I can go back to the norm. 🙂
    [As Bill Murray would say, “baby steps :-).” –J.]

  15. [Yeah, the more time has gone by, the more people have gotten used to Cmd-~ for switching documents. –J.]
    If they are lucky enough to have the key.
    […how to place points on the a curve using the keyboard. It used to be: Place the cursor over the image and command-click to add a point to the curve displayed in the Curves dialog; or, shift-command-click to add points to each of the color channel curves.]
    Are you talking about the Adjustment Panel or the Curves Dialog? I hope this feature isn’t gone, it is the single most used feature to me.

  16. Hi John.
    First let me say I enjoy your blog very much. It’s great that you are open with your install base.
    I need some advice. I’m ready to upgrade to a Mac Pro from my Dual G5. I’m planning on pimping out the machine with 12 or 16 GB of RAM. A pair of Velociraptor drives to RAID as my working drive. Another Velociraptor for Scratch disk.
    Now I’m confused about video cards. I have three to choose from installed direct from Apple
    ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB
    NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB adds $150.00
    NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 with 1.5GB adds $2850.00 (probably cost prohibitive).
    Do I order from Apple? Is the NVIDIA 8800 my best bet? Do I just purchase the ATI 2600 XT and order another card that will perform better with Photoshop CS4? I’ve been searching the web and it’s hard to determine if there are other graphic cards out there for the Mac Pro. Can you make some recommendations? I found ATI Radeon HD 3870 @ PCConnection.com or ATI Radeon X1900 XT from Apple Store.
    I typically retouch camera files from the newest digital backs so the files save on average to about 1 GB. When I compose the photos for ads or POP I usually start using Smart Objects and my files save in excessive of 2 GB.
    I’m looking forward to working faster with a new computer, more RAM, a fast RAID and the video acceleration features of Photoshop CS4.
    Looking forward to your response and thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

    Mike
    [All good questions, Mike. I’m working with the performance team to provide more detailed guidance via the blog soon. –J.]

  17. At last! I craying over to change the cmd-~ (Ctr-~) Shorcuts, because it’s impossible to press on some international keyboards (like Hungarian).
    But I don’t understand why “the shortcut editor frankly isn’t robust enough to handle certain special-purpose keys (numbers, tilde, etc.), and we didn’t have time to enhance it for CS4.”
    Bad, very bad. If you decide to make a big change in shorcuts, must thinks not everyone lke it. Take time to made an opportunity to change it back.
    [We did; check out the plug-in that’s linked from this blog entry. –J.]
    Anyway, I like the changes.

  18. Can we change the brush resize to be ‘hold B + click-drag mouse’ for size and hold shift+b for hardness?
    My co-worker would prefer [&] to smoothly change sizes instead of jumping to set sizes and shift+[or] to change hardness.
    Also the red overlay when changing the brush, could that be on all the time and in the currently active color? (like alias sketchbook pro)

  19. Requests:
    Force brush hardness to work on custom brush shapes (like a simple Gaussian blur)
    Using full images as a “brush” like “pipes” in paintshop pro or whatever that thing was called, or paint-effects in maya, or the roller brush in z-brush…do you see where I’m going with this….

  20. Dam it sounds nice, I always hated hunting for the zero key across the keyboard. the tab key functions sounds like a reason to get cs4 almost alone. I just hope it will be possible to lock down the interface once set so not everything you hit will pop up something or optimize 5 pixels to the left 😉

