6-Customizing the workspace

Customizing the workspace


It’s great that Photoshop offers so many ways to control the display and location of
the options bar and its many panels, but it can be time-consuming to drag panels
around the screen so that you can see some panels for certain projects and other
panels for other projects. That’s why Photoshop lets you customize your workspace,
controlling which panels, tools, and menus are available at any time. In fact,
it comes with a few preset workspaces suitable for different types of workflows—
tone and color correction, painting and retouching, and so on. You’ll experiment
with them.

1 Choose Window > Workspace > Painting. If prompted, click Yes to apply the
   workspace.
   If you’ve been experimenting with opening, closing, and moving panels, you’ll
   notice that Photoshop closes some panels, opens others, and stacks them neatly in
   the dock along the right edge of the workspace.
2 Choose Window > Workspace > Photography. If prompted, click Yes to apply
   the workspace. Different panels appear in the dock.

3 Click the Workspace Switcher in the

   options bar, and choose Essentials.
   Photoshop returns to the default
   workspace, which is arranged as you
   left it. (To return the Essentials
   workspace to its original
   configuration, choose Reset
   Essentials from the Workspace
   Switcher menu.)
You can choose workspaces from the Window menu or from the pop-up menu in
the options bar.


For times when presets don’t suit your purposes, you can customize the workspace
to your specific needs. Say, for example, that you do lots of web design, but no digital
video work. You can specify which menu items to display in the workspace.
4 Click the View menu, and choose Pixel Aspect Ratio to see the submenu.

This submenu includes several DV formats that many print and web designers

don’t need to use.

5 Choose Window > Workspace > Keyboard Shortcuts And Menus.

   The Keyboard Shortcuts And Menus dialog box lets you control which application

   and panel menu commands are available, as well as create custom keyboard

   shortcuts for menus, panels, and tools. You can hide commands that you use

   infrequently, or highlight commonly used commands to make them easier to see.

6 Click the Menus tab in the Keyboard Shortcuts And Menus dialog box, and then

   choose Application Menus from the Menu For pop-up menu.

7 Expand the View menu commands by clicking the triangle next to View.

Photoshop displays the View menu commands and subcommands.

8 Scroll down to Pixel Aspect Ratio, and click the eye icon to turn off visibility for

   all of the DV and video formats—there are seven of them, beginning with D1/

   DV NTSC (0.91) and ending with DVCPro HD 1080 (1.5). Photoshop removes

   them from the menu for this workspace.

9 Expand the Image menu commands.

10 Scroll down to the Image > Mode > RGB Color command, and click None in

    the Color column. Choose Red from the pop-up menu to highlight this

    command in red.

11 Click OK to close the Keyboard Shortcuts And Menus dialog box.

12 Choose Image > Mode. RGB Color is now highlighted in red.

13 Choose View > Pixel Aspect Ratio. The DV and video formats are no longer

included in this submenu.

14 To save a workspace, choose Window > Workspace > New Workspace. In the

New Workspace dialog box, give your workspace a name, select the Keyboard

Shortcuts and Menus options, and then click Save.

The custom workspace you save is listed in the Window > Workspace submenu and

in the Workspace Switcher on the options bar.

For now, return to the default workspace configuration.

15 Choose Essentials from the Workspace Switcher on the options bar. Don’t save

     the changes in the current workspace.