Shortcut keys are a good way to work more efficiently when drawing digitally. Most graphics software allows you to change tools or execute menu commands using such shortcut keys. Use your drawing tablet with one hand and keep the other hand on the keyboard to access more functions within the program and be more efficient.
Shortcut keys are essential for many, if not most, advanced artists.
Select the File menu (CLIP STUDIO PAINT menu Pen pressure settings for macOS/iPad) and display the Pen Pressure Settings dialog box. Using a pen, draw on the canvas with varying pressure. Clicking Check adjusted results will display the Check adjusted results dialog box, and allow you to draw on the canvas with the adjusted results. Paint tool is an industrious and small tool similar to photoshop but awsome for manga and anime images as well as other photo editing. This is PaintTool SAI running on Mac OS X via a self contained Wine wrapper.
You can use pressure only if you have a tablet because with the pen you are able to press and get the pressure from that. But if you are having problems with SAI make sure you go to.
Some go beyond customizing their own shortcut keys and are even using specialized devices!
The more you draw, the more important shortcut keys become.
In this article, we will explain some of the basic shortcuts you can find in most drawing software.
Using shortcuts
By using shortcut keys, you can make drawing with your software much easier!
This tutorial uses the Clip Studio Paint UI, but you can use the same shortcut keys for Photoshop and Paint Tool SAI.
Example 1: Zooming in on the canvas
Use the following shortcut key to zoom in on your canvas.
Hold down Ctrl and press +.
This will zoom in step by step each time you press the + key. The example below was zoomed in on three times by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing + three times.
Note
- macOS users can do the same by holding down the Command key instead of the Ctrl key.
- You can use both Ctrl keys on the keyboard for this.
If you're using a drawing tablet or mouse to zoom in on the canvas, you don't have to click the zoom icons or use the menu commands to do so.
Example 2: Picking up colors with the [Eyedropper] tool
Use the following shortcut key to temporarily change your brush to the [Eyedropper].
Hold down the Alt key.
When using a brush, it will change to the Eyedropper tool when pressing the Alt key.
This way, you can easily pick up colors by clicking on the canvas with the mouse or the tablet pen.
macOS users can do the same by holding down the Opt key instead of the Alt key.
Frequently used shortcut keys
Following are some of the most frequently used shortcut keys in Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Paint Tool SAI.
Sai Pen Pressure Not Working
Keys marked with a '+' indicate that you need to press both buttons. These commands are the same in Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Paint Tool SAI unless stated otherwise.
Zooming in on the canvas
Windows : Ctrl + +
Mac: Cmd + +
Zooming out of the canvas
Windows : Ctrl + –
Mac: Cmd + –
Undo
Windows : Ctrl + Z
Mac: Cmd + Z
Redo
– For Clip Studio Paint & Paint Tool SAI
Windows : Ctrl + Y
Mac: Cmd + Y
– Photoshop
Windows : Shift + Ctrl + Z
Mac: Shift + Cmd + Z
Increase brush size
Pen Pressure In Sai
] key
Decrease brush size
[ key
Picking up color with the [Eyedropper] tool
Windows : Alt + Click the canvas
Mac: Opt + Click the canvas
Moving the canvas (scroll/pan)
Space + Drag the canvas
Discovering more shortcut keys
Of course, there are many more shortcut keys than the ones introduced here. You can discover them within the software yourself.
Shortcuts for menu commands
Menu commands that have shortcut keys will have their shortcuts displayed right next to them in the menu.
Tool shortcuts
In Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint, hovering the cursor over a specific tool will reveal the shortcut key in a tooltip.
Photoshop users can also hold down on the tool button to display the shortcut key.
Check the help page!
The help pages of graphics software sometimes have a list of shortcut keys, which can be a great way to discover new shortcuts easily.
Photoshop
Photoshop Elements
Clip Studio Paint
Paint Tool SAI
Select the Other menu > Help to go to the page explaining the various available shortcut keys of the software.
You can also check 'How to change shortcut keys' to find a list of shortcuts.
How to change shortcut keys
You can change the initial shortcut settings of most graphics software, or add new shortcut keys for menu commands and tools.