  21. So I gather from the lack of response that shift-command-click for setting a point on the component curves in an adjustment layer is gone for good?
    [The lack of response is due to the fact that I asked the people on point for a reply and didn’t get one. In any case, you can Cmd-click using the new on-canvas adjustment tool (which appears above the eyedropper tools on the Curves panel). –J.]
    Maybe the argument for changing shortcuts to match other apps would hold more weight if there weren’t so many inconsistencies across just the PSCS4 app itself. For example, how is the white hand tool in the Toolbar different to the black one in the Application Bar?
    [It’s a just cosmetic difference; same tool. –J.]
    I spent ages wondering why Consolidate All to Tabs wasn’t listed on the Application Bar dropdown until I discovered that it’s the blackbox icon (not a hallmark of iconography you’ll admit).
    [What would you find more useful? –J.]
    Adding Print Size there as well would make sense now that, thanks to OpenGL, it’s usable.
    Personally I think the upgrade has been a net gain (worth it for the scaling independence alone … great to see some core changes for a change!) but I’d rate it as the most disappointing release so far for gratuitous changes and assorted omissions/oversights/bugs.
    [Please be more specific. –J.]
    I’ve only had it a few days and already been hit by a number of regressed features.
    Great blog BTW.

  22. In any case, you can Cmd-click using the new on-canvas adjustment tool
    You’re right, this works and I can live with having to select the finger tool first. I don’t use the composite curve for tonality adjustments though which is what I presumed the finger tool was for.
    It’s a just cosmetic difference; same tool.
    I know that and you know that. But why would they look different at all? Not that I’ve clicked on a hand tool icon in many years.
    What would you find more useful?
    I think you’d have been better with the text equivalent, namely “Consolidate All to Tabs” in the dropdown for consistency with the menu item (like “Float All in Windows”). I’m not a big fan of cryptic icons (and frankly Adobe doesn’t seem to be much good at designing them) and would like to see use of them in Photoshop kept to an absolute minimum.
    Please be more specific.
    Since PSCS4 broke monitor allegiance for newly opened files in a dual monitor setup, I spent some time with the new Application Frame/Bar but came across numerous bugs: can’t drag a window back onto the tabs (yes I’ve seen the demos with the blue line but it doesn’t appear for me), hand tool that stops working, hand tool that results in the document moving in the opposite direction (!!!), “Match Zoom and Location” that may or may not work etc. Also, it’s now impossible to predict which monitor will be used for dialogs … keeps you on your toes at least. Presumably these will all be fixed in the first round.
    Personally I would have preferred to see a simpler implementation that uses less mucking around in document selection and splitting views. I don’t find the tabs scan fast enough to be much use … and is it IMG_3123 or IMG_5680 that I want anyway? I can see myself going back to Bridge and double-clicking on the file I want to surface it, same as before. Why not a pop-up window with thumbnails of all open documents to select from? And, while I’m here, why not merge the Options and Application Bar, or at least provide an option for those with monitors wide enough? I hate to see screen space wasted.
    Anyway, thanks for listening.
    [Thanks for the detailed feedback. –J.]

  23. I CANNOT live with having to mouse-select the finger tool first. The Target Adjustment Tool (TAT) needs a keyboard shortcut when an adjustment layer that makes use of the TAT is active. It is a tremendously useful tool that is slowed down by the lack of a keyboard shortcut.

  24. Being that the adjustments are now live in the panel (as in not performed within a dialog), this will obviously effect the ability to preview adjustments on and off before committing (switching with the P key)? I find it invaluable to be able to make a lot of adjustments in one go and then instantly A/B them (especially if an image has a colour cast that is hard to pin down). Will we be able to A/B changes now, or have to troll through undos (or somehow use snapshots, but sans the single key switching)? I can’t see how the backslash key would duplicate this functionality?
    thanks,
    Barton.
    [It’s a tricky situation. You can’t really “preview” something that you just did; you can only hide/show the effects. Simply toggling the layer eyeball doesn’t necessarily give you the same results as toggling the preview. (That is, toggling the layer would show you the difference between no effect & current state of the effect, not between the last state of the effect & the current state.) Anyway, there’s now a button that “previews” the previous state of the adjustment, and it’s invoked by holding down backslash. –J.]

