Photoshop Action Shortcut Key Tip

I have a few digital scrapbooking actions for Photoshop that require pushing the play button over and over again and a couple I’ve written myself that are just shortcuts that I forgot to assign a keyboard shortcut to. But I’m a major keyboard shortcut girl. If there’s a keyboard way to do something, I use that rather than the menus and buttons. So I’ve worked out a quick way to assign a shortcut to run my favorite actions. This tip only works in Photoshop, not Elements, to my knowledge because it requires the ability to record actions and not just run them.

First make sure you are set up to DO whatever the action requires. You are going to actually be running the action you want to make a shortcut for. Next, in the actions palette, choose “new action” – it’s in the fly-out menu I’ve circled in this screenshot.

In the next menu, title the action so you’ll know what it does and put it in the group for the action set. Then pick a function key to run it quickly. It can be a function key or a combo with SHIFT or CTRL

Then hit the record button. Now the ONLY step you will record is hitting the play button for the action you want the shortcut for. So go in your actions palette and play that action while you are recording. When the action completes, hit the stop button to finish recording. Now in the future, just hit the function key you chose to quickly run that action!

I hope this helps you!

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