- Panels: A panel (formerly called a palette) is a window
of options that remains visible regardless of what you’re
doing. To switch between panels in a side-by-side group,
click a named tab. You can move a panel out of a group
by dragging its tab. Click the tiny in the top-right
corner of a panel to bring up the panel menu.
Drag the left edge of any panel to make the entire panel
wider or narrower.
- Panel group: Drag a panel and drop it onto another panel
to group them so that their tabs appear side-by-side
(such as the Layers, Channels, and Paths group). Drag
the blank gray area to the right of the tabs to move the
entire group. Click the blank area to collapse the group
so you see only tabs. Click again to expand the group.
- Panel icons: When you collapse a docking pane, Photo-
shop shows its panel as icons. Click an icon to tempo-
rarily display the panel. Click again to hide it. Drag the
left edge of the pane to show or hide panel names next
to the icons.
- Screen mode: Click the final icon in the application bar
(this icon used to be at the bottom of the toolbox) and
select an option, or press the F key to cycle between three
variations of the image window. An open image may
appear in a tabbed or an independent window, fill the
entire screen, or further encroach on screen real estate
by squeezing out the menu bar. Press Shift+F to cycle
backward between modes.
- Scroll bars: Only so much of an image can fit in the image
window at once. In the standard screen mode, the scroll
bars let you pan the image horizontally or vertically to
display hidden areas. If a scroll bar is empty, the screen
is zoomed out far enough for you to see the entire width
or height of the image. For more information on zoom-
ing and scrolling, watch Video Lesson 1, “Browsing in
the Bridge,” introduced on page 4).
- Shortcut menu: Right-click to display a shortcut menu
of options for the active tool. If your Mac intosh mouse
doesn’t have a right mouse button (older mice from Apple
don’t), press the Control key and click. Photoshop pro-
vides shortcut menus in the image window and inside
many panels. When in doubt, right-click.
- Size box: When working with a free-floating image win-
dow, you can drag the bottom-right corner to make the
window bigger or smaller. When working with a tabbed
window, the size box does not function.
- Status bar: The bottom-left corner of each and every
image window sports a status bar that includes a zoom
value, the file size, a preview box, and a pop-up menu of
various preview options. The status bar disappears when
you enter one of the full-screen modes.
- Title tab (or bar): By default, Photoshop CS5 fills the
screen with an image and tops it off with a small tab.
The tab lists the name of the last saved version of the file
on disk. If you haven’t saved the image, it may appear
as Untitled. Click a tab to switch between open images.
Drag a tab and drop it away from the options bar to cre-
ate a free-floating window topped by a title bar. Drag that
title bar onto a tab, or to the top, bottom, or side of the
image area to restore the window to the tabbed treatment.
- Toolbox: The toolbox provides access to Photoshop’s
selection and editing tools, as well as common color con-
trols. Click an icon to select a tool and then use the tool
in the image window. A tool icon with a triangle (◢) in
the bottom-right corner indicates that many tools share
a single slot. Click and hold such an icon to display a
flyout menu of alternates. Or press the Alt (or Option)
key and click an icon to cycle between tools.
Press the Tab key to hide the toolbox, options bar, and
all panels. Press Tab again to bring them back. To hide or
show the panels independently of the toolbox and options
bar, press Shift+Tab. Hover your cursor over the right edge
of the screen to temporarily see the panel when hidden.
Interface and Image Window 9
