It may not seem like we have covered very much so far, but you may be surprised at what you’ve learned. Let’s review what we have studied in Lesson 1.

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You learned how to find hidden menus and tools when you see a small arrow on a menu, palette, or tool button.

You learned how to identify many of the most commonly used keyboard shortcuts.

You learned how to take advantage of tool tips and hints in the status bar area.

You learned how to open a file.

You learned how to change the foreground and background colors, swap colors, and reset colors to defaults.

You learned how to change screen mode, as well as hide and show the toolbar, palettes, and menu bar.

You learned how to move, arrange, group, hide and show the palettes.

You learned how to access additional palette options through the palette menu.

You learned several ways to zoom in and out of documents.

Let’s review each of the keyboard shortcuts and commands we’ve discussed so far:

Zoom shortcuts:

• No modifier key = click to zoom in; click and drag to zoom into a specific area
• Ctrl-+/Cmd-+ (plus sign) = zoom in
• Double click the Zoom tool = zoom to 100% magnification
• Ctrl-Alt-0/Cmd-Option-0 = zoom to 100% magnification
• Double click the Hand tool = zoom to fit the screen
• Ctrl-0/Cmd-0 = zoom to fit the screen
• Alt/Option with zoom tool = click to zoom out
• Ctrl–/Cmd– (minus sign) = zoom out
• Type any number into the status bar magnifation level display.

Opening a File:

• File > Open
• Ctrl-O/Cmd-O
• Double click the application background (Windows Only)

Screen Mode and Display:

• F = toggles screen modes
• Shift-F = Turns menu bar on and off in full screen modes
• Tab = toggles the toolbox, status bar, and palettes on and off
• Shift-Tab = toggle only the palettes on and off

Palettes:

• Enter or Return = Show/Hide Options Palette (V5.x only)
• Double click tool button = Show/Hide Options Palette (V5.x only)
• F5 = Show/Hide Brushes Palette
• F6 = Show/Hide Color Palette
• F7 = Show/Hide Layers Palette
• F8 = Show/Hide Info Palette
• F9 = Show/Hide Actions Palette

Other Shortcuts:

• D = resets the foreground color to black and background color to white.
• X = swap foreground and background colors.
• M = marquee tool
• Shift-M = toggle rectangular and elliptical marquee tools

Let’s continue our exploration of the Photoshop workspace. There are four main counterparts to the Photoshop workspace: the menu bar, the status bar, the toolbox, and the palettes. All that’s left to cover now are the palettes. Since this is a general overview of the palettes, the materials here are useful for any version of Photoshop. You’ll need to have an image open for this lesson, so go ahead and open one now.

The Palettes

When you first open Photoshop, the palettes are stacked along the right edge of your screen in palette groups. The first group contains the Navigator, Info, and Options palettes. Next is the Color Swatches, and Brushes palettes. Below that are the History and Actions Palettes. Finally, you have the Layers, Channels, and Paths Palettes.

Palette groups can be moved around in the workspace by clicking on the title bar and dragging. Each palette group has a collapse and a close button in the title bar area. Try the collapse button for each of the palette groups now. You’ll notice the button works as a toggle, clicking the button a second time after the palette is collapsed will expand the palette again. You may also notice that some palettes do not completely collapse. Try collapsing the color palettes and you’ll see that the color ramp is still visible.

Color Palette Expanded

Color Palette Partially Collapsed Color Palette Completely Collapsed

For palettes that partially collapse, you can completely collapse them by holding down the Alt/Option key as you press the collapse button. You can also collapse a group by double clicking on any of the palette tabs. To display a collapsed palette, just click once on the palette tab if it’s in the back of the group, or double click if it’s in the front of the group.

Palettes can be resized either by holding your cursor over an edge and dragging when the cursor changes to a double pointing arrow, or by clicking and dragging on the right corner. Only the Color, Options, and Info palettes are not resizable.

When you click the close button on a palette group it closes all the palettes in the group. To display a palette that is not shown, you can either choose the command from the Window Menu, or display the palette using its keyboard shortcut. They are:

• Enter or Return = Show/Hide Options Palette (V5.x only)
• Double click tool button = Show/Hide Options Palette (V5.x only)
• F5 = Show/Hide Brushes Palette
• F6 = Show/Hide Color Palette
• F7 = Show/Hide Layers Palette
• F8 = Show/Hide Info Palette
• F9 = Show/Hide Actions Palette

And don’t forget these which we learned in the last lesson:

• Tab = Show/Hide Toolbar and all Palettes
• Shift-Tab = Show/Hide all Palettes

To bring a grouped palette to the front of the group, click on the palette’s tab. You can also ungroup and rearrange the palettes by clicking on a tab and dragging it outside of the group or to another group. Try it now by dragging the navigator palette out of it’s default group. Then put it back by dragging it back onto the palette group.

