While it's true that Photoshop can do more than GIMP, the honest truth is that GIMP is more than good enough for most people who aren't professional artists, designers, or photographers.

If you aren't sure which one is better for you, check out our comparison of the two.

That being said, one thing I love about GIMP is that it grants you a lot more freedom and flexibility than Photoshop does, at least when it comes to keyboard shortcuts. In fact, if you prefer Photoshop's shortcuts then you can actually set up GIMP to be like Photoshop!

All you have to do is launch GIMP and open the Keyboard Shortcut Editor, which you can do by navigating to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts.

gimp-keyboard-shortcut-editor

Method 1

One way to use the editor is to browse through all of the subsections (e.g. File, Configuration, Context, etc.) and modify the shortcuts as you come across them. If something is marked as Disabled, it just means it has no associated keyboard shortcut.

And you'll probably be surprised how many actions are available. GIMP has hundreds of unbound actions to which you can add shortcuts if you so desire.

Method 2

The other way to use the editor is through the search box. As you use GIMP, you'll run into actions that don't have native keyboard shortcuts, such as the Image > Scale Image action (which I frequently use to resize images for posts like this one). Let's say you wanted to add a keyboard shortcut for this action.

In the Keyboard Shortcut Editor, just search for "Scale Image" to filter the actions down to the one you want. Click on it and the shortcut will change to "New accelerator..." at which point you can press whatever combination of keys you want. (I personally use Ctrl + Shift + I.) If you want to cancel out, just click on it again.

And that's about it.

Which GIMP actions do you use the most and what keyboard shortcut do you use for it? Know of any other nifty GIMP tips or tricks that you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments below!