Floating An Image Into A Separate Document Window

To separate an image from the rest of the tabbed documents in Photoshop CS4 and have it float on screen in its own document window, there's a couple of ways to do it. The quickest way is to simply click on the image's tab and drag it down and away from the other tabs. When you release your mouse button, the image will appear in its own document window:

The other way is to click on the image's tab to select it, then go up to the Window menu at the top of the screen, choose Arrange, and then choose Float in Window:

Floating All Images Into Separate Document Windows

If you want to get rid of the tabs completely and have all open images floating in separate document windows, go up to the Window menu, choose Arrange, and then choose Float All in Windows:

Move An Image Back Into The Tabbed Group

To move a single image back into the group, click anywhere in the gray title bar at the top of its document window and drag it back into the tabs. When you see a blue highlight border appear, release your mouse button and the image will drop back in with the rest of the tabbed documents:

Group All Floating Document Windows Into Tabs

If you have more than one image floating in a separate document window and you want to quickly group them all back into tabbed documents, go up to the Window menu, choose Arrange, and then choose Consolidate All to Tabs. You can use this option to regroup a single floating document as well:

Close A Single Tabbed Window

To close a single image inside the tabbed group, click on the small x on the far right of the image's tab:

Close All Tabbed Document Windows

To close all tabbed document windows at once, go up to the File menu in the Menu Bar and choose Close All:

Disabling The Tabbed Document Windows Feature

If you prefer the old way of working in Photoshop with each image floating in its own document window, you can disable the new tabbed document windows feature from inside Photoshop CS4's Preferences. On a Mac, go up to the Photoshop menu, choose Preferences, and then choose Interface. On a Windows system, go up to the Edit menu, choose Preferences, and then choose Interface. This brings up the Preferences dialog box set to the Interface options. Here, you'll find a section called Panels & Documents. To disable the tabbed document windows feature, simply uncheck the bottom two options, Open Documents as Tabs and Enable Floating Document Window Docking:

Click OK when you're done to accept the changes and exit out of the dialog box. To enable the tabbed document windows feature at any time, simply return to the Preferences and select those two options again. To quickly bring up Photoshop's Preferences, press Ctrl+K (Win) / Command+K (Mac), then select Interface from the menu on the left of the dialog box.

And there we have it! That's our look at the brand new tabbed document windows feature in Photoshop CS4!

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