Notes for Version 6.0

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In version 6, several palettes can be grouped in one large super-group. To do this, drag a palette to the bottom edge of another palette group. An outline will appear long the bottom edge and then you can let go. Now the two palettes will be attached, but not overlapping. You can attach several palettes this way to create one massive palette collection. Docking two palettes Two palettes that have been docked Also in Photoshop 6.0, you have a palette well in the options bar. You can drag palettes to this area and they will remain there hidden until you click on the palette tab to reveal it. (If you cannot see the palette well of the options bar, you will need to adjust your screen resolution to at least 1024×768 pixels.)

Another common feature of all the palettes is the palette menu. Notice the small arrow in the upper right corner of each palette. If you recall from our lessons on the menu and status bar, this indicates a pop-out menu. Whenever you see me refer to a palette menu throughout these lessons, you’ll know I mean this menu for whichever palette is being discussed. Take a look at the palette menu for each of the palettes now. Notice that each individual palette has a unique menu.

Practice showing, hiding and moving the various palettes, click on the palette tabs to familiarize yourself with each palette, and take a look at each of the palette menus while you’re at it.

If you’d like to return the palettes to the default locations after you finish experimenting, go to File > Preferences > General and click the button to reset Palette Locations. If you always want to start Photoshop with you palettes this way, uncheck the box "Save Palette Locations" box while you are there. If you work with many large images you may prefer to keep your palettes collapsed along the bottom edge of the Photoshop workspace to give you the maximum space for documents. We’ll take a closer look at each of the individual palettes in future lessons.

Let’s continue our exploration of the Photoshop workspace. There are four main counterparts to the Photoshop workspace: the menu bar, the status bar, the toolbox, and the palettes. We’ve already covered the menu bar and the status bar. In this lesson we’ll be learning about the toolbox. Since this is a general overview of the toolbox, the materials here are useful for any version of Photoshop.

The Toolbox
You got a jump start on learning about the zoom tool while we were studying the status bar in the last section. Now let’s explore more of the Photoshop toolbox. If you have the Quick Reference Card that came with Photoshop, it would be a good idea to locate it now. If you cannot locate a copy, Version 6.0 users can find a PDF file of the Quick Reference card on the main level of your Photoshop installation CD. Version 5.x users can find a diagram of the toolbox and all hidden tools on page 25 of the Photoshop 5.0 User Guide.

When you look at the toolbox, notice how some of the buttons have a tiny arrow in the lower right corner. This arrow indicates that other tools are hidden under that tool. To access the other tools, click and hold down on a button and the other tools will pop out. Try this now by clicking on the rectangle marquee tool and changing to the elliptical marquee tool. The hidden marquee tools are shown here.

Now hold your cursor over one of the buttons and you should see a tooltip appear that tells you the name of the tool and its keyboard shortcut. All the marquee tools have a shortcut of M. An easier way to switch between the different hidden tools is to use the keyboard shortcut along with the Shift key modifier. For the marquee tools, the Shift-M combination toggles between the rectangular and elliptical marquee tools. The single row marquee tools are less often used and must be selected from the toolbox flyout. Another shortcut for cycling through the hidden tools is to Alt/Option click on the toolbox button.

Take a few moments now to familiarize yourself with the tool names using the tooltips. Use the shortcuts you’ve just learned to explore all the hidden tools. As you select each tool, note the hints provided in the status bar area for each tool. Don’t worry about using each tool for now; we’ll get to that soon enough. For now, you should just get to know the tool locations and their icons.

Moving down in the toolbox, we come to the color swatches. This is where the foreground and background colors are displayed. The tiny arrow to the top right allows you to swap foreground and background colors. The tiny black and white swatch symbol to the lower left allows you to reset the colors to the default of black foreground and white background. Hold your cursor over those two areas to learn the keyboard shortcuts. To change a color, simply click on either the foreground or background color swatch and select a new color in the color picker. Experiment by changing the foreground and background colors and then resetting them back to defaults.

The next two buttons on the toolbox allow you to toggle between quick mask and selection mode. We’ll learn more about this later in future lessons.

Below that you have a set of three buttons that allow you to change the appearance of the workspace. Hold your cursor over each button to see what it does. Notice the keyboard shortcut for all three is F. Hitting F repeatedly toggles between all three modes. Try it now.

This is a convenient place to mention a few more shortcuts for modifying the workspace appearance. Feel free to try them out as you read. When in either of the full screen modes, you can toggle the menu bar on and off with the Shift-F key combination. In any screen mode you can toggle the toolbox, status bar, and palettes on and off with the Tab key. To hide only palettes and leave the toolbox visible, use Shift-Tab.

The last button on the toolbox is for moving your document to ImageReady. We will not be exploring ImageReady in this course.

