On Keyboard Shortcuts
Careful. You can get lost taking a shortcut.
My good Medium friend Gareth Willey just published the below story on using keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop. Keyboard shortcuts are often timesavers, bypassing your mousing about hunting for an action that can instead be accomplished by holding down a key or three; clicking one more does the job, no mousing. Try Ctrl + Tab to scroll through your currently open tabs. Hold down Ctrl (or Command), press Tab, and you advance through your open tabs. It’s faster than mousing.
Lately, I’ve been pontificating on post-processing (it keeps me relatively sane in the Bleak Midwinter — the Photoshopping, not the pontificating). I applauded and commented on Gareth’s article. I highlighted “I still don’t know all of the keyboard shortcuts,” and replied,
Not only do I not know them, I can’t remember the ones I think I once knew. This is not sarcasm: I am serious. It’s hell to get old. 😠
I wasn’t being snarky. Nor am I referring only to keyboard shortcuts. It really is hell getting old. The slippage seems worse daily.
Sometimes, and more often, I will gaze confusedly at my Photoshop workspace and see — that. Imagine being plonked down in the left-hand seat and told to fly the thing. Stuff of nightmares.
Everyone of any age occasionally experiences the “doorway effect;” you purposefully walk through a door to… Um. Why am I here? I came for something. What the he!! was it?! (Pro tip: As you age it gets worse.)
That happens to me too often working in Photoshop. I am contentedly toiling away when suddenly I can’t remember what I wanted to do. Suppose I remember what, then I can’t remember how. I have dual 24-inch monitors; the second one is frequently tuned to YouTube for a quick refresher on how to do something I have often done before.
It’s immensely frustrating! I know how to do this! I have done it before! AAaaaaaaaaargh!
It can even happen in Lightroom Classic, but I use Lightroom more, and it is generally more user-friendly. Still, there I’ll be, staring at the screen, desperately trying to recall (A) what it was I wanted to do and (B) how to do it. It seems I am always hanging, teeth and fingernails, on the steepest slope of the learning curve.
I appreciate the near-weekly updates and upgrades from Adobe. It’s why I am happy to pay the fare that costs me about 37₵ (US) per day, but lately, I’m wondering whether I have aged out; just when I think I’ve got this, I don’t.
One of the things I have suggested (suggestedsuggestedsuggestedsuggested) to Adobe is that they work to better coordinate the tools between Lightroom and Photoshop. The bare handful of keyboard shortcuts I can remember to use do opposite things in the sister apps. For me, there’s quite a lag working from one to the other and back, but I’m more comfortable in Lightroom.
Gareth may do all of his post-processing in Photoshop, and I’ve considered that. Photoshop has everything Lightroom has, including Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), which is the basis for Lightroom. But I and countless others find LR more uncomplicated to work with; whenever I try using ACR in Photoshop, I have trouble. ACR in Lightroom has been rejiggered for greater convenience. I feel the apps should all work hand-in-glove, but Adobe doesn’t. An obvious solution would be to teach myself to do it all in Almighty Photoshop 2023, and were I a few years younger I might try, but I am having so much grief now that I think I need to keep plodding on, doing my best.
Any of you young sprouts out there have this problem?
📸As always, thanks for looking in. I sincerely appreciate it! 😊👍
