Comments As you have probably already noticed, Photoshop CS6 had a major interface overhaul. The entire application was re-skinned and, as a fun fact, that means that over 1800 icons and 250 cursors got a makeover!
There are 4 “Color Themes” or levels of brightness that you can choose from. By default, the second-to-most dark theme is selected. You can change the theme by clicking on the color swatches in Preferences > Interface > Appearance, or use the shortcut Shift + F2 to move to a lighter Theme or Shift + F1 to cycle to a darker theme. Note, on the Mac, you might have to ad the function (fn) key).
Previous versions of Photoshop used the lightest theme. It took me a few days to get use to the change but I now prefer the darker, default interface as I feel that the Photoshop interface now takes a back seat to the image that I’m editing.
Julieanne,
true, a darker UI let us focus on the image – yet I foresee a big wave of dark prints all over the world, due to the simultaneous contrast phenomenon
Davide
Hi Julianne,
most annoying problem I´ve got: any idea why my Photoshop themes get lighter also when I use the shortcut CTRL+F2! Normally that moves the focus to the menu bar and saves me a precious fraction of a second by not having to move fingers onto the trackpad but oh no! not when I use it in photoshop! Something entirely different happens as a result of which a profanity or two gets uttered in frustration…
Help very much appreciated,
Juha
Yes, the Control + F2 keyboard shortcut is not editable since it is hard coded into Photoshop to lighten the interface.
We’re aware of this overlap.
As a workaround, you can access the menu using a different keyboard shortcut, but will take a step of setup in Photoshop.
CMD+Shift+/ -> Brings up the help menu and you can access a menu search function to either begin to type/search the menu item you’re looking to use, or you can just use the arrow keys from there to navigate the menus.
Since Photoshop has already assigned this CMD+Shift+/ keyboard shortcut as launching the Photoshop Help, you will need to clear this keyboard shortcut.
Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts > Help – and change the keyboard shortcuts listed under “Photoshop Online Help”
You just need to clear out the entry for CMD+Shift+/, you can leave the CMD+/ shortcut there.
Click OK, then try the shortcut out in Photoshop. Even try searching the help box there for the menu item you’re after.
You may really like this method!
Thanks Pete, I can live – and what´s more important – work with this…