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Learn To Install Photoshop Actions Into PS CS-CS5+ The Best Way

Learn to Install Photoshop Actions the Easiest and Best Way

There are many ways to install Photoshop actions into Photoshop. While there is not a wrong way, there is one method that helps them “stick” better. We often get support questions asking, “What happened to my actions? They vanished from the actions palette.” The most common reason for this is using the “double click” installation method, where you literally click on the .atn file and it opens in Photoshop. I do not know why it has this imperfection. Most people love this method since it takes the least effort, up front anyway.
A better, more reliable way to install actions into the full versions of Photoshop is the following:

Save the actions you want to install on your computer. You can create a folder on your desktop and name it “actions” or move them to another easy to find location.
If this file says .zip, you need to use unzipping software to unzip it. Just do a quick Google search if you do not have any software for this purpose. It is often free. Once unzipped, you will see a file with the extension .atn. This is the important file. Make sure to back up your actions file on an external hard drive or DVD. This way if you lose it due to hard drive failure or if Photoshop has problems, you can quickly reinstall.
Open Photoshop.
Make sure your “actions” palette is open. If not, go to WINDOW – ACTIONS.
In the actions palette, navigate your way to the top right corner, and click on the lines. This will initiate a drop down box.
Next, click on “load actions” in the drop down menu.
Now navigate your way to where you saved the .atn file on your computer. Highlight the action you wish to install. Then click “open.”
Your actions will now appear in the actions palette and are ready to be used. If you want to practice before buying any, download some of our free Photoshop actions today.

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Easy Photoshop Techniques to Make Your Pictures Pop!

Duplicate your picture layer by dragging the layer to the ‘new’ icon in the layers palette (ctrl+j).
Photoshop Techniques

Apply a gaussian blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur…). Blur it enough that the detail disappears but the shapes mostly keep their form.
Photoshop Techniques Overlay

In the layers palette, change the blending mode from ‘Normal’ to ‘Overlay.’
Photoshop Techniques Overlay

If you look at the before and after, you can see that this method makes the light tones lighter and the dark tones darker while softening it a touch. Basically, it softly boosts the contrast. If you want a more dramatic effect, try changing the blending mode to ‘Vivid Light’ instead of ‘Overlay.’
Try it on all kinds of shots: portraits, nature shots, you name it. I use this method ALL the time. It works so well with everything!

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Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions

So, you want to convert your photos to stunning black and white versions? If that’s true then you are in the right place. Photoshop offers a wide variety of tools for performing black and white conversions. Some are obvious – like the black and white adjustment layer – and others are more obscure.

Black And White Adjustment Layer

Let’s begin with the most obvious one: Black And White Adjustment Layer. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Black & White. Tweak the available sliders to your liking.

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 1

You can see here before and after:

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 2

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 3

Gradient Map Adjustment Layer

Another way to convert to B&W is the Gradient Map Adjustment Layer. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map and choose a black to white gradient.

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 4

You can see here before and after:

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 5

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 6

Bonus tip. For a more dark and contrasted look duplicate the Gradient Map Adjustment Layer (Ctrl + J) and change it’s blending mode to Soft Light. Here’s how it looks:

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Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer

Channel Mixe Adjustment Layer is another way to go. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer and check Monochrome. Play with the Red, Green and Blue sliders to achieve the effect you want. I went for some really blown out Highlights.

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 8

You can see here before and after:

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 9

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 10

Desaturate

Another option for converting photos to black and white is the simple Photoshop command Desaturate. Press Ctrl + Shift + U and your image will be converted to a grayscale version. This is the simplest way but it is the least flexible and it doesn’t look so great.
You can see here before and after:

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 11

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 12

Lab color mode

Maybe the most obscure way to convert a color image to a black and white version is by using the Lab color mode. To do this choose Image > Mode > Lab Color. After that discard the color channels by selecting Image > Mode > Grayscale.
You can see here before and after:

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Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 14

