Cannot modify keyboard shortcuts in CS3

JG
Posted By
John_Gayman
Jul 10, 2007
Views
705
Replies
12
Status
Closed
I’ve been using my own keyboard shortcuts since Photoshop CS. I reprogram F2 through F8 so that during my workflow I just go right down the line, crop -> shadow -> sharpen -> etc. It has always worked beautifully.

I just loaded Photoshop CS3 (from the CS3 Production Premium bundle) and for some reason I can not get my shortcuts to work. It allows me to change them and accept but upon exiting the shortcut setup menu all the shortcuts are still at their default.

Any idea what is going on? I’m hurting without my shortcuts. 🙂

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FN
Fred_Nirque
Jul 11, 2007
You have to save them as well – hit the floppy disk icon at top of keyboard shortcuts & menus dialog after you’ve made the changes and save as.
JG
John_Gayman
Jul 11, 2007
Hi Fred. Yes, I did save them. First I tried saving them as a separate set "My shortcuts" and when that didn’t work I simply tried saving the changes to the "Default" shortcuts. I need to experiment some more tonight. I re-programmed F2 thru F8 and it appears some of the changes took while others are ignored. Most notible is F2 which I re-program to be "crop". When I go back into the shortcuts menu it shows that crop is now F2 but when I hit F2 I still get the default function. I process batches of 500-600 photos and without the shortcuts my workflow will be reduced to a crawl.

– John
FN
Fred_Nirque
Jul 11, 2007
CS3 is absolutely filled with strange and unexplained new workflow-disabling "features". I seem to come across a new one at least every other day. Maybe you’ve hit on yet another one.

You might have to assign keys other than the F# keys – though I have Ps on both the laptop and desktop assigned the F10, F11 & F12 keys without a problem – maybe it just affects some of the lower numbered keys.
C
chrisjbirchall
Jul 11, 2007
Most notible is F2 which I re-program to be "crop".

I’m just puzzled why you would want to assign things like "Crop" to a Function Key. Virtually all the tools already have intuitive shortcuts: "C" for Crop; "L" for Lasso; "I" for Eye-dropper; "B" for Brush, etc.
JG
John_Gayman
Jul 11, 2007
All I can say is it works for me. 🙂 I’ve been using these same shortcuts since Photoshop CS. I normally have the mouse in my right hand and my left hand hovering over the function keys. Without ever looking at the keyboard I can quickly hit F2-F3-F4-F5 to crop, straighten, sharpen, etc. It goes very very quickly and allows me to edit hundreds of photos in a very short period of time.

My shortcuts are things I use on nearly every photo and probably don’t equate to existing shortcuts

F2 – Crop
F3 – Shadow recovery
F4 – Smart Sharpen
F5 – Straighten (Arbitrary rotation)
F6 – Exposure
F7 – Photo Filter

I have edited several HUNDRED THOUSAND photos using this workflow so it is now second nature. 🙂
C
chrisjbirchall
Jul 11, 2007
Yup. I can see the logic.

In some ways, wouldn’t it be good if someone made a programable mini keypad with, say, 20 or so keys which we could customize to our own particular way of working.

Especially if they could not be overridden, or "stolen", by other applications – which is quite possibly what has happened in your case.
JG
John_Gayman
Jul 11, 2007
This keeps getting better.

I see that the CS3 Production Premium suite loaded Photoshop CS3 Extended. On my laptop I have plain ‘ole Photoshop CS3 and the keyboard shortcuts work just fine.

I have tried everything. With "Extended" no matter what I try to assign as shortcut gets ignored. I even tried assigning "Shift-F2" and while it allows me to accept and save it, it ignores it.

Two steps forward and one step back. ;-(
JG
John_Gayman
Jul 11, 2007
If I set Crop to ALT-F2 it works. Unfortunately there are conflicts which prevent using ALT for all the F-keys. So what’s the deal with CS3 Extended?

I sure don’t need the "Extended" portion of CS3. I hope I don’t have to throw away the Production suite and load a stand-alone copy of CS3.
DM
dave_milbut
Jul 11, 2007
are there maybe multiple versions of photoshop on the disk?
JG
John_Gayman
Jul 11, 2007
* ** Problem solved ***

I finally broke down and called Adobe support and during the course of my conversation I stumbled upon the problem.

By default, in my Actions pallet I had a group called "Commands". This commands group contained some pre-defined functions for F2 thru F12. By removing this group from my Actions pallet VIOLA… all my keyboard shortcuts now work perfectly.

I have no idea what the "Commands" group does as I’ve never used it. But… everything is working fine now. Wheew! 🙂
DR
Danny_Raphael
Jul 12, 2007
I have no idea what the "Commands" group does…

For the sake of closure… 🙂

As you know:
* Not all PS commands/functions have keyboard shortcuts. * Some default shortcuts require multiple hands/fingers, so the convenience is lost.

Before CS came along to associate a keyboard shortcut with such a task one had to: * Record an action that executed the task
* Assign a keyboard shortcut to inoke the action

The "Commands" action set was provided by Adobe to demonstrate the concept. A keyboard shortcut is assigned to each action in this set.

If action set "Commands" is present in the Actions Palette at startup, then the keyboard shortcuts associated with its actions cannot be assigned by or modified via Edit > Keyboard shortcuts.

Deleting action set "Commands" from the Actions Palette, shutting down and starting Photoshop frees up the shortcuts previously assigned to the actions.
JG
John_Gayman
Jul 12, 2007
Hi Danny. Thank you for the excellent explaination. Good info.

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