  25. Am I correct that \ only accounts for single adjustments though? Is there the possibility of a hack to get an in and out point—key for edit start, key for confirm? I could be the sole person that edits like this, but it helps with decision making speed: especially when I’ve made dozens of edits to a curve then toggle preview to see that I’ve made things worse. Next step is as easy as hitting control + cancel (reset).
    There is also the added benefit of having undo inside the dialog alongside preview. Cmd Z thus toggles the previous state.

  26. Hi first post here. And this has bean a great blog!!
    There is one inconstency on the keyboard shortcuts, probably very old:
    On windows while cropping or sellecting if you press control while dragging it deactivates the snap feature, allowing that extra fine tune.
    On a mac what i always expected was for this feature to be on command, but not it is, oddly on control…
    Best regards,
    Vf

  27. Hi John.
    Is there an option in the Preferences under User Interface for background brightness as in Illustrator CS3. I’d prefer my panels with a dark gray background.
    [I know, and we do want to get there. We need to do a complete job–not just making the panel backgrounds dark, but implementing custom widgets that change color to look appropriate on different backgrounds. This all gets tied up in the march to Cocoa, so it’s hard to say when we’ll get there. –J.]
    I still use a 2nd display for palettes and/or panels and the white background is over powering when working on a dark image on my main display.
    p.s. Any news on the GPU front for me?
    [I do plan to post something soon. In the meantime here’s the tech note. –J.]
    Thanks.
    Mike

  28. I can’t even get the icons to work in the field where the “consolidate all” and other “stuff?” should be…just blank until I mistakenly scrolled over it. Suggestions? AND…some of my OnOne stuff doesn’t work.

  29. Ok I didn’t get that reply, is it still possible to Cmd-Click/Shift-Cmd-Click on an area in the image to set the points in the curves dialog or not?
    [Yes, it works in the dialog just as it always has. It works the same in the panel form as well. The only difference is that unlike the dialog, the panel doesn’t auto-select the eyedropper (or on-canvas adjustment tool) for you. (We experimented with auto-selection, but some people found it annoying.) –J.]
    As I said, this is the single most used feature in Ps to me (and most people at my workplace).

  30. I have just found you site and so happy there is a site that that is alive understands.
    I will update to CS4 but wonder if the Lightroom upgrade is worth it. I find that Bridge provides the appropriate filing and I do not do much batch correcting.

  31. Wonderful blog — infinitely useful already, after only 1 visit.
    In CS4, I really love the Application Bar, and the centralized zoom setting dropdown. But is there any way to get more preset zoom settings into that list? I would dearly love to have “width” and “height” and a set of additional percentages.
    CS4 is, by the way, a masterpiece of interoperability reengineering, to use an apallingly ugly phrase for something so beautiful.

  32. The ctrl+1 might be lovely for right handed people, but as a lefty ( and there are a high proportion of us in the creative community) ctrl +0 works better as a zoom to real size, fit in window, all purpose zoom to where I want it, SO alt ctrl +0 for zoom to 100% is teh absolute ideal. In fact my hand deos not really like travelling to the ‘other’ end of the keyboard
    What about aleft-handed version of CS4???
    [FWIW we haven’t removed or changed the Cmd-zero-related shortcuts in CS4. –J.]

  33. Hopefully I am just missing a setting here.
    In CS3 I could zoom out and in with the Command + or – key and that would resize the window but Command, Space Bar and mouse click would not resize the window.
    Now with CS4 if I set (in preferences Zoom Resizes Windows) both ways of zooming resizes the window. Not the way I am used to working. I hope I am just missing a setting but at this point I find this CS4 behavior pretty annoying.
    I have found one difference. In CS3 the checking or unchecking Resize Windows to Fit option for the zoom tool does not change the “Zoom Resizes Window” in preferences.
    In CS4 it does. This sure seems like a bug to me. Hope it gets fixed.

  34. Yeah, the key command changed. You now have to hold shift then click to zoom in without the window resizing. If you want to zoom out hold shift + option and click.
    Just make sure you restart the program after you click it on or off. I haven’t had any issues with the resizing option not working.

