Camera Raw shares many of the shortcut keys used to select tools as Photoshop does. There are a few deferences however, as you can see below. (Don't worry, if you can't remember them all, you can always position your cursor over the desired tool to display the tooltip.)
Z Zoom Tool
H Hand Tool (or press the Spacebar to temporarily access the tool)
I White Balance Tool (or use Shift to temporarily access the tool)
S Color Sample
T Targeted Adjustment Tool
C Crop
A Straighten
B Spot Removal
E Red Eye Removal
K Adjustment Brush
G Graduated Filter
L/R Rotate Left (CCW) / Right (CW) or Command (Mac) / Control (Win) + "[" or "]"
Finally, Command (Mac) / Control (Win) + K will launch the Camera Raw Preferences.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 4:11 AM | Permalink

To improve batch processing performance, in the History panel,select History Options from the fly-out menu and deselect Automatically Create First Snapshot. Depending on the length of your action, you might also want to reduce the number History States in the Preferences > Performance panel. Just don't forget to increase the number of states when you finished batch processing!

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 5:02 AM | Permalink

The Batch command can be recorded as part of an action to perform multiple batches in sequence. In addition, you can batch process multiple folders without reorganizing them on the hard drive - simply create aliases within a folder to the other folders you want to process, and select the Include All Subfolders option in the Batch command dialog box (or use a droplet).

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 4:59 AM | Permalink

You can save the steps in an Actions as a text file by pressing Control +Alt (Windows) or Command + Option (Mac) while selecting Save Actions from the Actions panel fly out menu. This is handy for reviewing or printing the contents of an Action (however, you can't reload the text file back into Photoshop). Note that ALL of the Actions in ALL sets are printed out, so you may want to limit the number of actions you have loaded to eliminate a lot of deleting of unnecessary information.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 5:57 AM | Permalink

In order to save an action, you must select the Set that the action is in (using the Actions panel). If there are multiple actions in the set, they will ALL be saved (this is a feature). If you only want to save a single action, drag it into it's own lonely little set. If you have received an action from someone or want to load a saved action from one computer to another, navigate to the action using Bridge, and double click on it to load.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 5:54 AM | Permalink

Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) -click the disclosure triangle next to an action to collapse or expand all components of that action. Viewing the components (or recorded setting of a command) can be especially helpful when trouble shooting actions. Another way to trouble shoot is to select the Playback Options from the Actions panel's fly-out menu and choose Step by Step or even Pause For xx Seconds in order to watch the action play more slowly.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 5:51 AM | Permalink

When recording actions that will be played back on files of various size, it might help to record the action with the Ruler Units set to Percentage However, resolution-dependent commands such as type size, feather amount, sharpening settings etc, may not work as expected when the file size changes.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:50 AM | Permalink

Double clicking on a single command in the Actions panel will play the command if there are no options associated with the command (Select> All or Edit > Copy for example). If, however there are options associated with the command (such as Image Size), Photoshop will display the necessary dialog box. This is an excellent feature if you want to make changes to that command - but beware, whatever you enter in the dialog box will now become the recorded value in the action). To bypass this option, and simply play a command using it's recorded options, (without a dialog box appearing), add the Command (Mac) / Control (Win) key when double clicking the name of the command.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:48 AM | Permalink

Since I am rarely able to record an entire action without making a mistake, it's good to know that Actions can be modified in a number of ways. For example, individual commands can be repositioned by dragging them (in the Actions panel) within an action or, they can be moved by dragging them to another Action. Add the Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) -drag to copy a command within an action or copy it to another action.
If a command is not needed, simply select it and click the Trash icon at the bottom of the panel or, to bypass the confirmation dialog box, drag the command to the trash icon. As you create more and more actions, it becomes easy to "harvest" commands from other actions. You can even play and action while recording!

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:44 AM | Permalink

Use the Action Options flyout (from the Actions Panel) to assign a Function key in order to quickly run an action. You can simply choose F1- F12 (the number of F-keys will vary depending on platform and keyboard layout) or add a keyboard modifier (Shift, for example). If you assign a F-key that is already in use by Photoshop (F5 for example, is assigned by default to show and hide the Brush panel), Photoshoop will remove it from the default (the Brushes panel in this example) and assign it to your action. Some F-keys may not be available if the operating system is using them. In this case, you will need to change or remove the F-key via the operating system).

