Photoshop® CS3 Bible

Appendix A. The Keyboard and Menus, and Making Photoshop Your Own

IN THIS APPENDIX

Finding the hidden shortcuts and modifiers

Customizing keyboard shortcuts

Navigating Photoshop through all the shortcuts

Maybe when you picture graphic artists or photographers using computers to create or edit their artwork, you imagine them using their mouse or a pen and tablet. If you imagine an accountant or a secretary using her computer, you probably picture them pounding away on the keyboard, not only entering data and text, but also issuing software commands.

While these images are probably accurate to some degree, the first one needs an adjustment. In truth, a Photoshop user can and should make much more use of the keyboard — borrowing a page from that accountant or secretary who can whip through menus and dialog box with efficient flair.

If you're using Photoshop, the keyboard, used to invoke the seemingly unlimited list of commands and features, is at least as important as the mouse or tablet to the creative process. Why? Because it's so much faster than taking your mouse and pointing to a menu or button. For example, if you just copied a picture or a portion thereof to the clipboard, you can make a new Photoshop image out if it with three keyboard shortcuts: one to open a new image window, one to paste the copied content, and one to save the file. Need to resize an image? Why stop, go to a menu, and choose a command when you can press a set of keys and see the appropriate dialog box open, which ...