Arrow keys in curves adjustment layers

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for sharing these detailed observations. That really helps us understand the issue better.

I was able to reproduce the behavior you described in Photoshop 26.8 on macOS 15.5, but it does not occur in Beta 26.9. This suggests the team may have already addressed it in the upcoming release, or it may be an unintended behavior that happened in v26.8.

Thanks for your patience and for bringing this to our attention!

Best,
Anshul Saini

During a recent update (I'm not sure exactly which version, but definitely Photoshop 2025), the Properties panel for the Curves adjustment layer was changed such that you can now make the Curves chart arbitrarily large. This a change I've been hoping would happen for quite a while, and I'm glad it has been implemented.

Unfortunately, it seems this update in the way the panel is rendered has also introduced an inssue when moving points on a Curve with the arrow keys functions. Previously, you could select a point by clicking on it and then use the arrow keys to move that point up, down, left, or right in increments of 1, or you could hold shift to move in increments of 10. These values changed (i.e. became larger) if the Properties panel was smaller than would allow for the maximum size - you might get an increase of 2 points per arrow press, or ~12-20 points per Shift arrow press depending on the size of the panel - so I always left the panel at a size that allowed for the maximum size of the Curve window, both for consistency in fine adjustments and for easy viewing of the panel.

Now that we can scale the panel to be as large as desired, an issue has arisen with this arrow key movement - at a certain larger Properties panel size (about a quarter of my laptop screen, but this may depend on screen resolution and scaling) the arrow keys stop moving the selected point on the curve. Using the Shift + arrow keys will still move the point, but in decreasing increments based on the size of the panel.

It seems that, regardless of the size of the panel (or at least above a certain panel size if you want to maintain the original behavior of the smaller Properties panel), a single arrow key press should move the selected point in increments of 1 and a single Shift + arrow key press should move the selected point in increments of 10.

I believe it has to to do with the size of the Curves display.

As an example, when the Curves display is sized to it's smallest like in the following screenshot, the arrow keys move the input/output levels by 2.

If on the other hand, when the Curves display is made larger, then the arrow keys move the input/output levels by 1.

Here is a wild idea:  Do you have a retinal display?

mac06, I can reproduce the arrow keys moving input and output in increments of 2.

I have the (dis)advantage of having never used the arrow keys before, so I can't judge if the behavior is different from previous versions.

Sequoia 15.5 | Ps 26.8.0

Hi @mac06@lithographix.com — welcome to the community! Sorry to hear Photoshop is giving you a hard time.

I tried reproducing the issue on my end, but for me, the curve moves in increments of 1 when using the arrow keys. Could you let me know which macOS version you're using? And if possible, a quick screen recording of your workflow would be super helpful so we can try to replicate the issue more accurately.

Thanks so much!
Alek