Set Brightness & Volume Adjustments in OS X Lion & Mountain Lion

Do you remember how you could make small and precise 1/4 incremental changes to brightness and audio volume in Mac OS X Snow Leopard by holding down the Option key? Many thought this feature disappeared with OS X Lion, but it turns out you can still make those incremental adjustments in both OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion, though the keyboard shortcuts to do so have been changed ever so slighty:

• Incremental Brightness Adjustments: Option+Shift and F1 or F2
• Incremental Volume Adjustments: Option+Shift and F10 or F11

You’ll notice with Option+Shift held down the brightness and volume indicators now have four levels per segment, allowing for precise adjustments of either setting.

There may be some minor variation on which Function keys to use per Mac keyboard, you are looking for the F keys that control brightness and sound volume though obviously. 

These are both fairly old tricks but since the shortcuts changed with the newest versions of OS X they are worth mentioning again considering their prior popularity.

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