Keyboard Shortcuts for Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, Indesign and More

Adobe’s software and tools enable the creation of amazing digital works, whether you are using Photoshop to whip up multi-layered visuals, putting together a print magazine with InDesign or stitching together a video in Premiere. Here are collections of handy shortcuts to keep in mind as you work to significantly increase your speed when using Adobe programs.

Basic Shortcuts

Command/Ctrl+A: select your entire current layer

Command/Ctrl+C: copy your selection

Command/Ctrl+X: copy/cut your selection

Command/Ctrl+V: paste what you copied

Z: switch to the zoom tool

Command/Ctrl++: zoom in

Command/Ctrl+-: zoom out

When you have several projects, canvases or file windows in any of the Adobe programs, you can easily flip through them on Macs with Command+~ and Ctrl+~ on PCs.

Photoshop shortcuts

The tools you will probably use the most are the marquee selection tool, which is M, the color picker (eyedropper) tool, I, the brush tool, B, and the eraser tool E.

PhotoshopTools

If you are using a lot of layers, switch between them using Alt+[ and Alt+] to go down and up. For quick layer creation, hit Ctrl+Shift+N on PC and Command+Shift+N on Mac.

Premiere and After Effects shortcuts

Jumping around frames when you are working on a video project can be painstaking, especially if you want to view your full timeline while doing so.

If you are editing on a computer with a full keyboard, you can use the Page up and Page down keys to move left and right through frames, and if you hit those while holding Shift, you will jump 10 frames at a time.

When moving through keyframes, use J to move left and K to move right. This will also work in the nearly dead Adobe Flash.

To sift through effect properties in your current layer, hit P for position, R for rotation, S for scale and T for opacity.

InDesign shortcuts

The most important shortcut to know for InDesign is Ctrl/Command+D, which is the shortcut for placing files in the program, which can include images and documents. InDesign will automatically convert multiple kinds of text files including Word .docs into normal text if you use the place shortcut, which is easier than copying text in.

Once getting your text in, easily switch to your text tool by hitting T. To bold, italicize or underline your text, hit Command/Ctrl+Shift+B, +I or +U respectively.

If you are using master elements, which are elements you place that appear on every page in the publication you’re creating, you may want to take them off of some pages. You can Ctrl/Command+Shift+click them to get rid of one element on a single page, or drag your click if you want to delete multiple master elements on that page.

To see how everything looks without grids and extra lines, switch between normal view and preview mode by hitting W.