Let’s just start off by saying that Adobe haven’t exactly put as much effort into keyboard shortcuts as they could have. You’re all familiar with the claw right? This is a reference to the complex nature of the ’save for web’ shortcut Cmd + Alt + Shift + S (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S on a PC)Â in Photoshop. Thankfully someone at Adobe must have realised that their keyboard shortcuts weren’t exactly innovative and included a way of assigning your own, located in Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts…
Create Shortcuts for Common Tasks
One of the most frequently and repetitively used feature of Photoshop are the layer styles. Rather bizarrely, there’s no keyboard combination for copying or pasting layer style to and from layers.
Another great example is cropping. Just about every other image editing software includes a keyboard shortcut for crop so why doesn’t Photoshop?! It’s a strange one for sure.
You can even go as far as creating a shortcut to invoke a filter. Creating shortcuts for specific functions can improve productivity if it is something you use multiple times a day so the point is that if it’s something you use a lot, and it doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut, create one.
BONUS: One problem creating new keyboard shortcuts is when using another machine that has the default configuration can be frustrating. Fortunately Bittbox have found a way to sync Photoshop settings between multiple computers. Very handy if you’re using different computers at home and at work.
“C” is the crop tool for Photoshop, right?
At least it always has been for me.