It may be helpful for your to change the key bindings to something easier to remember, or something that is easier to reach with one hand on the keyboard.
Photoshop
From the Edit menu, select Keyboard Shortcuts.
From the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog, set your preferred shortcut keys for different commands and tools.
It is not possible to set shortcut keys in Photoshop Elements.
(1) Select Area
(2) Select the item to edit, then enter the desired key
(3) Click OK
Clip Studio Paint
From the File menu (the application menu in macOS) choose Shortcut Settings.
From the Shortcut Settings dialog box, set the shortcut keys for commands and tools.
(1) Select a category from the Setting area dropdown menu
(2) Double-click the item to edit, then enter the desired key
(3) Click OK
Paint Tool SAI
From the Other menu, select Keyboard Shortcuts.
Once the Keyboard Shortcuts Preference dialog box appears, you can add commands for shortcut keys.
(1) (Optional) Filter by modifier keys
(2) Select shortcut
(3) Select the desired key
(4) Click OK
To set shortcut keys for tools, double click the tool that you want to adjust to open the Custom Tool Settings dialog box. Enter the key in the Shortcut Key field, and press OK to confirm.
(1) Double click the tool icon
(2) Enter the new key, then press OK
Even if a specific graphics software is not mentioned here, most available programs have shortcut keys and the option to customize them.
Try using shortcut keys when drawing to make your workflow more efficient.
I've recently made the decision to learn some drawing skills. Specifically, I wanted to start with a tablet right away so I could avoid having to re-teach myself to using a tablet instead of paper. However, I still consider it important to be able to shift and rotate the canvas with my hand, so I went for a Wacom tablet with touch.
Most artists I knew swear by Paint Tool SAI, but that just happens to be one of the applications not fully supported by Wacom's drivers (pressure works fine, but touch is a no-go). Luckily, Wacom's drivers are pretty flexible and you can easily modify them to support your favorite application.
Here's a guide to enable pinch-zoom, panning and two-finger rotation in Paint Tool SAI and Manga Studio!
If you're not a power user, you might want to scroll to Wacom Driver Settings for a moment before starting to see if you feel up to it, since it requires some Control Panel operations and XML editing.
Paint Tool SAI
For the rotation gesture to work in Paint Tool SAI, we need to set up some keyboard shortcuts than can then be simulated by the Wacom driver.
1. Open the Keyboard Shortcuts window in Paint Tool SAI
2. Set up Alt+F13 to rotate the view clockwise and Alt+F14 counter-clickwise
First, tick the 'Alt' check box at the upper left, then locate the entries for F13 and F14 on the left and assign 'Rotate View 90° Clockwise' and 'Rotate View 90° Counter-Clockwise' to them (they may be named differently and the '90°' are just a translation error). Make sure you pick 'Rotate View', not 'Rotate Canvas' on the right!
3. Edit the Wacom driver's touch emulation settings
Scroll down to the Wacom Driver Settings section or continue with the next section if you want to set up Manga Studio as well.
Manga Studio Ex 5
Manga Studio uses the mouse wheel for zooming and has no keyboard shortcuts for panning and rotating by default, so we need to change a few things here:
1. Change the modifier keys to enable panning with the mouse wheel
You can find these settings under the 'File' menu:
Set the mouse wheel's normal action to 'Scroll vertically' by clicking the combo box in the middle and picking 'View operation'. Then set Ctrl+mouse wheel to 'Zoom in by up and zoom out by down' as well as Alt+mouse wheel to 'Scroll horizontally':
2. Set up keyboard shortcuts for canvas rotation
You'll find the keyboard shortcuts window in the menu right above the modifier key settings from the previous step!
We can only select keys that you can press here, so I picked Alt+F12 for 'Rotate left' as well as Alt+F11 for 'Rotate right':
3. Choose finer rotation steps for the keys
Normally Manga Studio rotates by 15 degrees per press of the rotation key. That's a bit rough, so we'll change it to 10 degrees (we could go even lower, but then manga studio wouldn't be able to catch up with the two-finger rotation gesture and the canvas would take several seconds to reach its final rotation even after you lifted your hand).
