Actions & hotkeys
Every action in Darkly and its keyboard shortcut.
| Icon | Action | Description | Hotkey |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add Brush Node brush | Open the add-node menu at the cursor (brush builder). | Shift+A | |
| Adjust Brush Size (drag) brush | Hold the modifier and drag sideways to scrub the brush size continuously. | ||
| Decrease Brush Size brush | Step the active brush's size down one notch. | [ | |
| Export Brush Pack… brush | Export one of your brush packs as a `.darkly-brush` file to share. | ||
| Import Brush Pack… brush | Import a `.darkly-brush` pack; one file may contain any number of brushes. | ||
| Increase Brush Size brush | Step the active brush's size up one notch. | ] | |
| Set Clone Source brush | Hold the modifier and click on the canvas to set the point the Clone brush copies from. | Alt+drag | |
| Palette Popup colors | With the trigger held (a pen's barrel button by default), touch the canvas to summon a radial wheel of recent colors and brushes; drag through it and lift to pick. | right-drag | |
| Reset Colors colors | Reset the foreground/background to black and white. | D | |
| Sample Color colors | Hold the modifier and drag on the canvas to sample a color into the foreground swatch. | Alt+drag | |
| Swap Colors colors | Swap the foreground and background colors. | X | |
| Convert to Smart Object edit | Turn the content you are positioning into a smart object layer instead of stamping it down, so you can keep resizing it without losing quality. | ||
| Copy edit | Copy the active layer to the clipboard. | Ctrl+C | |
| Crop to Selection edit | Crop the canvas to the current selection bounds. | ||
| Cut edit | Cut the active layer to the clipboard. | Ctrl+X | |
| Flip Canvas Horizontally edit | Mirror the whole canvas left-to-right. | ||
| Flip Canvas Vertically edit | Mirror the whole canvas top-to-bottom. | ||
| Paste edit | Paste an image or layer from the clipboard. | Ctrl+V | |
| Paste as Smart Object edit | Paste the clipboard image as a smart object: a layer you can resize freely without losing quality, because the original is kept and re-sampled rather than overwritten. | Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V | |
| Paste in Place edit | Paste from the clipboard at its original position. | Ctrl+Shift+V | |
| Redo edit | Redo the last undone action. | Ctrl+Shift+Z | |
| Resize Canvas edit | Resize the canvas with a 9-point anchor. | Ctrl+Alt+C | |
| Rotate Canvas 180° edit | Rotate the whole canvas a half turn. | ||
| Rotate Canvas 90° CCW edit | Rotate the whole canvas a quarter turn counter-clockwise. | ||
| Rotate Canvas 90° CW edit | Rotate the whole canvas a quarter turn clockwise. | ||
| Scale Image to New Size edit | Resize all layers to new document dimensions. | ||
| Undo edit | Undo the last action. | Ctrl+Z | |
| Export Timelapse… file | Export the process recording as an MP4 or GIF timelapse. | ||
| New file | Open a fresh document in a new tab. Prompts for canvas size and background color. | ||
| Open file | Open a `.darkly` document or image (PNG / JPEG / WebP) in a new tab. | Ctrl+O | |
| Place as Smart Object file | Place an image (PNG / JPEG / WebP) as a smart object in the current document: a layer you can resize freely without losing quality, because the original is kept and re-sampled rather than overwritten. | ||
| Save file | Save the current document. Re-saves to the same `.darkly` file after the first Save As; otherwise opens the Save picker (`.darkly`, or PNG / JPEG / WebP to export the canvas). | Ctrl+S | |
| Save As file | Save the current document to a new file: `.darkly`, or PNG / JPEG / WebP to export the canvas. | Ctrl+Shift+S | |
| Black and White Filters | Desaturate to black and white: six grayscale formulas or custom channel weights, with an optional color tint. | Ctrl+Shift+U | |
| Brightness/Contrast Filters | The classic two-slider brightness and contrast adjustment. | ||
| Curves Filters | Remap tones and colors with editable per-channel curves. | ||
| Hue/Saturation Filters | Rotate hue and scale saturation and value, with optional colorize. | ||
| Invert Colors Filters | Invert every color channel for a photo-negative. | Ctrl+I | |
| Levels Filters | Tone mapping with black point, white point, gamma, and output range. | ||
| Add Layer… layers | Open the add-layer picker: normal, filter, veil, void or group. | ||
| Add Mask layers | Add a mask modifier to the active layer or group and activate it for painting. | ||
| Convert to Smart Object layers | Turn the selected layer into a smart object: the pixels are kept as an embedded original, so you can resize the layer freely without losing quality. | ||
| Delete Layer layers | Delete the selected layers. | Del | |
| Duplicate Layer layers | Make a copy of each selected layer. | Ctrl+J | |
| Flatten layers | Bake a layer into plain pixels: apply its mask, rasterize a generated layer (smart object, camera, text) so it can be painted on, or flatten a group into a single raster that inherits the group’s blend props. | ||
| Flip Horizontally layers | Mirror the active layer (or selection) left-to-right. | ||
