using sendkeys

Doesn't Photoshop have an ActiveX/OLE interface you can use to communicate with it?  (I know it doesn't answer your sendkeys, but that would be the way to use it)

yes it does. It's called OLE Automation. Even if I use it, I would still need to use sendkeys. Unfortunately, Photoshop's support for OLE doesn't seem to be very reliable. I've tried the above code on Word, which has a splash screen come up and everything worked fine, so it may not be a splash screen problem.

Change your code to look like this:

Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)

Private Sub cmdPhotoshop_Click()
   Dim RetVal
   RetVal = Shell("D:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 5.0\Photoshp.exe", 1)
   'The 3000 makes it sleep for 3 seconds. Add for longer sleep
   Sleep 3000
   SendKeys "%fn", True
End Sub

That didn't work. I don't think the splash screen is the problem and I don't think there's anything wrong with the code. I think there's something wrong with Photoshop.

Try the keyb_event, I think this should work in photoshop

' in a bas module past
Declare Sub keybd_event Lib "user32" (ByVal bVk As Byte, ByVal bScan As Byte, ByVal dwFlags As Long, ByVal dwExtraInfo As Long)

' your code
Private Sub cmdNotePad_Click()
       Dim RetVal
       RetVal = Shell("Notepad.exe", 1)
       keybd_event 65, 0, 0, 0 'A press Down
       keybd_event 65, 0, 2, 0 'A released
       keybd_event 66, 0, 0, 0 'B press Down
       keybd_event 66, 0, 2, 0 'B released

       keybd_event 18, 0, 0, 0 'Alt press Down
       keybd_event 70, 0, 0, 0 'f press Down
       keybd_event 65, 0, 0, 0 'A press Down
       keybd_event 70, 0, 2, 0 'f released
       keybd_event 65, 0, 2, 0 'A released
       keybd_event 18, 0, 2, 0 'Alt released
    End Sub

    Private Sub cmdPhotoshop_Click()
       Dim RetVal
       RetVal = Shell("D:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 5.0\Photoshp.exe", 1)
       SendKeys "%fn", True
    End Sub

where did you get those numbers for each keybd_event?

in vb help, do a search for  "Key Codes" then select the "key codes constants" its a great list.