The Panels

Along the right side of the screen in Photoshop CS4 is where we find the Panels column (panels were known as palettes in earlier versions of Photoshop). Panels give us access to all kinds of commands and options for working on our images, from organizing layers and viewing individual color channels to choosing colors, stepping back through history states, working with text, viewing information about our images, and so much more. Most of the panels in Photoshop CS4 are the same ones that have been available in earlier versions of Photoshop, but some, like the Adjustments Panel, are brand new to CS4:

By default, only a handful of panels are displayed on the screen to begin with, but you can access any of Photoshop's panels at any time simply by choosing the one you want from the Window menu up in the Menu Bar. A checkmark beside a panel's name means it's already open on the screen. Selecting a panel that's already open will close it. A couple of the panels listed below are available only in the Extended version of Photoshop CS4, but most are available in the Standard version:

To keep things organized and save screen space, most of Photoshop's panels are grouped in with other related panels. This is known as a panel group, if you didn't already guess that on your own. For example, the Layers, Channels and Paths panels are grouped together by default. To select the panel you want from the group, simply click on the panel's name tab at the top:

All panels come with various options and commands that are specific to that panel. You can access these options by clicking on the panel's menu icon in the top right corner. Unfortunately, it's not the most obvious thing on the screen and many Photoshop users don't even know it's there, but you should click on each panel's menu icon to see what options and commands are available for it:

We'll look at all the different ways we can arrange and organize Photoshop CS4's panels in another tutorial.

Workspaces

In the top right corner of the screen is an option that allows us to quickly select from various workspaces, either ones that are built in to Photoshop CS4 or custom workspaces we've created ourselves. Workspaces allow us to set up different panel arrangements, menus and even keyboard shortcuts for different tasks. For example, you may want certain panels open when editing images and other panels open when painting with Photoshop's brushes or when working with type. Workspaces allow us to set up the screen any way we want, save it, and then quickly select it again any time we need it! Photoshop CS4 comes with several built in workspaces. The Essentials workspace is selected by default but you can access the complete list of available workspaces, including any custom ones you've created, by clicking on the word Essentials and selecting a new workspace from the list that appears:

The Document Window

The largest and most obvious interface element in Photoshop is the document window. The document window is where we view our images and where we do all of our editing work:

Document windows in Photoshop do much more though than simply display the image. They also tell us quite a few things about the image. At the top of the document window, you'll find the name of the image, followed by the current zoom level, the color mode, and the current bit depth:

You'll find even more information at the bottom of the document window. In the bottom left corner is the zoom level once again, followed by the current file size of the image, which includes the size with all layers intact and the size if you were to flatten the image. If you click on the right-pointing arrow, then choose Show, you'll see a whole list of details about the image you can view, including the document dimensions, color profile, and even which tool you currently have selected from the Tools panel:

We'll round out our tour of Photoshop CS4's interface with a look at the brand new Application Frame next!

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