  35. I’ve noticed an annoying behavior with panels/pallettes getting pushed off the right side of the screen when I hit F to cycle through the full screen modes.I have to actually grab them with the mouse and pull them back to proper position.
    Also setting points on a curve and then using keyboard to shuttle about and nudge is a staple of what I do and having all those keys change for no good reason is hard to swallow.
    [I explained the good reasons for the changes & mentioned that it’s possible to reverse some of them if you’d like. It simply isn’t possible to go from modal to non-modal without making keyboard changes, as some of the shortcuts in the dialog conflict with those in the main app. –J.]
    Unfortunately I’m forced to uninstall and migrate back to PSCS3. Nothing compelling enough in PSCS4 to overcome the inertia of years of habit.
    [I’m sorry to hear that. We can’t let the past bury the future, however. –J.]

  36. I couldn’t get the plug-in to load on any powerpc macs via the optional plug-ins folder, nor dropping it in the plug-ins folder. Works super on my Intel mac though. Maybe compiled incorrectly for both?
    [Hmm–I’ll ask the engineer who built it. (I admit I tried it only on Mac Intel.) –J.]
    I wish those shortcuts were able to be mapped with the keyboard dialog.
    [So do we. It was just a matter of timing & resources. Sometimes what seems simple isn’t. –J.]
    I know that Expose and other little tools Apple throws in are nice, but there is no reason that I see to change something so firmly ingrained in everyone’s brain as the channels shortcuts.
    [What about greater compatibility with the OS and with other applications? Everyone asks us to “just make all the shortcuts the same,” yet this is why we can never make everyone happy. –J.]

  37. I echo what Timothy says about the plugin not working on PowerPC Mac. I have both an Intel and a PPC based Mac and on the Intel Mac, the plugin works fine. On the PPC one it doesn’t even though it’s been installed in exactly the same way.

  38. I hope I didn’t miss this in the reading. What is the new shortcut for highlight selection? It was (in CS3) ctrl+ALT+shift+~
    I was teaching a class and felt like a fool when it didn’t work. 😉

  39. i’ve had cs4 since monday and you guys really did a number on the curves/eye dropper selection..i’m all for moving ahead and making things consistent across apps but this change really hampers efficiency and productivity..it is bad enough i have to select the finger tool with the cursor but now when i make several points on the curve i have to move my hand across the keyboard for the – = keys and then back to the left of the keyboard to select a different channel..and the cursor will constantly change the Output Input readings(even when i have a point selected) in the curves dialog box so i have to move the cursor off the image and nudge the point to see what my current moves are for that point on the curve..and why does the finger tool require a different movement for RGB when my curve is always set to pigment?..i’m usually gung ho about updates as it usually means new tools and new capabilities but this isn’t looking very good so far..i’ll give it a few more weeks, but i’m currently quite disappointed…

  40. I also echo what Eric and Timothy say about the plugin not working on PowerPC Mac.
    I followed the instructions “The Mac plug-in just needs to be dropped into your Photoshop plug-ins directory” to place the UseOldShortcuts.plugin loose into my Applications>Photoshop CS4>Plug-Ins folder. I don’t see anything that suggests it needs to be inside one of the sub-folders.

  41. Hm. I have Photoshop CS4 installed on my Power Mac G5 and it seems that UseOldShortcuts.plugin doesn’t work on this architecture. What a shame 🙁

  42. UseOldShortcuts.plugin doesn’t do anything on my G5 either. Shame.
    Neither does the AllowOldGPUS.plugin by the way, so no OpenGL on this machine either 🙁
    The only way to get a point on a curve seems to be to click the TAT first.
    Even when I want to place a color sampler (Shift+Cmd+Click) I have to select the TAT in curves first.
    Ridiculous IMO.