| Flip Vertically layers | Mirror the active layer (or selection) top-to-bottom. | ||
| Isolate Layer layers | Solo a layer so only it shows in the canvas. Press again to bring everything else back. | Alt+click / Alt+click | |
| Merge Down layers | Merge the active layer into the one below it, or combine multiple selected layers into a single layer. | Ctrl+E | |
| New Filter Layer layers | Add a non-destructive filter layer (curves, levels, invert, …) above the active one. | ||
| New Group layers | Group the selected layers together, or add an empty group if nothing is selected. | Ctrl+G | |
| New Layer layers | Add a new layer above the active one. | Ctrl+Shift+N | |
| New Veil layers | Add an effect layer from the Veils set: the distorting and animated ones (rainy glass, VHS, grain, …). | ||
| New Void layers | Add a void: a layer filled from a procedural or live source (noise, camera, screen share, …). | ||
| Toggle Layer Lock layers | Lock or unlock the active layer. | ||
| Toggle Layer Visibility layers | Show or hide the active layer. | ||
| Alpha to Selection selection | Load the layer's opacity as the selection. | Ctrl+click | |
| Antialias Selection selection | Soften the staircase of a hard-edged selection. | ||
| Border Selection selection | Replace the selection with a band straddling its edge. | ||
| Clear Selection Contents selection | Erase the pixels inside the selection. | Del | |
| Deselect selection | Clear the active selection. | Ctrl+D | |
| Feather Selection selection | Soften the selection edge with a Gaussian blur. | Shift+F6 | |
| Grow Selection selection | Expand the selection edge outward by a number of pixels. | ||
| Invert Selection selection | Invert the current selection. | Ctrl+Shift+I | |
| Mask to Selection selection | Load the active layer's mask as the selection. | Ctrl+click | |
| Select All selection | Select the entire canvas. | Ctrl+A | |
| Shrink Selection selection | Contract the selection edge inward by a number of pixels. | ||
| Smooth Selection selection | Round off jagged edges and remove small specks. | ||
| Toggle Erase Mode tools | Toggle erase mode on the brush tool. Switches to the brush tool first if another tool is active. | E | |
| Brush Tools | Paint strokes with the active brush. | B | |
| Color Picker Tools | Sample a color from the canvas into the foreground swatch. | I | |
| Ellipse Select Tools | Select an elliptical region. | Shift+M | |
| Fill Tools | Flood-fill a contiguous region with the foreground color. | G | |
| Gradient Tools | Drag out a smooth ramp between two or more colors. | Shift+G | |
| Lasso Select Tools | Select a region by drawing its outline freehand. | L | |
| Magic Wand Tools | Select a contiguous region of similar color. | W | |
| Perspective Transform Tools | Reshape the active layer by dragging its four corners independently. | ||
| Polygon Select Tools | Select a region by clicking its corners one at a time. | Shift+L | |
| Rectangle Select Tools | Select a rectangular region. | M | |
| Text Tools | Place and edit editable text on a vector layer. | ||
| Transform Tools | Move, scale and rotate the active layer or selection. | Ctrl+T | |
| Cancel Floating transform | Discard the floating content and leave the layer as it was. | Escape | |
| Commit Floating transform | Stamp the floating content down into its layer, ending the transform. | Enter | |
| Chromatic Aberration Veils | Split the color channels apart along their hue axes, like a misaligned lens. | ||
| Frozen Veils | Frost the view behind a pane of refracting ice. | ||
| Grain Veils | Film grain noise over the view, optionally animated. | ||
| Lens Blur Veils | Defocus the view with a soft camera-lens blur. | ||
| Painting Veils | Smooth the view into painterly, brush-like daubs. | ||
| Pixelate Veils | Downsample the view into a blocky pixel mosaic. | ||
| Rainy Glass Veils | Raindrops run down a pane of glass over the view. | ||
| VHS Veils | Analog VHS tape artifacts: scanlines, noise, and color bleed. | ||
| About Darkly view | Show version and credits. | ||
| Center View view | Recenter the canvas in the viewport without changing zoom, rotation, or mirror. View-only: the document is unchanged. | ||
| Command Palette view | Search and run any command. | Ctrl+Shift+P / Ctrl+F | |
| Discord Community view | Open Darkly's Discord server in a new tab. | ||
| Documentation view | Open the Darkly documentation in a new tab. | ||
| Fit to Screen view | Zoom and recenter so the whole canvas fills the viewport, keeping the current rotation and mirror. View-only: the document is unchanged. | Ctrl+Digit0 | |
| GitHub Repository view | Open the Darkly source repository on GitHub. | ||
| Hotkey Cheat Sheet view | Open a searchable, printable list of every keyboard shortcut. | ||
| Mirror View view | Flip the canvas horizontally for fresh-eyes review. View-only: the document is unchanged. | M | |
| Reset View view | Reset rotation, mirror, pan, and zoom-to-fit. View-only: the document is unchanged. | ||
| Settings view | Show the preferences modal. | Ctrl+K | |
| Website view | Open the Darkly website in a new tab. |
103 of 103 actions · Photoshop preset · Darkly v0.9.0-0-g5cc6474f