Photoshop keypad

Omnutia

I'm trying out Photoshop in Windows and, while it's nice to draw with, shortcuts are a real pain. If you try pressing caps-lock and Z at the same time, with your right hand (I'm left handed), you'll see my problem. I also then have my wrist over the trackpad (laptop user).

What do people think to the idea of getting a USB numpad and rebinding each of the keys to different actions? Also, can it be done in a way that doesn't change the number buttons on the normal keyboard?

urhereimnot

It sounds like you should check out AutoHotkey. I don't know if you can make it so that it only accepts input from an USB numpad, but worst case scenario, you'll have to enable/disable the script as the situation fits.

Funfetus

I'm also left-handed, and I've just remapped all my hotkeys to be easily accessible with my right hand. They're mostly clustered on the right side of the keyboard, reachable from jkl; home keys. I've been using Photoshop since version 3, and I use hotkeys extensively. Maybe I'm missing something, but why do you need to hit Caps-lock+Z? Anyway -- I wouldn't recomend trying to use a numeric keypad. If you're serious about using hotkeys, you're going to need more keys than that, as well as the ctrl, alt and shift keys. I really suggest that you just figure out everything you need a hotkey for, rank them in order of importance, and set up hotkeys accordingly, most important hotkeys going to the easiest combinations to hit.

I've actually done a lot of research into hardware peripherals that could take the place of the keyboard for Photoshop and other graphics software. This would probably be perfect, but I'm not paying $150.

Also, Photoshop isn't nice to draw with. It's nice to paint with and edit images with. It's garbage to draw with. For drawing, try Manga Studio (my favorite), Painter or Sketchbook Pro.

Omnutia

@Funfetus: I have Ctrl switched with Caps-lock. I get what you mean about just reasigning them, it's just going to take a while for me to work out what I need the most.

Funfetus

Another thing you might want to look into is mouse gestures. Generally, you'll just hold down the button on your pen and draw a simple figure, like a vertical or diagonal line. I played with mouse gestures for a while while trying to free myself from the keyboard. Eventually gave up on it because I felt like the keyboard offers more flexibility. But if you're not quite the hotkey-nazi that I am (if I have to do something more than once an hour, I'll probably make a hotkey for it if I can), it works surprisingly well. I was using StrokeIt, but there's also this AutoHotKey script that looks pretty good.