What is it?

The change most likely to drive you batty. Already, I’ve received several emails beginning with “I just upgraded to CS4 and my keyboard shortcuts don’t work…”

Adobe decided to bite the bullet and change the keyboard shortcuts used for switching between color channels (formerly CMD/CTRL-1, 2, 3 and 4, cmyk only) two keys to the right. The new channel shortcuts are:

CMD/CTRL-2: Composite channel

CMD/CTRL-3: Red/Cyan channel

CMD/CTRL-4: Green/Magenta channel

CMD/CTRL-5: Blue/Yellow channel

CMD/CTRL-6: Black channel

Complicating the issue are the new modial adjustments, which allow you to work more flexibly, and intuitively, with active adjustment layers. To target a specific color channel in a Curves dialog box, you need to now use Alt/Option plus the corresponding channel number to perform corrections on a specific channel. These new keyboard shortcuts are:

Alt/Option-2: Composite channel

Alt/Option-3: Red/Cyan channel

Alt/Option-4: Green/Magenta channel

Alt/Option-5: Blue/Yellow channel

Alt/Option-6: Black channel

Adobe made the switch to make keyboard shortcuts more consistent between applications and between Adobe applications and your operating system. For example, CMD/CTRL-~ now toggles between documents in Photoshop the same way it does in Safari and Mail.

CMD/CTRL-1 now is a quick way to jump to 100%, actual pixels, view. This is far quicker, and easier to remember than the older finger-twister CMD/CTRL-ALT/Option-Zero.

Why is it important?

Of all the changes in CS4, this one has been the hardest for many people to adapt to because the keyboard shortcuts are unconscious movements hard-wired into the muscle memory of users’ left hands. It is also one of the least visible changes in CS4 and is easily overlooked until things don’t work as expected.

Bonus Tip: If you really can’t stand the new keyboard shortcuts, there is a plug-in for download which allows you to go back to the old-style keyboard shortcuts. Visit John Nack’s blog for details. (http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/10/shortcut_changes_in_cs4.html)