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How to change keyboard shortcut for fill foreground/background color?

Engaged ,
Aug 11, 2017 Aug 11, 2017

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Is there ANY WAY to change the shortcuts for fill foreground color/fill background color?

These are surely the two most essential, most used shortcuts by any serious Photoshop user - the commands we use constantly in every project, more than anything else (except perhaps the l and m keys).

And yet the default keyboard shortcuts for these commands are highly impractical (Ctrl+backspace and Alt+backspace). These strange keyboard shortcuts are cumbersome, and confusingly located - if you want to fill with the foreground color you need to take your right hand off the mouse and press backspace, but if you want to fill with background color you not only have to take your right hand off the mouse, but also to move your left hand all the way over to the right Ctrl button. (The only alternative is to press both backspace and alt with your right hand, which requires tucking your thumb down beneath your hand - something which I prefer not to do).

In any case, these two essential shortcuts are pretty strange and cumbersome, and not something a power user would wish to use. I have set up all my other applications so that I never need to move my right hand off the mouse, or my left hand from the default position. But in Photoshop I've never been able to do this. It's made even more difficult by the way Photoshop limits commands controls, so for example you can't just make "z" zoom out and "x" zoom in, as you can in other Adobe applications.

As a Photoshop user of over 20 years, I've spent the last 20 years moving my hands around wildly just to use these most basic, essential commands. It would be nice if I could finally have a break from all this and be able to assign proper keyboard shortcuts that don't require me to move my hands around.

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Adobe
Community Expert ,
Aug 11, 2017 Aug 11, 2017

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you may use the Fill Command in the Edit Menu :  Shift + F5

or you may use the other shortcut to show up the same command by pressing : shift + backspace

or i guess recording an Action and assign it a keyboard shortcut may work.

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Engaged ,
Aug 15, 2017 Aug 15, 2017

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> you may use the Fill Command in the Edit Menu :  Shift + F5

No, that command brings up a menu and doesn't work with a single key press. Way too slow. I'm talking about simply pressing the 'fill foreground' and 'fill background' keyboard shortcuts - you know, the shortcuts we use about a million times per day. It's the only way you can fill a selection with a color.

> or i guess recording an Action and assign it a keyboard shortcut may work.

The only keyboard shortcuts you can assign to actions are F-keys, which isn't useful for essential everyday shortcuts.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 15, 2017 Aug 15, 2017

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I can't say that I have any problems using the current shortcuts, but if you would like to organise your most used shortcuts into a single key press, have a look at gaming mice and/or keyboards.  Both have additional buttons that can be set to key combinations, or run macros. 

I use the Logitech G910 which has three banks of nine G-Keys, which I use for changing workspace, toggling Lazy Nezumi on and off, running actions etc.  They are context sensitive, so you can even using them to paste often used long links like we are forever doing answering questions in this forum. 

A decent mouse is a must with Photoshop.  I have two Logitech Performance MX, which I like a lot, but I have not tried the MX Master.  However I have bumped those for use with my laptop and Cintiq Companion, and now use a G602 mouse on my desktop.  It only has six G-keys, but I find any more to be too awkward to use.

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Engaged ,
Aug 17, 2017 Aug 17, 2017

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Trevor.Dennis,

> if you would like to organise your most used shortcuts into a single key press, have a look at gaming mice and/or keyboards.  Both have additional buttons that can be set to key combinations, or run macros.

Thank you Trevor, your reply has been helpful to me. As a matter of fact, I already do use a gaming mouse (the Logitech MX518). I've had it for nearly a decade and I do use its custom mouse buttons for almost all my applications. The funny thing is I've never thought of using them in Photoshop - partly because I've just been using Photoshop for so long and it didn't occur to me. But also I think it's because in Photoshop you need precision mouse position - it often needs to be pixel perfect - and pressing buttons on the side of the mouse is tricky and can move the mouse.

However, the buttons on the top of the mouse are easy to press and can be done without moving the mouse. So I have now assigned the two buttons on the top of my mouse to "fill foreground" and "fill background" and it's wonderful.

Thanks for the advice. Though I do wish Adobe would allow ALL of Photoshop's basic commands to have custom keyboard shortcuts so that we can work the way we want to work instead of having it dictated to us!

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Community Expert ,
Aug 16, 2017 Aug 16, 2017

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You probably know this already.

You can customize your shortcuts by way of Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts.

The closest I could get to Fill is Edit > Fill

Worth a shot though.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/customizing-keyboard-shortcuts.html

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Community Expert ,
Aug 16, 2017 Aug 16, 2017

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Customizing keyboard shortcuts won't work, because it only brings up the Edit > Fill dialog. You can't customize your way any further than that.

I use ctrl + delete and alt + delete, respectively. I have no problems with that.

As Trevor said, a gaming/programmable mouse will work, like Logitech's G series. Here you can assign any keyboard combo to any mouse button, it's just a question of how many buttons the mouse has.

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New Here ,
Jul 26, 2018 Jul 26, 2018

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I'm currently forced to use a PC at my job right now (urgh) and I was trying to change those keyboard strokes too. SInce on a Mac, to fill with foreground color seem to make more sense button wise.

On a PC the buttons are literially reversed from a Mac!? The control button which is positioned closer to change the top/foreground color...fills the background color instead!?!...and the Alt button which is positioned closer to the background button, fills with the forground!?!

Just kind of wierd to me.

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New Here ,
Jun 01, 2021 Jun 01, 2021

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Just this, I have used Photoshop for a long time as well and it's just nonesense that fill backround and foreground cannot be switched. I always and i mean ALWAYS do ALT+backspace in the hopes it would fill with the background as the ALT is on the right, as is the background colour on the photoshop menu and I always end up having to go back one step with ctrl+z and then do the CTRL+backspace to achieve what logically should be ALT+backspace. Is there anyway I can swap these 2? I have been dreaming of this option in each version of the program that comes out next but it seems that there is no way to customise this. And I know I can do shift and F5 and then select the colour but the ALT/CTRL+backspace is just so quick. Ah, the pain!

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 23, 2019 Sep 23, 2019

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I agree. Photoshop dictates his own shortcuts to us and those shortcuts are not comfortable to use unless you are novice. I tried to find what you do and I failed. That's horrible because I use it very often while doing illustrations. But this particular shortcut slows me because of the need to use my right hand (for delete/backspace) which normally holds pen or mouse. So I have to stop drawing and go for this buttons......

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New Here ,
May 10, 2022 May 10, 2022

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Hey, I have something for you:

 

 Open Actions window.
 Create a new action (little icon with a square and a plus symbol inside).
 Make a selection, anything.
 Press record on the Actions window.

 Press Alt-Delete to fill the selection.

 Stop recording.

 Now go to Edit Keyboard Shortcuts.

 Select Panel Menus, and then search for Play in Actions.

 Select whatever shortcut key you'd like.

 

 Now, as llong as you don't select any other action on the Action window, you can just use the key you selected to perform it again.


 Cheers,

[removed]

 

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