Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E stopped working in Photoshop cc after I re-installed PC

[Madeleine24]

Hello,

I was using Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E in Photoshop cc 2022 and earlier every day to create a combined layer without deleting the layers below. This command was part of many of my actions and they all worked.

Yesterday I re-installed my PC (reset to factory settings), installed Photoshop again, loaded my actions (did nothing else apart from installing Photoshop and loading actions, apart from that I just saved a new workspace but without keyboard shortcuts) and found out that some of the actions are now not working because Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E creates an empty layer with no data instead of a merged layer.

- Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E does not work (creates an empty layer) whether it is used separately (never works) or in some actions. Strangely enough, there are some other actions that contain this command as well and they still work.

- When using Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E separately, no matter whether I select the upper layer or all layers before pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E - the result is always the same - new empty layer.

- No matter in which order or on which side of the keyboard i press the Ctrl, Shift and Alt buttons, the result is always the same - new empty layer. (Just saying because I saw advice of this kind.)

- I've read somebody's advice from 2019 to "Choose Edit > Preferences > Performance (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences > Performance (macOS). Select Legacy Compositing." There is no such thing as "Select Legacy Compositing" in Preferences - Performance in Photoshop 2022. There is just "multithreaded compositing", which is selected by default, but whether this option is selected or not, the result is the same - new empty layer.

- I'm trying to merge visible layers, of course.

- The shortcut for Layer - Merge visible in my Photoshop is the standard Shift+Ctrl+E.

- (My actions do contain keyboard shortcuts, e.g. Shift+Ctrl+F2, Shift+Ctrl+F4, Shift+Ctrl+F12 (and I've loaded the actions including those shortcuts), but of course nothing to do with something+something+E.)

Thank you.

[AxelMatt · Accepted solution]

Just a thought:

Please try to reset the preferences of Photoshop using the steps described here:

Preferences in Photoshop (adobe.com)

Please backup your settings before resetting the preferences. You can check:

Preferences in Photoshop (adobe.com)

Another try it to turning on the option »Deactivate Native Canvas« (Photoshop > Preferences > Technology Previews) and restarting Photoshop.

[Madeleine24]

Thank you, yes, there was apparently a problem with preferences.

[Roland_Rick]

None of the suggestions helped.

There is a serious issue when using different keyboards. I am working with Swiss German and English International and/or English GB as well as English US keyboard.

It is ridiculus, Adobe/Photoshop can/does/will not implement correct keyboard handling.

Once installed with Swiss German Keybaord, Shift+Option+Cmd+E works only if Swiss German Keyboard is set, independent how often I reset preferences in Photoshop. It also does not help uninstalling Photoshop completely and reinstalling while US or British keyboard is activated:

This is somewhere burnt into the system you can not remove it or change it. Worst of all: because Shift+Option+Cmd+E is NOWHERE available in the menu system, you even can not manually reconnect this shotcut in "Keyboard Shortcuts and Menu" - which btw still is lack of a search functionality since ever 😞 -

FYC: I'm working with an MBA M1 having a Swiss German keyboard if I'm on the road. At home, the MBA gets connected to a Studio Display, the lid is closed and I'm working with an external Magic Keyboard having an US keyboard layout and a Magic Trackpad. The Magic Keyboard is an older one, having no fingerprint reader.

If I load the same PSD into Affinity Photo, there is absolutely no problem to use Shift+Option+Cmd+E within AP by using the US keyboard.

It's - like always - only the Adobe software causing problems on super trivial default standard IO functions.

Many thanks to Adobe for making use of Adobe software so hyper inconvenient. In German we would say "Es ist zum kotzen!".

[Roland_Rick]

None of the suggestions helped.

There is a serious issue when using different keyboards. I am working with Swiss German and English International and/or English GB as well as English US keyboard.

It is ridiculus, Adobe/Photoshop can/does/will not implement correct keyboard handling.