  43. Turns out it’s not as bad as I thought: Curves works as before if the eyedropper tool is selected first…
    Going to be tough to use CS3 and 4 alternately though.
    Now if there were a way to get the focus on the number boxes…

  44. There is!
    The + and – select existing points on a curve in turn; and the Up- and Down-arrows then adjust the Input and Output values.

  45. True, but there’s no way to access the boxes of for instance a Channel Mixer adjustment layer (that I’ve found), *unless* you use your mouse to click the boxes. That slows me down quite a bit, since I tend to use shortcuts a lot.

  46. There doesn’t seem to be, René.
    I am in total agreement with you concerning the lack of shortcuts for the tools and value-boxes in Adjustment Layers’ palettes.
    I do pretty well everything with shortcuts (and seldom need to open a menu at all) and the lack of shortcuts in a number of palettes is particularly irritating and does need to be addressed with some urgency in a Dot Release.

  47. Testing out CS4 today for the first time… (late to the game… don’t like to be an early adopter on my work machine 😉
    Where else can I find the window arrangement menu besides the new “Application Bar”? I know the shortcuts for everything that’s in there but I can’t for the life of me find the shortcuts for those “2 up” “3 up” etc… I’m on a Mac and I really don’t wanna waste space with this bar, but I like the window /tabs arrangement functionality… Where else/how can I access it?
    Thanks!

  48. Even with the new plug-in, the new curves adjustment layer proves to be a major hassle to me and many others that I’ve talked to. I find that I prefer to use CS3 except when I need a CS4-specific feature.
    PROBLEMS:
    1) No keyboard shortcuts for sampling image values in either composite or separate channels. We need to old cmd-opt-shift-click, cmd-opt-click, and ctrl-tab behaviors.
    2) No means to keyboard in numeric values without extra mouse clicks first.
    3) If Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels is disabled, the adjustment panel is left visible when not wanted. If it’s enabled then clicking in the image to set points on curves closes the panel prematurely.
    I would strongly urge the instatement of a preference to return the old modal behavior, which many advance Photoshop users preferred.

  49. When a big chunk of your income comes from one program that has shortcuts people have been using for 15 years it makes real sense to suddenly make it act like other programs. Oh I’m sure your focus panel thought it was great. But they’re not dropping hundreds of dollars for Photoshop nor thousand for design suite upgrades.
    [Yes, they are. –J.]
    The adjustment panel is great. Making it not work as close to the old dialogue box as possible it not great.
    [Dialogs are not panels, and vice versa. They’re inherently & necessarily different. They have different pros and cons. –J.]
    I’m really tired of hiding my panels because I think I’m going to tab to the next value box in the adjustment layer. The plug-in helps, luckily I found it, yay Google. We are not students or designers with floating deadlines, we need a program to integrate with our existing processes with minimal disruption.
    We can’t afford the slow down of people fighting with a sudden remapping of their daily work flow. Sure in two weeks it would probably be all gone, but how much time wasted.
    [The interesting thing about my job is that it affords so many chances to get lit up from all directions at once–for moving too quickly & too slowly, for offering too many features & not enough. –J.]
    Specifically when we can just NOT upgrade and be fine.
    [You of course have that option, but there are a great many things you can now do (esp. via the Adjustments panel) that you couldn’t do before. Simply trying to force what’s new to be what’s old is not going to produce the best results.
    If you were to switch to an all-electric car tomorrow, you’d gain some things while losing others. Saying, “Well, it’s not my old V8” isn’t really capturing the point. –J.]
    We have the one version and can deal with any ver. specific jobs that come in. But at this time though I am not recommending for the rest of the company to upgrade to CS4, design suite or photoshop.
    Hope you come to your senses with CS5. (Didn’t Adobe do something foolish like this with Illustrator 7 and there was such an outcry that ver. 8 had a setting that allowed Ill.6 key commands?)
    [This is what I mean about getting beaten up from both sides. AI6 was quite different than Photoshop and other apps. AI7 brought the apps into greater alignment. Would you want to go back (i.e. do you want more inconsistency)? We hear continuous demands for things to work more consistently, and yet we get nailed for changing anything.
    None of this is to say that the current implementation of Adjustments is perfect, or that Adobe should have carte blanche for shaking things up. At the same time, however, we can’t fail to make things better out of fear of change. –J.]

