Planet Photoshop

Command-Option-~(Tilde)

May 3, 2007 by Corey Barker Blog 4 Comments

I have used this keyboard shortcut several times in my tutorials to load the image luminosity as a selection and a lot of people have been unable to make it work on a Mac system. This is because the Mac OS has this particular keyboard command assigned to another system function. To fix this you can go into the Mac OS System Preferences under the Apple menu. Go to Keyboard and Mouse and click the last tab called Keyboard Shortcuts. Scroll down and twirl down Keyboard Navigation, then scroll down to ‘Move focus to the window drawer’. Turn this feature off by unchecking the box next to it. Now this keystroke will work inside Photoshop.

Posted by Corey Barker

Corey is the newest education and curriculum developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. He is a graduate of the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, Fl, with a degree in Illustration. Over the years, Corey has worked as a graphic artist in a variety of disciplines such as illustration, commercial design, large format printing, motion graphics, web design and photography. His expertise in Photoshop and Illustrator have earned him numerous awards in illustration, graphic design and photography. Using Photoshop since Version 2, his expertise and creativity have evolved exponentially with every new version, which makes Corey an invaluable addition to the NAPP team.

4 comments on “Command-Option-~(Tilde)”

  1. I, too, use this keyboard shortcut for the same purpose, but after installing PS CS4 today, I find it doesn’t work. Do you know what shortcut has replaced command+option+tilde in CS4?
    Thanks for the help.

    Paul

    Reply

  2. I don’t usually answer my own question, but, after some additional experimentation I’ve discovered that the replacement shortcut is command+option+2. Hope that helps someone else, as well.

    Paul

    Reply

  3. What is the pc equivalent of Command-Option-~(Tilde)?

    Just a suggestion: when refering to shortcuts, please could you add the pc version to the shortcut too, or the menu option if you don’t feel comfortable talking about pc’s?

    Not everyone uses Mac, you know…
    :(

    Reply