Once installed with Swiss German Keybaord, Shift+Option+Cmd+E works only if Swiss German Keyboard is set, independent how often I reset preferences in Photoshop. It also does not help uninstalling Photoshop completely and reinstalling while US or British keyboard is activated:

This is somewhere burnt into the system you can not remove it or change it. Worst of all: because Shift+Option+Cmd+E is NOWHERE available in the menu system, you even can not manually reconnect this shotcut in "Keyboard Shortcuts and Menu" - which btw still is lack of a search functionality since ever 😞 -

FYC: I'm working with an MBA M1 having a Swiss German keyboard if I'm on the road. At home, the MBA gets connected to a Studio Display, the lid is closed and I'm working with an external Magic Keyboard having an US keyboard layout and a Magic Trackpad. The Magic Keyboard is an older one, having no fingerprint reader.

If I load the same PSD into Affinity Photo, there is absolutely no problem to use Shift+Option+Cmd+E within AP by using the US keyboard.

It's - like always - only the Adobe software causing problems on super trivial default standard IO functions.

Many thanks to Adobe for making use of Adobe software so hyper inconvenient. In German we would say "Es ist zum kotzen!".

[PECourtejoie]

Hi, this is strange: is the E in a different location? I expect that you use a QWERTZ layout?

Are there two different Alt keys (some countries have an ALT_GR key)

The keyboard language at install time should not have an influence, the OS language dictates the default language used by the creative cloud app for the installed software, and you can change/add  installed language in the Preferences/Applications of the CC app, then switch the language of Photoshop in its preferences/interface.

But indeed, I feel that every Keyboard shortcut should be available in the KBSC editor.

[Roland_Rick]

Hi @PECourtejoie , thanks for reply. - No the E is in the same position. Anyway, that shouldn't make any difference. Also QWERTY and QWERTZ should be no difference, the E is in the same position. The default keyboard of that MBA M1 is Swiss-German but I am using it with a bluetooth international English M1 keyboard (that with the fingerprint function) and connected to a Apple Studio Display.

But it is totally indeendent of that. I also can connect by USB a normal British English or US English keyboard. The moment I switch the keyboard in the keyboard preferences (as shown in the screenshots) I can no longer use Shift+Option+Cmd+E to merge all layers to a new layer. Unfortunately there is NO menu or pop-up menu function available to reassign it manually - what is honestly quite disappointing, that somehow was once forgot to add it to the menu, and it seems to remain for ever like so. - By the way: no such problems with Affinity Photo. - Again to clarify: Photoshop has no menu item for Shift+Option+Cmd+E. This is probably some object code from the 1990's and still used and linked to the program.

[PECourtejoie]

This highlights the need to be able to have a tool similar to the Premiere Pro Keyboard shortcut editor, so that we can reverse-find what key is assigned to which function.
Is the CMD+SHIFT+OPT+E the only one that disappears?

[Roland_Rick]

That is defintely not the correct answer. @AxelMatt , I severly doubt you even understood what's the problem.

[Roland_Rick]

PS: @AxelMatt Clicking yourself on "Correct answer", isn't that called imposter? Just asking.

[AxelMatt]

@Roland_Rick Be careful with such statements. I don't marked my answer as "Correct" by myself.

Read the answer of the original poster and you see that my answer has helped her. 

In this case, the answer is quite correct.

Please don't insult any members here in the future.

[Roland_Rick]

OK OK, as said, just asking. Had no real intention to offend you.
I'm just super annoyed of Adobe, ripping off the people by that behated subscription system. For that, they should - must - run a professional helping platform where it's possible to report bugs directly to a mail address like eg. support@adobe.com, the dispatching should then done by a first front line of experts.
Here in the community I never ever got one single problem/bug I discovered fixed. And I posted a lot of them. For your convenience: I have been working for 25 years as software developer my own and have a talent to stumble over a software bugs as easy as breathing is for others. That makes the "community help system" to me 10 x as annoying as for normal users.
But no, the probem is shifted to the customer. It shouldn't be necessary to reset preferences, that's treatment of symptoms on the shoulders of the customer not removing the cause. A very bad deal for the customers.
I tried the solution you suggested also, didn't help. But I lost all my preferences dispite of exactly following the instructions in the links of you solution and couldn't recover it. I had to configure everything from the scratch.

[John36123152a7lp]

For me this has happened a few times today, I don't know if its a coincidence or not but it started working again after i clicked off all layers and on to outside the canvas. May be worth a. try for anyone who is having the same issue. will try to come back with an update if it happens again.

[Roland_Rick]

Thanks for the hint. I just tried right now: looks like they meanwhile fixed the problem generally.