Photoshop CS4 Workspace

If you are just beginning to learn Photoshop, you are in for such a treat! Photoshop is incredibly fun, not to mention that knowing how to use it is very powerful job skill.

This lesson is based on Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended, but you should be able to follow along with CS3 (and some earlier versions.) Let’s begin our very first Photoshop lesson by navigating the diverse neighborhood of the Photoshop workspace.

Learning Goals

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to:

• find and identify by name the main parts of the default Photoshop workspace
• access the various built-in workspaces in CS4
• change how Photoshop displays your workspace
• show, hide, rearrange and resize panels
• save a workspace that you have customized for your own needs
• arrange multiple images on the screen

Before We Begin this Photoshop Course

To complete this Photoshop course, you will need a basic understanding of how to save files on your computer and navigate to them later. You should be able to recognize what types of files are image files (e.g. .jpg, .gif, .png). You should know how to double-click and click-and-drag with your mouse, and to right-click (or Shift+click on the Mac). You should also have some familiarity with the location of the command keys on your keyboard (Esc, Tab, Shift, Ctrl/Cmd, Alt/Opt, Backspace, Delete, and the arrow keys.)

We will be using some keyboard shortcuts to speed up our work flow. I will write these keyboard commands with the PC combination first and then the Mac combination in parentheses, like this: Ctrl+S (Mac: Cmd+S). The plus (+) sign means “press at the same time.” I will indicate menu commands with a > in the middle instead of a +. For example, Window > Layers means open the Window menu and select the Layers menu item.

The method for opening the Photoshop program will vary depend on your computer. On the Mac, you will usually find the Photoshop icon within the Applications folder in the Finder. On a PC, you can hunt it down in the Start Menu: go to All Programs, click on your Adobe folder, and select Photoshop.

Okay, so get Photoshop running, and let’s get going!

Workspace Overview

Once Photoshop is finished loading, go to the File menu and select Open (File > Open). Navigate to a picture somewhere on your computer and click OK. It doesn’t matter what the picture is. We just want to play around with the workspace today. Also, don’t worry if we make all kinds of hideous changes in the work space. We can always go back to the original settings. The nice folks at Adobe are always looking for ways to let us play around without fear of ruining stuff.

I’ve opened up a photo my husband took recently. Check out all the stuff surrounding the picture.

Photoshop Workspace

1. Application Bar. The Application Bar includes menus that give you access to Photoshop’s commands and features. Items on the Application Bar can also allow you to make things visible or invisible like panels and guides, or to rearrange your workspace.
2. Control Panel. The Control Panel allows allows you to adjust the settings for the tool that is currently selected in the Tools Panel. For example, if you have the Text tool selected, the Control Panel allows you to change the font type and size, as well as the text color and alignment. In earlier versions of Photoshop, the Control panel is called the Options bar.
3. Document Tab. Each open image has a tab in CS4. Document Tabs work like tabs in other programs. They allow you to easily switch between open Photoshop files simply by clicking on the tab. The document tab shows you the file name and some other useful data (in earlier Photoshop versions, the same data is displayed in the title bar.)
4. Image Window. This is the area in which your image lives. Sometimes your image fills the image window, and sometimes it has a gray pasteboard surrounding it, as you see here.
5. Tools Panel. The Tools Panel contains tools that let you interact directly with your Photoshop files. Some of the tools have a small black triangle at the bottom-right. Click and hold down on one of these tools, and you will see the fly-out menu which contains related tools. For example, the fly-out menu for the Gradient Tool also contains the Paint Bucket tool.
6. Workspace Switcher. The Workspace Switcher (CS4 only) allows you quickly change the workspace for different needs. For example, if you have CS4 and your workspace doesn’t resemble mine, click on the Workspace Switcher and choose ESSENTIALS from the drop down menu. The Switcher also allows you to save a workspace you have created for yourself. We will look at this in greater detail during this lesson.
7. Panels. Photoshop panels give you even more options for your tools beyond the Control Panel. They can also allow you to choose colors and styles, undo many steps, see important information about your files, and do more complex editing involving layers, paths and channels. There are many other types of panels too.

Next: Built-In Workspaces