Photoshop CS3: Adding Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts

Photoshop includes keyboard shortcuts for a variety of tasks. You can work more efficiently if you use shortcuts for the tools that you use most often. Many of the tools in the toolbox already have keyboard shortcuts assigned. Still, you may find yourself going to the menu to select an item, such as the Gaussian Blur filter, so often that a personalized keyboard shortcut is very useful and a huge timesaver.

You can easily create your own custom keyboard shortcuts to fit your workflow. You can even change the ones that Photoshop has already assigned to something that you can remember better. If the keyboard shortcut that you choose is already assigned by Photoshop for another function, a warning appears. You should also avoid keyboard shortcuts that are used by your operating system.

You can change Photoshop’s default shortcuts, or you can try a different set of keystrokes that are not already assigned.

Learning and using custom keyboard shortcuts can streamline your workflow, leaving you more time for designing and photo editing.

1 Click Edit.

2 Click Keyboard Shortcuts.

The Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog box appears.

3 Click here and select Application Menus.

4 Click the Filter expand arrow.

The filters are listed along with any existing keyboard shortcuts.

5 Scroll down to the filter to which you want to add a shortcut.

6 Click the filter.

The filter is highlighted, and an empty data field appears under the Shortcut

column.

7 Press Ô (Ctrl) and type your shortcut in the data field.

Note: A shortcut must contain either Ô (Ctrl) or an F key in the name.

8 Click Accept.

The Photoshop Defaults set is modified to include your shortcut.

9 Click OK to finish adding your custom keyboard shortcut.