Saturday, November 8, 2008

Keyboard Shortcuts Fail in CS4

I have just received and installed Photoshop CS4 on a Windows XP computer. I tried the new curves panel on an image and after setting curve control points I have been unable to scroll between the control points using Ctrl-Tab as is done in CS3. Can the control points on a curve in the curve panel be scrolled thrugh? If yes, how? The Ctrl-Tab does not appear to work in CS4.

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You are correct that this keyboard shortcut does not always behave exactly the same in Photoshop CS4. When using the Adjustments panel, there is no longer a dialog box at the forefront that must be closed before most other interface controls can be used (this is referred to as a "modal" dialog box). For example, previously when making a Curves adjustment you could have to click OK (or Cancel) in the Curves dialog box to dismiss it before being able to perform most other tasks. With the introduction of the Adjustments panel, adjustments can be made without a modal dialog box. In many ways this improves the flexibility of your workflow in Photoshop, but there are some consequences.

Since there isn't a modal dialog box in use when you've created an adjustment layer, the Ctrl+Tab (Command+Tab on Macintosh) keyboard shortcut will cause Photoshop to cycle through the available image windows. When you have a modal dialog box up, it is possible to have duplication of other keyboard shortcuts, since those keyboard shortcuts will then only apply to the modal dialog box, not the overall application. Without a modal dialog box, the "master" keyboard shortcut takes priority.
If you apply a Curves adjustment directly rather than using an adjustment layer, you'll see that you can still use the Ctrl+Tab (Command+Tab) keyboard shortcut. Of course, you can only get to the dialog box if you don't use an adjustment layer, so this isn't something I recommend.

I'll be covering the new interface and features of Photoshop CS4 if the next issue (Winter 2009) of Digital Darkroom Quarterly, which will be out in early December (which is early for this issue, but I wanted to get the information in the hands of subscribers as early as possible). If you're not already a subscriber you can get more information or subscribe at www.timgrey.com/ddqp/.

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