Open the 'Preferences' window, which again is right above the 'Shortcut Settings' from the previous step. Then select 'Canvas' to the left and enter the value 10 in the text box labelled 'Step' in 'Angle':
Wacom Driver Settings
This is where it gets a bit tricky. Follow the steps exactly to avoid messing up your Wacom driver and requiring a reinstall!
1. Open your Services window in your Control Panel
I believe the easiest way to get there is pressing Win+Break (that's the weird key you never use, right above Page Up :P), then clicking on 'Control Panel Home' in the upper left. Then in the Control Panel, just enter 'services' into the search box at upper right and you should be presented with the option to 'View local services':
2. Stop your Wacom service
Just search for 'Wacom' in the list (you can click in the list and type 'wa' to jump to it), then click on 'Stop the service' or use the stop button in the toolbar:
Keep the services manager window open, we'll need it again in a moment!
3. Open a Notepad window with administrator privileges
Here's the quickest way to get one: Press Win+R and enter 'Notepad' in the window that pops up:
When you press enter, Notepad (a bare-bones text editor) should open. On Windows XP we would be done by now, but on Windows Vista, 7 or 8, this Notepad window doesn't have administrator privileges. Here's how to grant them temporarily:
Find the Notepad window in your task bar:
Now hold the Ctrl and Shift keys pressed and click on it. You should get the well-known prompt asking whether you want to allow Notepad to make changes to this computer. Say yes.
Now a second Notepad window will have opened right on top of the first one. This second window has administrator privileges. Close the first window below it (be careful not to get confused about which is which :)).
4. Edit AppGestures.xml
All that's left to do is to open your AppGestures.xml file. Click 'File' -> 'Open', then in the file selector window, go to C:Program FilesWacomTablet (depending on your Wacom product, instead of Tablet the final folder could be called Pen or something).
Because AppGestures.xml does not end in .txt, you'll have to change your view to show 'All Files (*.*)' in the lower right to see it.
Once you've opened your AppGestures.xml, scroll down a bit (maybe until you see Adobe Photoshop). As you can see, the file contains blocks of information, always starting with the opener and ending with a matching .
Insert the following two blocks inbetween the others (I inserted mine in front of Photoshop, but any place after the first 3 entries is good):
It should fit in neatly with the other blocks in the file. Make sure the block you pasted is not inside another block or something.
Check twice that the new block correctly lines up with the others, then save and close your AppGestures.xml.
5. Start the Wacom service again
Even if a specific graphics software is not mentioned here, most available programs have shortcut keys and the option to customize them.
Try using shortcut keys when drawing to make your workflow more efficient.
I've recently made the decision to learn some drawing skills. Specifically, I wanted to start with a tablet right away so I could avoid having to re-teach myself to using a tablet instead of paper. However, I still consider it important to be able to shift and rotate the canvas with my hand, so I went for a Wacom tablet with touch.
Most artists I knew swear by Paint Tool SAI, but that just happens to be one of the applications not fully supported by Wacom's drivers (pressure works fine, but touch is a no-go). Luckily, Wacom's drivers are pretty flexible and you can easily modify them to support your favorite application.
Here's a guide to enable pinch-zoom, panning and two-finger rotation in Paint Tool SAI and Manga Studio!
If you're not a power user, you might want to scroll to Wacom Driver Settings for a moment before starting to see if you feel up to it, since it requires some Control Panel operations and XML editing.
Paint Tool SAI
For the rotation gesture to work in Paint Tool SAI, we need to set up some keyboard shortcuts than can then be simulated by the Wacom driver.
1. Open the Keyboard Shortcuts window in Paint Tool SAI
2. Set up Alt+F13 to rotate the view clockwise and Alt+F14 counter-clickwise
First, tick the 'Alt' check box at the upper left, then locate the entries for F13 and F14 on the left and assign 'Rotate View 90° Clockwise' and 'Rotate View 90° Counter-Clockwise' to them (they may be named differently and the '90°' are just a translation error). Make sure you pick 'Rotate View', not 'Rotate Canvas' on the right!
3. Edit the Wacom driver's touch emulation settings
Scroll down to the Wacom Driver Settings section or continue with the next section if you want to set up Manga Studio as well.
Manga Studio Ex 5
Manga Studio uses the mouse wheel for zooming and has no keyboard shortcuts for panning and rotating by default, so we need to change a few things here:
1. Change the modifier keys to enable panning with the mouse wheel
You can find these settings under the 'File' menu:
Set the mouse wheel's normal action to 'Scroll vertically' by clicking the combo box in the middle and picking 'View operation'. Then set Ctrl+mouse wheel to 'Zoom in by up and zoom out by down' as well as Alt+mouse wheel to 'Scroll horizontally':
2. Set up keyboard shortcuts for canvas rotation
You'll find the keyboard shortcuts window in the menu right above the modifier key settings from the previous step!
We can only select keys that you can press here, so I picked Alt+F12 for 'Rotate left' as well as Alt+F11 for 'Rotate right':
3. Choose finer rotation steps for the keys
Normally Manga Studio rotates by 15 degrees per press of the rotation key. That's a bit rough, so we'll change it to 10 degrees (we could go even lower, but then manga studio wouldn't be able to catch up with the two-finger rotation gesture and the canvas would take several seconds to reach its final rotation even after you lifted your hand).
Open the 'Preferences' window, which again is right above the 'Shortcut Settings' from the previous step. Then select 'Canvas' to the left and enter the value 10 in the text box labelled 'Step' in 'Angle':
Wacom Driver Settings
This is where it gets a bit tricky. Follow the steps exactly to avoid messing up your Wacom driver and requiring a reinstall!
1. Open your Services window in your Control Panel
I believe the easiest way to get there is pressing Win+Break (that's the weird key you never use, right above Page Up :P), then clicking on 'Control Panel Home' in the upper left. Then in the Control Panel, just enter 'services' into the search box at upper right and you should be presented with the option to 'View local services':
2. Stop your Wacom service
Just search for 'Wacom' in the list (you can click in the list and type 'wa' to jump to it), then click on 'Stop the service' or use the stop button in the toolbar:
Keep the services manager window open, we'll need it again in a moment!
3. Open a Notepad window with administrator privileges
Here's the quickest way to get one: Press Win+R and enter 'Notepad' in the window that pops up:
When you press enter, Notepad (a bare-bones text editor) should open. On Windows XP we would be done by now, but on Windows Vista, 7 or 8, this Notepad window doesn't have administrator privileges. Here's how to grant them temporarily:
Find the Notepad window in your task bar:
Now hold the Ctrl and Shift keys pressed and click on it. You should get the well-known prompt asking whether you want to allow Notepad to make changes to this computer. Say yes.
Now a second Notepad window will have opened right on top of the first one. This second window has administrator privileges. Close the first window below it (be careful not to get confused about which is which :)).
4. Edit AppGestures.xml
All that's left to do is to open your AppGestures.xml file. Click 'File' -> 'Open', then in the file selector window, go to C:Program FilesWacomTablet (depending on your Wacom product, instead of Tablet the final folder could be called Pen or something).
Because AppGestures.xml does not end in .txt, you'll have to change your view to show 'All Files (*.*)' in the lower right to see it.
Once you've opened your AppGestures.xml, scroll down a bit (maybe until you see Adobe Photoshop). As you can see, the file contains blocks of information, always starting with the opener and ending with a matching .
Insert the following two blocks inbetween the others (I inserted mine in front of Photoshop, but any place after the first 3 entries is good):
It should fit in neatly with the other blocks in the file. Make sure the block you pasted is not inside another block or something.
Check twice that the new block correctly lines up with the others, then save and close your AppGestures.xml.
5. Start the Wacom service again
Switch back to the services manager window you kept open in step 2 and start the Wacom service again by clicking on 'Start the service' or using the play button in the toolbar.
Done
Congratulations, if you open up Paint Tool SAI or Manga Studio now, you should be able to pinch-zoom, two-finger rotate and pan the canvas, all via touch and without moving your hands away from the drawing area!
