Photoshop: Workspace Overview

Workspace overview

You create and manipulate your documents and files using various elements such as panels, bars, and windows. Any arrangement of these elements is called a workspace. When you first start an Adobe Creative Suite component, you see the default workspace, which you can customize for the tasks you perform there. For instance, you can create one workspace for editing and another for viewing, save them, and switch between them as you work.

You can restore the default workspace at any time by choosing the default option on the Window > Workspace menu.

Although default workspaces vary across Flash, Illustrator, InCopy, InDesign, and Photoshop, you manipulate the elements much the same way in all of them. The Photoshop default workspace is typical:

• The menu bar across the top organizes commands under menus.
• The Tools panel (called the Tools palette in Photoshop) contains tools for creating and editing images, artwork, page elements, and so on. Related tools are grouped together.

• The Control panel (called the options bar in Photoshop) displays options for the currently selected tool. (Flash has no Control panel.)

• The Document window (called the Stage in Flash) displays the file you're working on.

• Panels (called palettes in Photoshop) help you monitor and modify your work. Examples include the Timeline in Flash and the Layers palette in Photoshop. Certain panels are displayed by default, but you can add any panel by selecting it from the Window menu. Many panels have menus with panel-specific options. Panels can be grouped, stacked, or docked.

Customize the workspace

Move panels
• As you move panels, you see blue highlighted drop zones, areas where you can move the panel. For example, you can move a panel up or down in a dock by dragging it to the narrow blue drop zone above or below another panel. If you drag to an area that is not a drop zone, the panel floats freely in the workspace.

• To move a panel, drag it by its tab.

• To move a panel group or a stack of free-floating panels, drag the title bar.

• Press Ctrl (Windows) or Control (Mac OS) while moving a panel to prevent it from docking.

Add and remove docks and panels

• If you remove all panels from a dock, the dock disappears. You can create new docks by moving panels to drop zones next to existing docks or at the edges of the workspace.

• To remove a panel, click its close icon (the X at the upper-right corner of the tab), or deselect it from the Window menu.

• To add a panel, select it from the Window menu and dock it wherever you wish.

Manipulate panel groups

• To move a panel into a group, drag the panel's tab to the highlighted drop zone at the top of the group.

• To rearrange panels in a group, drag a panel's tab to a new location in the group.

• To remove a panel from a group so that it floats freely, drag the panel by its tab outside the group.

• To make a panel appear at the front of its group, click its tab.

• To move grouped panels together, drag their title bar (above the tabs).

Stack free-floating panels

When you drag a panel out of its dock but not into a drop zone, the panel floats freely, allowing you to position it anywhere in the workspace. Panels may also float in the workspace when first selected from the Window menu. You can stack free-floating panels or panel groups together so that they move as a unit when you drag the topmost title bar. (Panels that are part of a dock cannot be stacked or moved as a unit in this way.)

• To stack free-floating panels, drag a panel by its tab to the drop zone at the bottom of another panel.

• To change the stacking order, drag a panel up or down by its tab.

• Note: Be sure to release the tab over the narrow drop zone between panels, rather than the broad drop zone in a title bar.

• To remove a panel or panel group from the stack, so that it floats by itself, drag it out by its tab or title bar.