  50. Is there a way to view the composite channel while having a single channel selected? In CS-CS3-if not before- I could (for example) use cmd-2 to select green channel, then hit control-~ (on Mac) to view the composite. That way if I were doing something (like dodging a spot in the green channel) I could see how it affected the full color image. This function seems to be gone in CS4. It is something I used EVERY DAY.
    Great blog. Hate the new commands (why couldn’t illustrator get command-0 for 100% instead?!)

  51. Just a quick shortcut gripe, while we’re on the subject – could copy-merged (Shift-Ctrl-C) please be made to work when there’s only one layer? While I know that technically it’s not a merge if there’s only one layer, I think of and use copy-merged as “copy what I can see”, and it’s jarring when it fails in that one case.

  52. [Dialogs are not panels, and vice versa. They’re inherently & necessarily different. They have different pros and cons. –J.]
    John, can you outline some of the “pros” of the new panels/shortcuts – at least in your or Adobe’s opinion?
    [Yes, I’ll work on that. Bryan Hughes plans to post something, but he’s on paternity leave for a bit longer. –J.]
    I’m not being facetious, I honestly can’t find an example where the changes benefit me/my workflow (I won’t bore you with the problems they cause me!).
    [Please bore me!! I really need specifics. –J.]

  53. Ben, i completely agree with you. I can not find a pro for changing these shortcuts.
    [I’ve already explained why these changes had to be made, and I’ve provided a plug-in that lets you switch most of the shortcuts back if you must. –J.]
    It makes absolutely no ergonomic sense at all. After 16 years of Photoshop shortcuts this habit is not going to just take 2 weeks to change. Its narrow minded to think that just because it’s change that it is good. Please just look at a large print of a digital file versus a large print from an 8×10 chrome. There is absolutely no comparison. New isn’t automatically better.
    Just that one huge badly considered change to the adjustment layers is enough to outweigh moving into CS4 at all for a serious retoucher. And i work with a lot of retouchers, I haven’t found one who likes or can actually easily navigate the new layout of the shortcuts.

  54. Thanks for the plug-in. I’m using it. I have to say that I find the option-clicking for channel targeting incredibly awkward for right hand mousers. Did anybody at Adobe actually try this out beforehand? It’s just a non-starter, sorry. It needs to be rethought. This is partly why every pro retoucher I know has sworn off CS4,in spite of its speediness. I do get the reasons for the changes, but isn’t there a more left-hand friendly way to do this, with other keys?
    In addition, using command-1 for “View at 100%” may be consistent with the other Adobe programs, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good idea. Alignment and consistency are good, for certain, but what about ergonomics and spatial sense? In other words, why not change the other programs to bring them in line with Photoshop? No offense to vector artists, but viewing at 100% in Flash has a lot less meaning than it does in photoshop, where image pixel to screen pixel ratios have a real meaning for output. Photoshop is the one program where viewing at exactly 100% has enormous and specific meaning. Why is it borrowing its behavior from other programs where this has less meaning?
    Another line of thought: It’s very convenient to have the other view shortcuts all next to each other. It’s very easy to teach people that command-+ zooms in, command– zooms out,and command-0 fits to screen. They’re all right next to each other, and it works elegantly.
    Specifically, why not make command-9 be “view at 100%”? Then the four “view” shortcuts could be together spatially, and left-hand friendly? This is not hairsplitting for those of us who do this a hundreds of times a day.
    Please consider rethinking this for CS5, or ideally building up the keyboard customizability for those of us who need it.

