Panes

When we open Photoshop, all “panes”, also known as “panels” or “palettes”, shall be opened on the right side of the window.

Although these are folded up, all of the available panels are displayed.

To expand it double click the right pointing arrow, in the top right of the panels (1).

We find many of the tasks we can perform in Photoshop in these panels.

The same way you do with the toolbox. Normally all the tools are displayed in a row, but if you wish it to display in two rows, then click the double arrow pointing right at the top of the toolbox (2).

We can move all these different panels to whatever position we want by clicking and dragging the title bar of the “panels” (3).

One can close the palette by clicking the down pointing arrow button in the title bar of the palette and selecting “Close” in the drop-down menu (4). Or when a palette is disconnected, the x-icon.

You can create a “group” of different palettes in “tabs” by dragging the title bar to one panel.

You can exclude a whole group pallets by clicking the downward pointing arrow button in the title bar of the palette (4) and selecting “close tab group” in the drop-down menu.

With these panels you can really go in all directions. All I can say, open the ones you use widely and close the ones you will use later. This way you retain the optimal workspace for your image.

To open a pane, click the “Window” in the menu bar and click the pane that you want to open the drop-down menu.

Just one tip.  When the panels are folded, you can see the icons for the panels.
Click and drag the edge of the panes, you can change the width thereof, and thus show the corresponding labels.

New in Photoshop CS4 is when you have two monitors, you can drag all panels to the second monitor. In this way, you retain the optimal workspace for your image.

 

A third way to quickly hide all panels is the keyboard shortcut Shift + Tab button on your keyboard. Repeat this process if you want to display the panels back.

Saving the environment

If you have opened all panels and placed them where you wish, you can save the space.

Just click the “Workspace” button in the “Application Bar” and choose “Save Workspace” in the drop-down menu.

In the dialog that appears you give this a name, select the option “Panel Locations” and click the “Save” button.

If you have set some shortcuts that you want to save, you select this check box and if you have some menu items added to a menu, you select this check box.

More in the next lesson.

If you have a number of windows open and want to return to your familiar workspace, you just click the “Workspace” button and choose the newly created Workspace.

Application Bar

In addition to our menu, we find the “Application Bar”, at least for the PC users.

In the “Application Bar” we find some of the commonly used tools in Photoshop. For example, the “Hand” (1) and the “Zoom Tool” (2), plus a few new tools including the tools “Rotate View” (3) and “Arrange Documents” (4).

About “Arrange Documents” I have explained extensively in lesson 8. About “Rotate View” in Lesson 9.

Not new in Photoshop, but new in the “Application Bar” are some items like the “Show Extras” (5) and “Display Mode” (6) buttons.

The “Hand” and “Zoom” buttons will be discussed later, the “Rotate View” (3) allows us to display the image as rotateed, but not rotate the image. This can be very useful when editing the image. But as I said, this is discussed later.
The “Arrange Documents” (4) allows us to open several files in different ways. This option also I will discuss later.
And then we have the “Display Mode” (6). By clicking this, we have a choice of three display modes.
Default screen, Full screen with menu bar and full screen.
If you choose the “Full screen” mode, use the ESC key on your keyboard to return to the default display mode. If you choose “Full Screen with Menu Bar” then the option to change mode is still available on the menu.

By clicking on the button “Show Extras” (5), we can show or hide the rules, guides and grids in the images.
This I’ll have to say. Standard rules is divided into cm, if you prefer to change to mm, inches or pixels to work, right click a ruler and make your choice from the drop-down menu.

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