Ctrl+V..? No... Shift+Ctrl+V...? No.... Argh!

May 14, 2008 10:14 AM

Is there a shortcut in Photoshop CS2/CS3 that pastes something into your current layer? Something so simple is driving me crazy!

I've looked on Google, I've browsed help files, and I've asked around to thoroughly run out of resources now. I could have sworn I saw this in a tutorial some time ago, but further details escape me. Sincere apologies if I'm just not seeing something really obvious.

...It probably really is something totally simple and right in my face :[

posted by Bakuun to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Well of course you already know you can paste it and then "Merge Down" the new layer, so that doesn't specifically answer your question except to do "Command-V,Command-E" in combination to accomplish that task. Other than that I'm not sure of another method.
posted by genial at 10:27 AM on May 14

Not possible. The only alternative is to paste (Ctrl-V) and then merge that layer with the one below (Ctrl-E)
posted by Memo at 10:28 AM on May 14

Or CTRL-V,CTRL-E for you poor Windows folks. :)
posted by genial at 10:28 AM on May 14

1. Create a new Action, giving it the keyboard shortcut of your choice.
2. Paste
3. Merge Down
4. Stop recording.
5. Profit! (err, use the new shortcut to your heart's content.)
posted by notbuddha at 10:44 AM on May 14

Edit/Paste Into (Shift)-CMD-V

You could even alter the keyboard shortcut to CMD-V, if that's what you want the default behavior to be.
posted by doctor_negative at 11:13 AM on May 14 [1 favorite]

As doctor_negative mentioned, there is a proper shortcut for it. A possible you might run into using the Merge Down approach is that you'll lose certain things, such as styles and masks, which will be flattened and rasterized.
posted by mhz at 11:40 AM on May 14

Paste Into creates a new layer, unfortunately. It pastes into the selection you have and creates a mask. Looks like the action choice is the closest I'll get.
posted by Bakuun at 5:23 PM on May 14