  55. Thanks for the plug-in. I’m using it. I have to say that I find the option-clicking for channel targeting incredibly awkward for right hand mousers. Did anybody at Adobe actually try this out beforehand? It’s just a non-starter, sorry. It needs to be rethought. This is partly why every pro retoucher I know has sworn off CS4,in spite of its speediness. I do get the reasons for the changes, but isn’t there a more left-hand friendly way to do this, with other keys?
    In addition, using command-1 for “View at 100%” may be consistent with the other Adobe programs, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good idea. Alignment and consistency are good, for certain, but what about ergonomics and spatial sense? In other words, why not change the other programs to bring them in line with Photoshop? No offense to vector artists, but viewing at 100% in Flash has a lot less meaning than it does in photoshop, where image pixel to screen pixel ratios have a real meaning for output. Photoshop is the one program where viewing at exactly 100% has enormous and specific meaning. Why is it borrowing its behavior from other programs where this has less meaning?
    Another line of thought: It’s very convenient to have the other view shortcuts all next to each other. It’s very easy to teach people that command-+ zooms in, command– zooms out,and command-0 fits to screen. They’re all right next to each other, and it works elegantly.
    Specifically, why not make command-9 be “view at 100%”? Then the four “view” shortcuts could be together spatially, and left-hand friendly? This is not hairsplitting for those of us who do this a hundreds of times a day.
    Please consider rethinking this for CS5, or ideally building up the keyboard customizability for those of us who need it.

  56. What’s happened to the jump to graphics/html editor?
    Am I missing something? – I thought I was paying more for extra features not replacement features!

  57. I am having trouble with the Intel mac plug0in. It does not work, although it is loose in Applications>Adobe Photoshop CS4>Plug-ins. Is that the right spot?

  58. I totally agree with all of Ben’s points:
    Ben — 10:47 PM on April 6, 2009 [I have to say that I find the option-clicking for channel targeting incredibly awkward for right hand mousers. Did anybody at Adobe actually try this out beforehand? It’s just a non-starter, sorry. It needs to be rethought.]
    It is not in any way ergonomically friendly! Why again was it necessary to change these shortcuts? If the shortcuts must be changed then isn’t it possible to find better ones? I think the majority of people are still right handed.
    There are other shortcuts, like the + – for selecting curves points that are so akward. I don’t know if American/English keyboards have these in another place than my Swedish but suddenly having to go over to the right side of the keyboard from the far left is a BIG change and to quickly find the keyboard signs is more difficult.
    Also the on-canvas hand thingy is so ANNOYING. Why would I want to go through an extra step to do the same thing I did directly before? I still don’t understand after more than 9 months of use what the benefits/pros of this new panel are?
    I also dislike the moving of tools in the tool panel. I am forever searching for the pipette tool that has been moved up to take slice tools place. Is there a way to rearrange the tools order to my own liking? Or can I just replace the 3D tools (that I will never ever use as a photographer) that obviously took the eyedropper’s place?
    I also wonder what the installing of the old shortcuts really do? What shortcuts are reinstalled? I can’t see that it changes anything shortcut wise or any other way.
    [Doyle Yoder — 5:15 PM on November 19, 2008
    …In CS3 I could zoom out and in with the Command + or – key and that would resize the window but Command, Space Bar and mouse click would not resize the window.
    Now with CS4 if I set (in preferences Zoom Resizes Windows) both ways of zooming resizes the window. Not the way I am used to working. I hope I am just missing a setting but at this point I find this CS4 behavior pretty annoying.
    I have found one difference. In CS3 the checking or unchecking Resize Windows to Fit option for the zoom tool does not change the “Zoom Resizes Window” in preferences.
    In CS4 it does. This sure seems like a bug to me. Hope it gets fixed.]

    [Elizabeth Stacy — 8:33 AM on November 20, 2008
    Yeah, the key command changed. You now have to hold shift then click to zoom in without the window resizing. If you want to zoom out hold shift + option and click.]

