If you’re like many Photoshop users, you may have run into the problem of Photoshop breaking the escape key. This can cause problems when trying to exit the program, and can be frustrating if it’s not fixed. In this article, we’ll show you how to fix Photoshop breaking the escape key in Windows. ..
If you’re a keyboard geek and you use Photoshop, you’ve likely been annoyed that the escape key doesn’t work in other applications while Photoshop is running. It’s one of those tiny things that can drive you insane, so The Geek hacked together a solution for you. You could always press Shift+esc to get the traditional escape key behavior in other applications, but he decided to make your life simpler through the power of AutoHotkey.
Make Photoshop Behave
If you’d like to fix this annoying behavior, download the zip file below and run fix_esc_photoshop.ahk in AutoHotkey. Or, if you’d rather add the code to your own AutoHotkey script file, here’s the source code you need:
Fix Photoshop Elements, Too
Photoshop Elements breaks the escape key just the same, but despite the similarities in the programs you’ll need a different script to fix it since PS Elements is identified as pseeditor instead of Photoshop. You can just run fix_esc_photoshop_elements.ahk from the zip file, or insert the code below in your own AutoHotkey script file. As you might notice, the pseeditor is the only difference between the two scripts:
Just Run It
}
But hey, if you’re not an AutoHotkey user, don’t despair. We’ve made an executable version that you can run on any Windows computer, whether or not you have AutoHotkey installed. Download the zip file, and run the Photoshop or Photoshop Elements exe, depending on what you use.
There’s no UI for this simple application, so if you want to exit the application you’ll need to open the task manager, find the application you’ve run (fix_esc_photoshop.exe or fix_esc_photoshop_elements.exe) and kill it.
Or, if you’d like to have this program run automatically when you boot your computer, create a shortcut to the file and paste it in your startup folder. You can quickly open the startup folder by entering the following into the address bar in Explorer:
Conclusion
AutoHotkey is a handy tool to make your computer work like you want, and this simple script can save you lots of frustration if you keep Photoshop running on your computer often.
Link
Download the AutoHotkey Files and Exe to keep Photoshop from breaking the escape key