Learn complex/advanced techniques

Those were some simple techniques for converting to black and white. Let me share with you some of the more complex/advanced techniques.
One thing you can do after you’ve done one of the conversions above is to add a monotone, duotone or tritone effect.
One of the simplest and obvious ways to achieve this is to first convert a image to Grayscale (Image > Mode > Grayscale) and afterwards choose Image > Mode > Duotone. The options window is pretty self-explanatory so I won’t be covering it.
The way I like to do it involves Blending Modes and Solid Color Adjustment layer. It allows for more unexpected and beautiful results than with the Duotone command. Here’s how to do it:
First convert the image to black and white using one of the techniques from above. Afterwards add one, two or three Solid Color Adjustment layers. Use a different color for each. Now start changing their blending modes. Good blending modes for this kind of toning are Overlay, Soft Light, Color and Color Dodge.
Here’s some of what I made using the City picture from above (after converting it to black and white):
A dark/blue Solid Color with the blending mode set to Overlay:

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A dark red Solid Color with the Color Dodge Blending Mode and a dark blue Solid Color with the Color Blending Mode for a duotone effect:

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 16

Another advanced technique is to simply go through the image Channels (channels hold information about image color and luminosity) by holding Ctrl and pressing 3,4 or 5. Once you find a channel you like press Ctrl + C to copy, create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and paste it (Ctrl + V).
You can see here before and after:

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 17

Convert your Photos to Stunning Black and White Versions 18

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Photoshop Interface Explained Part 2

Now let’s move to the 3 vertical “Bars” (Tools Panel, Image Window and Docked Panels) of the Photoshop interface.

Vertical Bars

But the thing is that they are not really bars, I used this term so you better understand the overall picture. But what are they then? Well, imagine all the area below the 3 horizontal bars as a sticky area (a glued area that is) or a sticky box. You can stick the Image window, the Tools Panel and the Docked Panel to this area but you can also “unstick” them. Once they are “unstuck” they are floating above the sticky area and you can move them freely. After you stick them to the sticky area however they remain still and cannot be moved.
Take a look at the image below.

You can see that the Tools Panel, the Image window and the Docked Panels float above the sticky area and I can move them freely. To move these around click on the highlighted black box area area and drag. Also note that the Image Window can only be stuck to the upper sticky area and the Tools and Docked Panels can only be stuck to the either the left or right side of the sticky area.
Now let’s try something crazy and stick the Docked Panels to the left side of the sticky area. Simply click on the highlighted area than while holding on click drag it to right side until a blue vertical line appears. Release and voila, we stuck the Docked Panels to the left side.

Try to move the Image Window over the Docked Panels and you will see that it stays above the Docked Panels area but below the Tools Panels. That is because the Docked Panels are stuck to the sticky area while the Image Window is floating over the top. But why is the tools panel above the Image Window? Well that is because the image window has a lower priority than the tools panels (it is more important to have access all the time to the Tools Panel).

In the image below you can see that I stuck the Tools Panel to the right and the Image Window to the upper part of the sticky area.

Docked Panels

In the image above you can see a panel group. Layers panel, Channels panel and Paths panel are grouped together. If you want to ungroup let’s say Layers panel then simply click and drag the tab then release. You can see the results below.

Now let’s say I want to put the Layers Panel in the group with the Adjustments panel and Masks panel. Click the upper dark grey bar (but not the buttons on the far righ ) then drag until near the Adjustments panel. If you see a blue box line surrounding the group then release and the Layers panel will be now in the group with the Adjustments and Masks panel. If a horizontal blue bar appears then you have put the Layers panel in between the 2 groups. You can also change the order of the panels in a group by simply dragging their tabbed names to the left or right.

The best way to get the hang of it is to experiment. Go ahead, drag and drop panels and panels groups, stick them to each other or to the right part of the sticky are. Really, go crazy with them! You can always choose Window > Workspaces > Reset “Workspace Name” to make it nice and clean again.
Ok, a few more things about Docked Panels. The little 2 arrows button which points to the right is the Expand Panels button and the same button but with the arrows pointing left is the Collapse Panels button. A collapsed panel is an iconic representation of the panel and it is used to save some space. If you click on one of the icons representing a panel you will open that panel in “full mode”. If you click anywhere else on the image window or another panel the panel you opened previously remains opened. But if you want the iconic panel to go back to it’s initial state after you click somewhere else then right click somewhere in the panel’s upper gray bar and choose “Auto Collapse Iconic Panels”.

Tools Panel

The collapse button behaves differently to the tools Panel. If you click on it it will arrange all the tools in a 2 column panel. If you click it again it will return to it’s default 1 column state. Take note that in older versions of Photoshop the 2 column panel is the default and the expand/collapse button is missing. We will analyze the Tools Panel in detail in a future article.

Image Window

Next to image name (Koala.jpg) you can see some other info. “66.7%” is the actual zoom level. “(RGB” is the color mode and “/8#)” is the number of bits per channel or the image mode. Don’t worry too much about this info, you will get to know better what they mean in some later articles. And lastly “ * ” means that the image is not saved. If you save it that asterisk sign will disappear.
Lower, in the status bar (the red box) you can see the same zoom level as above (actually it’s 66.67% and above it is 66.7%. This is because Photoshop has rounded off the number 66.67 to 66.7).
Next to the zoom level you see some info about our image. In this case it is the image size. The number to the left of the slash sign (“/”) is the initial size” 2.25M” and the number to the right of the slash sign is the actual size “2.25M”. Because our image hasn’t been subject to any modifications the initial size and the current size are the same, but if we were to modify our image and add layers and stuff then the actual size would grow considerably. M means megabytes so 2.25 M is 2.25 Megabytes. If we click on the black arrow on the right of the info we will open an options window from where we can select what info is to be displayed. You can check out what the other options do in the manual. Because I use a lot of different images I tend to choose “Document Profiles “ as the default info but for now you can leave it in it’s default state.

Conclusion

Ok, let’s make a quick summary of what we have learned so far. The Photoshop interface is composed of 3 horizontal bars (Application bar, Menu bar, Options bar) and a “sticky area” where the Image window, the Docked panels and the Tools panels live.
The only thing we can change about the upper bars is to make the Application bar smaller so it fits on the same line with the Menu bar and we can select Workspace > Options to make the Options bar disappear. We can also make these bars disappear when in “Full Screen Mode”. That’s it. We cannot drag these bars to the left, right or bottom and we can’t change their size (at least, as far as I know ).
We can float the Image window so it is above the image area and we can move it around as we want. The only place we can stick it back is the upper area.
We can float the Docked panels and the Tools panel as we want, we can move them to the left or right and stick them to the left or right ( but not the upper part ). Also we can ungroup panels from the Docked panels and create our own groups which we can stick and move to the left or to the right.
Remember, if you screw your workspace and you want to go back, simply choose Window > Workspace > Reset “Workspace Name “.
That concludes this Photoshop interface tutorial. I hope you had fun and learned useful stuff. And don’t forget to experiment and make mistakes, as this is the quickest way to learn.

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How to set up Photoshop ( Basics)

Before you start using Photoshop you should set it up properly. Don’t worry if you don’t understand what all the options mean, just follow the guidelines below for starters. With time and extensive use the meaning of all those fancy and (apparently) complex options will fall into place and you will know exactly what you want. You have to start somewhere, right?

General Preferences

Let’s start by going to Edit > Preferences > General (Ctrl+K).

General

Uncheck “export clipboard” and leave the rest as default.

Photoshop Basics: How to set up Photoshop 1

Interface

Here you can also leave as default but you may want to temporarily check “show channels in color” to see them in color and maybe better understand the way RGB channels work. But you will want to uncheck this option eventually because it will make channel evaluation difficult.

Photoshop Basics: How to set up Photoshop 2

File Handling

I usually uncheck “Ask before saving layered TIFF files” because it is annoying to have the warning pop up every time stating that using layers increases file size. I also choose “Never” from “Maximize PSD and PSB file compatibility” popup menu. But if you are using your files across multiple versions of Photoshop or other Adobe Suite products you may want to leave this to “Always” or “Ask”.

Photoshop Basics: How to set up Photoshop 3

Performance

Memory usage
This depends on your available RAM but I usually let Photoshop use 70% of total available memory. This is enough for my system to do multitasking and not choke if I have other apps open simultaneously.
History & Cache
The only thing you should change is “History States”. This option is very important because it determines how many history states you have available when editing a file (that is how many ctrl+Z or steps back you can go). 500 is a fairly right amount but be careful of maxing it out (1000) because it will require more RAM and it will increase your scratch file size (we will get to that next).
Scratch disks
Scratch disks are disks where your scratch files are stored. But what is a scratch file? Well, a scratch file is usually a file on your hard-disk where Photoshop stores history states (remember them from above?), cache levels and other information about your working documents. As you continue to edit your images the scratch file size increases. So you should select as primary scratch disk a fast, large hard-drive (other than the one the operating system is installed). A Solid State Drive would be great, but a defragmented hard-disk with 20+ Gigabytes will be enough for most of your tasks.
GPU Settings
You should definitely check “Enable OpenGL Drawing” if your graphic card allows it. That is, if the option is grayed out you probably don’t have a good enough graphic card or your drivers are missing or they are old in which case you should update your GPU drivers. This is not essential for working with Photoshop but it sure makes navigation and editing smoother and more eye-candy.

Photoshop Basics: How to set up Photoshop 4

Cursors

Painting cursors
Go with the “Full size brush tip option” and check “Show crosshair in Brush Tip” as this increases your precision when painting.
Other cursors
Leave it to “Standard”. You can press Caps Lock to bring up the precise cursor.

Photoshop Basics: How to set up Photoshop 5

Transparency & Gamut

Here you can leave the default settings.

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Units & Rulers

Because I mainly use Photoshop for the Web I set “Rulers” to “pixels”. But if you are working with files for print or other medium you can change the “Rulers” to the other measuring units available. Be aware of the “New Document Preset Resolution” option. You should leave “Print Resolution” at 300 pixel/inch but you can change the “Screen Resolution” to 80 pixels/inch if you are working with images for Web display and raise it up to 250 pixels/inch if you are working with images that will have multiple future destinations ( print, web, video editing etc.).

Photoshop Basics: How to set up Photoshop 7

Guides, Grid & Slices

Here you can leave the default settings.

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Plug-ins

The only notable change you can make here is to check “Additional Plug-Ins Folder” and select your plug-ins folder. How is this going to help you? If you use lots of plug-ins you can install them in different folders ( other than the default plugins folder ) and select only the folder with plug-ins you need that day or that week. The thing is that the fewer the plug-ins, the faster the start-up.

Photoshop Basics: How to set up Photoshop 9

Type

Here you can leave the default settings.

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3D

I don’t use 3D on a regular basis so I can’t give you proper advice about how to set up this effectively, but on the rare occasions that I work with 3D the default setting work just fine.

Photoshop Basics: How to set up Photoshop 11

Color Settings

Color settings is a very important thing to set up right because your entire workflow is affected by it. These settings establish the way Photoshop treats your images so you should be careful and set it up properly. Go to Edit > Color Settings (Ctrl+Shift+K).
The first thing you should do is click the “More options” button which reveals some advanced settings.

Working Spaces
Here you can choose in what color space you will be working. I suggest you leave “Gray” and “Spot” as they are and also leave CMYK at “US Web Coated SWOP v2” unless you have specifications from your printing service. The RGB is set to default at “sRGB IEC61966-2.1” and it should work fine if you edit images only for the web. However, if your images will have multiple future destinations ( video editing, print, etc. ) you should choose either ”Adobe RGB(1998)” or “Pro Photo RGB” color space. What is a color space? Well, when you work in a color space, your image will be displayed using all the colors available in that color space. sRGB is a smaller color space than others, so your image will look less smooth and poorer in color variation than it would look if you have displayed your image on Adobe RGB or Pro Photo RGB because the last two are larger color spaces and thus contain more color nuances. If you are interested in the subject you can check this Wikipedia article. Follow this general rule: If your images are for the Web only than choose sRGB. Otherwise go with AdobeRGB or Pro Photo RGB.
Color Management Policies
Here you set up the way Photoshop treat the profile mismatches and images with missing profiles. My advice is to leave “CMYK” and “Gray” to “Preserve Embedded Profiles” and “RGB” to “Convert to Working RGB”. This setting will convert an image with and existing or missing profile to your working profile ( your working profile will be the color space you selected from the dialog above this one ). Also you should check “Profile Mismatches” “Ask when Opening” and leave the other two options unchecked. This is useful when you are working in a smaller color space and the image you open has a larger color space Because the conversion will discard some color information you should be aware of it when it will happens. As a rule of thumb convert to working RGB only when your working RBG is Adobe RGB or Pro Photo RGB and the image you’re converting has an sRGB or an unknown color profile.
Conversion Options
Leave the “Engine” to “Adobe(ACE)” but if you are working mainly with photos then I recommend that you change the “Intent” to “Perceptual”. This will preserve the color relations in a photo when converting it to another color space and that is important for photography. If you are working only with charts or logos this is not something you want for your pictures.
After you’re done changing the options you should save your settings for future use and for in-between applications color management compatibility. By saving your settings you ensure that the same color settings are applied throughout other Adobe apps (Bridge, Dreamweaver etc).

Those are the basic settings you should set before starting to use Photoshop. You could tweak the keyboard shortcuts and menus (Edit> Keyboard Shortcuts) but if you are a newbie to Photoshop I suggest you leave those unchanged until you are more comfortable with the program and you have developed certain workflows and habits. Try experimenting for yourself and observe how various settings affect your images but always return to the safe options which you know for sure work for you unless you know precisely that you want something else.

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Photoshop Interface Explained Part 1

I remember when I opened Photoshop for the first time I was dazzled by all the buttons, options and tools. It took me some time to get accustomed to the interface and when I was familiar enough with it I modified it so it would meet my specific needs. Don’t worry, I will guide you through the interface so at the end of this article you will have a pretty good understanding of the Photoshop interface.

Take a look at the image below. You can see that there are 3 horizontal bars (Application Bar, Menu Bar, Options Bar) and 3 vertical “bars” (Tools Panel, Image Window, Docked Panels). Ok, the last 3 are not really bars, but let’s call them bars for the sake of explanation. First thing to know is that you cannot modify, move or resize the 3 horizontal upper bars (except for the Application Bar which can be “squeezed” so it fits on the same bar with the Menu Bar, thus gaining us some precious space ) and you can move, resize and modify the 3 vertical “bars” (Tools Panel, Image Window, Docked Panels).

Application Bar

Well, because it is an application bar you can close, minimize or maximize your main application (Photoshop) and you can open other applications by clicking a button (Bridge), change a workspace, change the zoom level, change the screen mode and show extras. I personally find most of the features of the Application Bar useless because I have some better ways to get access to them without taking my eyes from the image I am working on and those ways are keyboard shortcuts. They are a huge time saver and make navigation a breeze. Once you will learn the shortcuts you will find it very clumsy to go back to pushing various buttons so hang on with me as I reveal them to you.

Ok, so the only useful buttons I ever use are (highlighted with red):

Close, Minimize, Maximize. That is when I am lazy and I don’t use the keyboard shortcut for Close ( Ctr+q);
Show more workspaces and options. This is especially useful when you resize the Application bar until it fits on the same line with the Menu Bar (I will show you this feature next);
Workspaces Area. Here you can see what your working space is and the other available workspaces;
Resize button. When you put your mouse over this button a specific drag icon appears and if you drag it to the left you will extend the Workspace Area showing more workspaces. If you drag to the right it will reduce the Workspace Area. Drag it to the maximum extent to the right and the Menu Bar will magically go up to sit on the same line with the Application Bar. Well, not really magically, but once you make enough room Photoshop will do this for you. This feature is great because it will give you some more space to view your image. You can see below how the Application and the Menu Bar on the same line. Try to do this yourself and then leave it this way.

Arrange Documents. This button is useful when you have two or more images opened and you want to see them both in the same window. When you click this button you are presented with a list of self explanatory icons which when clicked arrange your windows one way or another. Below the icons you will see a bunch of commands which perform some tasks.
- “Float all in Windows” will remove the images from their tabbed environment (we will get to this later in the article) and floats them in separate windows;
- “New Window” makes a duplicate of the current window (all the changes you make in one window are automatically applied to the second window. If you want to apply different changes to each window you should use Image > Duplicate or you can click “Create new document from current state” button from the History panel);
- “Actual Pixels” matches the zoom level of the image to the actual resolution of the screen (we will learn about that in a future article);
- “Fit on Screen” modifies the zoom level so the whole image is visible on the screen;
- If you have at least 2 images tiled on the screen and you are zoomed in at let’s say 500% in the first image then “Match Zoom” will zoom the second image at the same level. If you zoomed in in the first image and you are viewing the lower left corner then by pressing “Match Location” than you will be seeing the lower left corner of the second image. “Match Zoom and Location” modifies both the location and the zoom of the second image. When I say first image I mean the active image, or the image on which you are working on. The second image represents the inactive image or the out of focus image. That is you are not actively working or viewing this image. Of course these 3 commands (“Match Zoom”, “Match Location”, “Match Zoom and Location”) work on more than 2 images. Just remember that the image you are working on or viewing is the active image and the rest are inactive (or out of focus) images;

Below you can see “Arrange documents” in action. In this specific case I choose the “Tile all in a grid” icon (second upper icon from left to right).

Ok, now for the less useful ( or less used ) buttons:

Screen Mode. You can use the keyboard shortcut ( F ) to cycle through the 3 screen modes. Standard Screen mode it is as its name suggests the standard, default screen mode.
“Full Screen Mode With Menu Bar” gets rid of the Windows Taskbar (I don’t know the exact behavior on a Mac but I presume it is basically the same), the tabs bar, the status bar and the scroll area.
“Full Screen Mode” gets rid of everything but the image. It usually displays a black background but you can right click and choose a custom background. If you are in “Fullscren mode” and you want to bring up the Tools panel, the Docked panels and the 3 upper bars then press Tab. If you want to bring up just the Docked panels then press Shift+Tab. Also if you go with your mouse near the left or right edge the Tools or the Docked Panels will temporarily appear and disappear when you move your mouse away.
Zoom Level. Here you can select a zoom level. I never used this button because I do all my zooming from the keyboard. I will detail navigation in a future article but here’s the fastest way to zoom around in Photoshop: Hold Ctrl+Space than click and drag. For “zoom in” drag to the right and for “zoom out” drag to the left.
View Extras. Another button I never use. There are faster keyboard shortcuts for the rare occasions that I actually need extras. Or I go to the View menu (on the Menu Bar) and choose my options from there.
Launch Mini Bridge and Launch Bridge. These buttons do exactly what they say: one launches Bridge (Bridge is an application for managing your pictures) and the other launches the Mini Bridge Extensions. Let me be honest and tell you why I almost never use these buttons. I used Bridge in the past and I can say it is a pretty solid photo management software and it works great if you have no more than 1000 pictures. But good luck managing 50000+ pictures in Bridge! It is a slow, tedious and annoying process, with huge loading times and slow reaction times. If you have a huge picture library like me then I warmly recommend Adobe Lightroom. It has most of the features of Bridge and much more. You can do some basic editing to your photos, export your gallery to the web, batch rename-edit-tag your pictures, easily modify keywords etc. But the most important aspect for me it is that it doesn’t choke on a large library of photos like Bridge does.

Menu Bar

This is where you can save any open files, set options, choose panels etc. Take a look at all the menus and try to familiarize yourself with them. Don’t be afraid to experiment and make mistakes because this is the only way you will learn. The ones you should really know about are:

File > Save. Save your files in any of the different formats available. If you are not sure what format to choose go with .psd or .tiff.
File > Save for Web and Devices. Save your files as .png, .jpeg or .gif.
File > Open. Open a file.
File > New. Create a new file.
Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts. Change keyboard shortcuts and menus.
Window > Workspace > Reset Workspace. If you screw your workspace this option will reset it to it’s default state. Also accessible from the “Show More Workspaces and Options” button from the Application Bar. Also note that when you open the “Window” menu you will see some little check marks next to some names. The check marks indicate what panels (or panels groups) are opened. Try it for yourself and check or uncheck panels. Lower down you will see a check mark next to “Options” and “Tools”. Uncheck “Options” to get rid of the Options bar or uncheck “Tools” to get rid of the tools panel. I never use this option because I know a keyboard shortcut for it. While in “Standard Screen Mode” press Tab to get rid of the Tools panel and the Docked Panels or press Shift+Tab to get rid of the Docked Panels only.

Help > Photoshop Help. Don’t be shy to use help when you don’t know something. Use the search bar to find your topics. If you have a poor internet connection then you will do better if you download the help file in .pdf format to have it available all the time. Here’s the link to the .pdf file (CS5). Just let it load then save it to your computer. Also beware that due to the size of the file (40 mb) some old browsers might crash so use a modern (good) browser like Firefox or Opera.

Options Bar

This bar will look different depending on which tool you have active. Here you will find options for the active tool. For example in the image above you can see the brush options because I have selected the brush tool. We will get into more detail in future articles when we will be describing each tool from the tools panel.
Ok, so far we have reviewed the 3 upper horizontal bars. You cannot move them or resize them ( except for the little trick when we squeeze onto the same line the Application and the Menu Bar) and you can only make them disappear when choosing the “Full Screen Mode”. Also you can hide the Options Bar by choosing Window > Options ( choose again to make the Options Bar show ).

On Part 2 we will look at the 3 vertical “Bars” (Tools Panel, Image Window and Docked Panels).