Photoshop workspace

 

             options.bar                                                                 palette.well                                                                           

palettes toolbox status.bar document

window

The.Photoshop.workspace

Customizing your Workspace

You can customize your Photoshop workspace to suit you or your project—almost

everything within your workspace can be repositioned and reconfigured! You might

choose to customize your workspace by:

changing the look of the menu bar

You can change which menu items are visible in your menu bar, and even add

color to your menu items. If you wanted, you could also assign new or different

keyboard shortcuts to menu commands (which I don’t recommend until you feel

very comfortable with Photoshop or have a compelling reason to do so!). Go to

Edit > Menus and use the dialog box to modify the menu bar and palette menus.

moving the options bar

If you want to move the options bar, you can do so by clicking on the handle

on its left side and moving it around. The options bar will “dock” to the top or

bottom of the screen automatically if moved near those areas.

Getting Started with Photoshop

The Photoshop Anthology moving the toolbox

The toolbox is extremely portable, and can be moved to any location on your

screen. Move the toolbox by clicking on the gray area at the top of it and dragging

it around.

rearranging palettes

There are many ways to rearrange your palettes. You might want to separate a

palette from its palette group, and move it into another group. You can do this

by dragging the palette tab out of its original group and into the new group. You

might also decide to drag some of your palette tabs into the palette well, and

close the rest. To display a palette that has been closed, go to Window and select

the palette you want to show.

displaying different information in the     

document window status bar

The status bar displays the document

file size by default. The file size is

shown as two numbers separated by

a forward slash: the first number is

an approximation of the image file

size with all layers merged (known as

“flattening” the image), and the second

number is an approximation of the

total file size of the image with layers

intact. If all this sounds new to you,

don’t worry—we’ll be discussing layers

shortly. You can set the status bar to

display different information, such as

the document dimension in pixels, or

the version number of the file. To do

this, click on the arrow icon next to the

status bar, select Show and choose the

information you’d like to see.

Changing.the.status.bar

Saving your Customized Workspace

As you become more proficient with Photoshop, you may discover that you use

certain sets of palettes for different types of projects, and that there are some

palettes that you don’t use at all. Photoshop allows you to save and load different

workspaces—different arrangements of palettes, menus, and even different keyboardworkspaces—different arrangements of palettes, menus, and even different keyboard

shortcuts—to help you work more efficiently.

After you’ve customized your workspace to your satisfaction, select Window >

Workspace > Save Workspace from the menu bar and enter a name for your workspace,

such as Creating Thumbnails or My Default Workspace. You can then load your different

workspaces by opening Window > Workspace and selecting your custom workspace

shortcuts—to help you work more efficiently.

After you’ve customized your workspace to your satisfaction, select Window >

Workspace > Save Workspace from the menu bar and enter a name for your workspace,

such as Creating Thumbnails or My Default Workspace. You can then load your different

workspaces by opening Window > Workspace and selecting your custom workspace