In addition, you can color code your actions (red for image size changes, blue for different sharpening amounts etc.). This color coding is only displayed in Button Mode (see yesterday's post)

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:43 AM | Permalink

In the Actions Panel, use the fly-out menu to access Button Mode to view your actions as clickable buttons. If you're working with several actions (in a production environment for example), you might want to rearrange the panel so that it fits horizontally along the bottom of your screen, making more actions accessible without scrolling. Clicking the button runs the action. Note: new actions and changes to existing actions can not be made in Button Mode, you will need to return to Normal Mode (uncheck the Button Mode option using the fly-out) to make changes.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 7:16 AM | Permalink

Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) + Shift + O (or double clicking on an image with the keyboard modifiers) will open a flattened version of a file (instead of a layered one) if the file was saved with the Maximize (PSD and PSB) File Compatibility preference turned on. Note: in PSCS4, a dialog will as if you want to "Read the composite data instead?" - click yes to confirm.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:29 AM | Permalink

Control (Mac) / right mouse -clicking on the tool icon in the Options bar (officially called the Tool Preset Picker) allows you to choose to Reset Tool or Reset All Tools. Although this option doesn't reset which tool occupies the top (visible) slot in the Tool panel, it will reset all of the tool's options (found in the Options bar) to their default state(s).

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:27 AM | Permalink

You have probably discovered by now that you can use the Application Bar to choose to display images in Standard Screen Mode, Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar or Full Screen Mode. One of the slick new features of PSCS4 that I had previously mentioned is it's default setting which will automatically hide the panels and tools in Full Screen Mode. What I forgot to mention is that if you are working with multiple documents, holding down the Shift key when selecting one of the screen modes will display ALL open documents into whichever screen mode is chosen.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:11 AM | Permalink

Tap the "X" key to exchange the foreground and background colors.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:34 AM | Permalink

Tap the "D" key to set the background/foreground colors to black/white.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:31 AM | Permalink

To select similar colors throughout the image with the Magic Want tool (as opposed to being restricted to those similar pixels that are touching) uncheck the "Contiguous" option in the Options bar.

Also, while using the Magic Wand tool, tapping the return/enter key will automatically highlight the Tolerance option for the tool in the Options bar and allow you to enter a numeric value.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:41 AM | Permalink

Both the Quick Selection and Magic Wand tools make selections based on the color sampled. When using the Quick Selection tool, checking Auto-Enhance can help reduce rough edges of the selection in transitional areas. For more control after making a selection, (when using either Quick Selection or the Magic Wand tool), select Refine Edge from the Options bar and use the dialog box to further fine tune your selection.

Both tools will also sample similar colors on multiple layers - simply check the "Sample All Layers" feature in the Options bar.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:39 AM | Permalink

When using either the magnetic Lasso or the Magnetic Pen, the following shortcuts can help to quickly change tool options:

[ or ] decreases/increases the lasso width
[ or ] + Shift goes to the minimum/maximum lasso width
',' (comma) or '.' (period) decreases/increases the edge contrast
',' (comma) or '.' (period) + Shift goes to the minimum/maximum edge contrast
';' (semicolon) or ''' (apostrophe) decreases/increases the frequency
';' (semicolon) or ''' (apostrophe) + Shift goes to the minimum/maximum frequency

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:33 AM | Permalink

While using the Lasso tool, tapping the return/enter key will automatically highlight the Feather amount in the Options bar. This feather is applied to the NEXT selection that you draw with the Lasso tool.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:31 AM | Permalink

Holding the Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) key while dragging the Lasso tool will toggle to the Polygonal Lasso tool and vice versa. When starting with the Lasso tool, this previous shortcut might take a few tries to master as you have to be careful to release the Option key (to return from the Polygonal Lasso tool to the regular Lasso) while holding the mouse down.
In addition, holding the Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) key while dragging the Magnetic Lasso will toggle to the regular Lasso if you drag with the cursor and the Polygonal Lasso if you click with the cursor.

Posted by Julieanne Kost at 6:28 AM | Permalink