    Another example of a really akward shortcut set! Why, why, why? I don’t even know HOW I am supposed to hold shift+alt+cmd+spacebar for zooming out?! That means I need to first select the zoom tool in the tool panel, an extra step I don’t want, and THEN use the shift key.
    I am all for changes that make things EASIER but not the opposite.

  59. What happened to the plugin? None of the links in this article go anywhere. I even went to an update that this author posted and that link was defunct as well. Awesome. But I suppose I’ll check with our IT to get it from the install DVD.
    And the adjustment panel is über-lame. I had no problem with an adjustment layer dialog opening up while I did an adjustment. Is there a way to kill that panel and restore using dialog windows?
    What’s weird is they still open (dialog boxes) when I run actions that I built in previous versions of PS where the ‘P’ shortcut (which I loved in CS2, btw) works – but ctrl-tab of course does not (but tab does cycle between value fields!). And like others have said as well – strike who knows how many at this point for eradicating the ability to cycle between the input/output values! Holy cow – what a disgrace. And another ginormous strike – that ‘hold \’ to preview the adjustment well, fails to work when in the middle of editing in one of the value fields. Again – awesome. So you have to escape o rhit return, hold down ‘\’ to preview and – since there is no shortcut to get to the value fields – you have to click in it again with the mouse. Double awesome.
    For those of us just upgrading and realizing how awful the new shortcuts are (seemingly only to change from ctrl-tab to cmd-~ for switching between open docs and cmd-1 for 100% view – and I feel safe saying of course all of us using PS for a while were so used to both of those that it required no thought) – these changes are atrocious.
    I echo what just about everyone else said – not all change is good and this is ridiculous. I am all for change, but only such that actually makes sense. Absolutely one of the worst thought-out “upgrades” of all time.

  60. I am sooooooo glad you provided a mechanism for returning the shortcuts. Perhaps Mac users have something to gain from the change, Windows users do Not. It has merely Duplicated Existing windows Shortcuts, while taking away frequently used Useful, Natural, Easy-to-remember shortcuts.
    Windows had it perfect all along.. You don’t know how happy this Power User is to get back what was lost.
    A suggestion: when making a system change like this, it would be great to find this info somewhere prominent, as in the Preferences Panel. A little blurb stating before/after shortcut changes, and a reference to the registry fix would have saved much Confusion and Frustration -and enabled me to reset it in a reasonable time, once I tried out the new schema. I felt handicapped for way too long. The Preferences panel is a natural place to look for settings changes when something isn’t functioning as expected, especially after an upgrade.
    Anyway, the “fix” to repair the broken shortcuts was Easy to Use! Killer!
    Thanks Again for providing the fix!! I am so happy now:)
    Xoxo
    ..I’m counting on this to work in future releases as well..
    If you want consistency across applications, well, you’ve already missed the point. There are no two programs that would benefit from this more than Lightroom and Photoshop. Most of the basic shared operations should share the same shortcuts. These two programs, are so widely used in conjunction. In fact it appears that most of your Lightroom Base come from a Photoshop background, or will expand their new venture to include Photoshop in the future. Lightroom shortcuts ought to be remapped to match Photoshop’s (Long-standing) shortcuts.
    Sure, when I use InDesign, I wish all the shortcuts matched Photoshop’s shortcuts, -it would sure be nice to download a remapping function to do this. However, I do Not think it was a good idea to change Photoshop (wider application) to match an application that is essentially a subset, for any single key. Users should make that single shortcut change on their own if they don’t like it. Why upset the entire user base of your flagship product on such a personal note? And Silently, at that.
    We weren’t hit-over-the-head informed about theses Huge Changes (for Power Users who constantly use “time-saving” shortcuts- our fingers are on auto-pilot- this is a big deal), nor were we given a choice..(I understand that it could not be an Option in the Preferences panel, in the usual way, but we could have been told how to do it in the preferences panel.)
    Well, it’s been done.
    As long as this fix works through the upgrade ladder, I’m Set!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *