Canvas Keyboard Shortcuts

Here’s a list of shortcuts you can use while editing images in Acorn, that don’t necessarily show up in the menu bar. Bookmark this page - there’s lots of good tricks you can use in here.

Modifiers:

Command:	⌘	Control:	^	Option (Alt):	⌥
Shift:	⇧	Enter:	↩	Delete:	⌫

Switching Tools

Shortcut	Action	Description
a	Bézier Anchor Tool	Selects the Bézier anchor select tool.
b	Brush Tool	Selects the brush tool.
c	Crop Tool	Selects the crop tool.
⇧C	Anchor Convert Tool	Switch to the Bézier anchor convert tool.
e	Erase Tool	Select the Erase tool.
⇧E ee	Magic Erase Tool	Select the Magic Erase tool.
g	Gradient Tool	Selects the gradient tool.
h	Pan Tool	Selects the pan tool to move your canvas around.
⇧I	Ruler Tool	Selects the ruler tool.
j	Smudge Tool	Selects the smudge tool.
k ⇧G	Flood Fill (Paint Bucket)	Selects the flood fill tool.
l	Free and Poly Select Tool	Toggles between the free and poly select tools.
s ⇧M	Cycle Select Tools	Enables the rectangular select tool, and multiple presses cycles through the various select tools. Holding the Shift key will cycle backwards through the tools.
m	Rectangular Select Tool	Enables the rectangular select tool
n	Pencil (Pixel) Tool	Selects Pencil / Pixel tool.
⇧O	Smudge, Dodge, Burn, Clone Tool	Cycles between the Smudge, Dodge, Burn, and Clone Tool.
o	Oval Shape Tool	Selects oval shape tool.
r	Rectangle Shape Tool	Selects rectangle shape tool.
⇧S	Clone Tool	Selects clone tool.
t	Path (Bézier) Text, Circle Text, Live Text Tools	Repeated pressing of the t key will cycle between the path, circle, and live text tools.
t	Text Tool	Selects the text tool.
;	Line Shape Tool	Selects line shape tool.
p	Pen (Bézier) Shape Tool	Selects pen shape tool.
v	Move Tool	Selects the move tool. Repeated presses (vv) will bring up the image info palette.
w	Magic Wand Select Tool	Enables the magic wand select tool.
z zz	Zoom Tool	Switches to the zoom tool. Multiple presses of z will toggle the scrub zoom preference.

Selections

Shortcut	Action	Description
q	Quickmask Toggle	Pressing the ‘q’ key will toggle viewing the Quick Mask (for painting on selections).
↩	Finish and Close Polygonal Lasso	When using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, pressing the Enter key will finish and close the selection. Pressing the escape key or '.' will cancel it.

Crop

Shortcut	Action	Description
Enter	Commit	Pressing the Return or Enter key while a crop is active will commit the crop action.
h	Toggle Hiding the Cropped Out Area	Pressing the h key while a crop is in progress will black out areas outside the crop bounds.
i ⌘A	Set Crop Bounds to Canvas Size	Pressing the i key or ⌘A while a crop is in progress will set the crop bounds to the size of the current image.
l	Lock Pixel Dimensions	Pressing the l key while cropping will toggle the “Lock dimensions” option from the crop palette, allowing you to resize the crop bounds while keeping the aspect ratio.
b	Constrain Bounds to Canvas	Pressing the b key while cropping will toggle the option to constrain crop bounds to the canvas. With this option disabled, you can actually increase the size of your canvas by moving the crop bounds outside of the image.
cc	Auto Crop	Pressing the c key twice will automatically place a crop on the canvas. Acorn will try and detect if there are transparent edges and crop those out. And if that isn't found, then a uniform solid color will be search for and used as the crop bounds. Failing that, a general crop will be added to the center of the image.
cs	Crop Square	Add a new square crop guide
x	Crop Flip Aspect Ratio	While a crop is on the canvas, pressing the x key will swap the width and height of the current crop.

Brushes and Painting

Shortcut	Action	Description
d	Reset Colors	Resets the color wells to the default black and white.
gg	Gradient Type Switch	Pressing the g key multiple times switches between radial and linear gradients.
i	Color Picker	Brings up the color picker control.
x	Gradient Flip Color Stops	While the gradient tool is active, pressing the x key will flip the order of the color stops in the gradient.
x	Swap Color Wells	Swaps the front and back color wells.
] or [ ⇧] or [ ^] or [	Brush / Pixel Tool Size Increase	When the brush or pixel tool is selected, ] increases the size, [ decreases the size by 1 pixel. If the Shift key is held down the size changes by 10 pixels. If the Control key is held the size changes by .1 pixels.

Shape Editing

Shortcut	Action	Description
< >	Select Next / Previous Anchor	When a bezier shape is selected, you can use these shortcuts to select the next or previous anchor.
Enter	Edit Selected Text Box	If a single text box is selected on a shape layer, pressing the Enter key will begin editing it.
Enter	Show Quick Process Panel	Bring up the Quick Process panel to modify, duplicate, move, or alter the selected shapes with JavaScript.
⇧B	Toggle Shape Stroke	Toggles the selected shape's stroke on or off.
⇧F	Toggle Shape Fill	Toggles the selected shape's fill on or off.

Layers

Shortcut	Action	Description
\	Temporarily Hide Layer Filters for Selected Layer	Holding down the backslash ‘\’ key will temporarily hide layer filters on the currently selected layer.
⌘⌫	Delete Selected Layer or Mask	If a layer mask is selected, Command-Delete will remove the mask. Otherwise it will remove the selected layers.
⌥↩	Rename Current Layer	Starts a rename of the current layer in the layers list.
⌥]	Select Layer (Next)	Selects the next (above) layer in the layers list.
⌥[	Select Layer (Previous)	Selects the previous (lower) layer in the layers list.

Changing Blend Modes

Shortcut	Action	Description
⇧⌥N	Normal
⇧⌥K	Darken
⇧⌥M	Multiply
⇧⌥B	Burn
⇧⌥A	Linear Burn
⇧⌥G	Lighten
⇧⌥S	Screen
⇧⌥D	Dodge
⇧⌥W	Linear Dodge
⇧⌥O	Overlay
⇧⌥F	Blend Soft Light
⇧⌥H	Blend Hard Light
⇧⌥L	Hard Mix
⇧⌥E	Difference
⇧⌥X	Exclusion
⇧⌥U	Hue
⇧⌥T	Saturation
⇧⌥C	Color
⇧⌥Y	Luminosity
⇧⌥+ ⇧⌥_	Cycling Options	Cycles between the various blend mode options. + moves up the blend mode list, _ moves down the list.

View and Canvas

Shortcut	Action	Description
Spacebar	Temporarily Use the Pan Tool	Holding down the spacebar will temporarily switch to the Pan tool, so you can move around your canvas view.
f	Toggle Full Screen	Toggles the current canvas to full screen or a regular window.
spacebar	Pan Tool (Temporarily)	Pressing the spacebar while using any tool will temporarily switch to the pan tool.
/	Command Bar	Brings up the Command Bar.