Before we move on to the palettes, let’s review what we learned about the toolbox:

1. An arrow indicates a flyout of hidden tools.
2. Each main tool has a single letter keyboard shortcut assigned to it.
3. The Shift key combined with a tool shortcut allows you to toggle the hidden tools.
4. D = resets the foreground color to black and background color to white.
5. X = swap foreground and background colors.
6. F = toggles screen modes
7. Shift-F = Turns menu bar on and off in full screen modes
8. Tab = toggles the toolbox, status bar, and palettes on and off
9. Shift-Tab = toggle only the palettes on and off

Let’s continue our exploration of the Photoshop workspace. There are four main counterparts to the Photoshop workspace: the menu bar, the status bar, the toolbox, and the palettes. We looked at the menu bars in the first section. In this lesson we’ll be learning about the status bar.

The Status Bar

Now take a look at the status bar along the bottom edge of the Photoshop workspace. The status bar is often taken for granted or overlooked entirely, but it can be a valuable tool. You’ll need an open document before the status bar will display any information, so let’s open one now.

Go to the File menu and choose Open, locate an image file and open it now. If you don’t have an image file handy, you can find several in the Stockart folder of the Photoshop application CD. Ctrl-O/Cmd-O is the keyboard shortcut to open a file. This is the same shortcut used by most applications, so it should be an easy one to remember. If you are a Windows user, you can quickly open a file by double clicking on the application background. (Since there is no application background on the Mac OS, there is not a Macintosh equivalent to this shortcut.)

To the far left of the status bar you will see the magnification level of the active document. You can swipe your cursor in this area and type in a new number to change the magnification of your document. Go ahead and try it now.

To return your document to 100% magnification, locate the zoom tool in the toolbox and double click the button. The keyboard equivalent to this shortcut is Ctrl-Alt-0/Cmd-Option-0. (We’ll explore more of the toolbar a bit later.)

To the left of the magnification display on the status bar, you will see a display of document sizes. The number on the left displays the uncompressed size of the image if it were to have all layers flattened. The number on the right displays the uncompressed size of the document including all layers and channels. It’s important to know that both of these numbers will usually be larger than the final file size of the saved document. For more on the Document Sizes display, look up Document Sizes option in the online Help file.

Next to the Document sizes display there is a small black arrow that pops up a menu. You’ll find this arrow other places in the Photoshop workspace, so when you see it, remember that there is a menu hiding there. In this case, the menu allows you to change what is displayed in this area of the status bar. In addition to Document Sizes, you can optionally choose to display Scratch Sizes, Efficiency, Timing, or the current tool. You can look up each of these items in Photoshop’s online Help for more information.

Next in the status bar, you can see useful information about the tool you have selected. If you still have the zoom tool selected, your status bar should say "Zoom In" if you are outside of the document area. Move the cursor into the document area and you will see the status bar display instructions for using that tool. Now hold down the Alt/Option key and the status bar will show "Zoom Out" and the cursor will change to a minus sign. Next try the Ctrl/Command key in conjunction with the zoom tool and observe the tips displayed in the status bar. Try the other key combinations such as Ctrl-Shift/Cmd-Shift, or Ctrl-Alt/Cmd-Option while observing the status bar instructions.

Let’s review each of the zoom tool options:
No modifier key = click to zoom in; click and drag to zoom into a specific area
Double click = zoom to 100% magnification
Ctrl-Alt-0/Cmd-Option-0 = zoom to 100% magnification
Alt/Option = click to zoom out
Ctrl/Cmd = temporarily toggles to the move tool

Here are a few more zoom shortcuts we have not yet covered:
Double click the Hand tool = zoom to fit the screen
Ctrl-0/Cmd-0 = zoom to fit the screen
Ctrl-+/Cmd-+ (plus sign) = zoom in
Ctrl–/Cmd– (minus sign) = zoom out

Let’s get started by exploring the basic elements of the Photoshop workspace. There are four main counterparts to the Photoshop workspace: the menu bar, the status bar, the toolbox, and the palettes. In this lesson we’ll be learning about the menu bar.

The Menu Bar

The menu bar consists of nine menus: File, Edit, Image, Layer, Select, Filter, View, Window, and Help. Take a few moments now to look at each of the menus. You may notice that some menu commands are followed by ellipses (…). This indicates a command that is followed by a dialog box where you can enter additional settings. Some menu commands are followed by a right pointing arrow. This indicates a submenu of related commands. As you explore each menu, be sure to take a look at the submenus as well. You’ll also notice that many commands are followed by keyboard shortcuts. Gradually, you’ll want to get to know these keyboard shortcuts as they can be incredible time savers.

As we make our way through this course, we’ll be learning the most useful keyboard shortcuts as we go along.

In addition to the menu bar, Photoshop often has context sensitive menus for accessing some of the most likely commands depending on which tool is selected and where you click. You access the context sensitive menu by right clicking in Windows, or pressing the Control key on a Macintosh.

One of the most convenient contextual menus can be accessed by right clicking/Control clicking on the title bar of a document for quick access to the duplicate command, image and canvas size dialogs, file information, and page setup. If you already know how to open an image, go ahead and try it now. Otherwise, you’ll learn how in the next section.