Adobe Camera Raw Keyboard Shortcuts

Mac Command as the primary modifier. Tool letters work without any modifier, and the Edit panels answer to Command with a digit.

Windows Ctrl as the primary modifier. The same tool letters and the same panel digits as Mac.

Tool selection. Single letters switch tools inside the dialog: Z zoom, H hand, C crop, B remove, E edit, K a new brush mask, G a new gradient mask, T the targeted adjustment tool. Red Eye is Shift+E, not E.

Edit panels. Command or Ctrl with a digit jumps straight to a panel: Light, Color, Effects, Curve, Color Mixer, Color Grading, Detail, Optics, Lens Blur.

Masking. Bracket keys size the brush, Shift with a bracket feathers it, and the digits set brush density from 10 percent to 100 percent.

Point Curve. Arrow keys nudge the selected point by one unit, Shift with an arrow moves it by ten, and the Alt or Option digits pick the channel.

Rating and labels. Bare digits rate an image from 0 to 5 and set colour labels, which is what makes a filmstrip pass fast.

Merging. Panorama and HDR merges have their own chords, with and without the dialog.

A printable PDF of Camera Raw shortcuts is available for each platform. The tool letters and the panel digits are the two sections worth keeping next to the screen while the develop habits are still forming.

Do Photoshop shortcuts work inside the Camera Raw dialog?

No. The Camera Raw dialog is its own keyboard context, and the same letters do different things there. E is the Edit tool rather than the eraser, C is the dialog's Crop, and B selects Remove. That is why Camera Raw has a separate shortcut list here instead of sitting inside the Photoshop one.

Where do I find the official Camera Raw shortcut list?

Adobe publishes it at helpx.adobe.com under Camera Raw, on the default keyboard shortcuts page. Every group on this page is sourced from that table.

Why do some shortcut lists show Cmd+Opt+1 for the Camera Raw panels?

Those lists predate the Camera Raw redesign. The panels are now reached with Command or Ctrl plus a digit, and several of the older panel names, such as Split Toning and HSL/Grayscale, no longer exist. They became Color Grading and Color Mixer.

Is Camera Raw a separate application?

No. It is a plug-in that ships with Photoshop and opens as a dialog when you open a raw file. It has no window of its own, which is exactly why its shortcuts are easy to confuse with Photoshop's.

This section lists the official sources for Adobe Camera Raw. Camera Raw is a good example of why the source matters: the dialog was redesigned, tools and panels were renamed, and a lot of the shortcut lists still circulating on the web describe the version from a decade ago.

Official references are useful for checking platform differences, keyboard layout issues, operating system shortcut conflicts, and app-version differences. When a chord behaves differently than expected, verify it against the official source before updating personal notes or a team cheat sheet.