The Logic Behind the Keyboard Commands

Did you notice that Adobe limits the keyboard shortcuts you can assign to different commands? That's because there is a general logic to what different keys on your keyboard do within Photoshop. The Command key (Mac) or Ctrl key (Windows) does one of two things. If you press it all by itself, then it will access the Move tool for however long that key is held. If you press it along with another key, then it will replace a menu command. The only exceptions you'll find are ones that involve an F key, which can also replace a menu command (like Shift-F5 to access the Edit > Fill dialog box). Now let's look at what the other modifier keys do in Photoshop so you won't be surprised by the keyboard shortcuts that you run across as you progress through this book:

Shift: Either constrains things or lets you work on more of something, depending on when you hold it down. For instance, if you grab the Paintbrush tool and hold Shift while you paint, Photoshop will constrain your movement to either horizontal or vertical. If you have multiple images open, then clicking on the Full Screen Mode icons near the bottom of your tool palette will affect only the topmost image. When that's the case, typing Command-W (Mac) or Ctrl-W (Windows) to close the topmost image will show you that the underlying images are not in Full Screen mode. To affect all the open images, hold the Shift key when you click on the Full Screen Mode icons, and all the images that are currently open will appear in Full Screen mode.

Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows): Changes the behavior of something. If a button can perform two functions, then you'll most likely have to hold Option or Alt to get to the second choice. For example, when you're in the Paintbrush tool, you can hold Option to temporarily access the Eyedropper tool, which will allow you to click on your image to choose a color to paint with. Or, if you make an adjustment with any of the choices found under the Edit > Adjustments menu, you can hold Option or Alt to change the Cancel button into a Reset button, which will allow you to get back to the default settings of that dialog box.

Control (Mac) or Right-Click (Windows): The Control key on a Mac isn't used very often. It's usually used with the mouse button to Control-click on something in Photoshop. That's the same as pressing the right mouse button in Windows, and it usually presents you with a menu full of choices that relate to the tool that you're currently using. For instance, Control-clicking (Mac) or right-clicking (Windows) on your image while the Paintbrush tool is active will open the Brush Presets palette as a temporary menu on your screen.

We've only explored a few examples of when these modifier keys are useful. I'll introduce you to additional uses for those keys as we progress through this book. The vast majority of the time, the keys I mentioned will conform to the logic we just went over. The only problem is that some icons, tools, and buttons can perform more than one function, so Adobe might have already used the key you're thinking of to do something else. For instance, when you click the New Layer icon (it looks like a sheet of paper with the corner turned over) at the bottom of the Layers palette, you will create a new empty layer. (We'll talk about layers in Chapter 3.) If you add Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows), then you'll be prompted to name the layer when you create it. If you hold Command (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows), it will create the layer below the one that is active. Not only that, but with so many chefs stirring the pot over there at Adobe, there were bound to be some who deviated from the standard logic. For instance, typing Command-W (Mac) or Ctrl-W (Windows) closes the frontmost image. You'd think that adding Shift to that would work on all of the images (as it does when working with the screen modes), but it doesn't. You have to instead hold down the Option key (Mac) or Alt key (Windows) to close all the open documents.