panel layout in Photoshop CS6
rob marshall
Registered Users Posts: 224 Major grins
Why do all Photoshop tutorial videos show the panels on the right of the screen? I loaded CS6 this week and thought I'd change them to the left. Why? Because I'm right handed and I tend to sit more to the left of the screen, which means I have to squint across to the right side of my wide monitor to see the edit panels. I have successfully set up a profile with the panels on the left, and find it much easier to use (see below). I thought it better to have all panels together, rather than the tool panel on one side, and all the other panels on the other side. Why have them on opposite sides of the screen, especially when the tool bar is so narrow anyway?
The screen grab is of my entire monitor area. I set up a new workspace profile and moved and docked the panels on the left, including the tool panel. I set up a properties panel with all the other panels (actions, swatches etc) inside it so I can quickly access them on fly-out just by clicking them on/off (see example in the screen grab).
With the panels on the left the document window (with the image in) will be partly covered with the newly positioned panels. So, you have to move the left edge of the doc window across to the right so it sits just next to the right edge of the properties panels. If you have a wide screen (mine is 24in) then you still have lots of room for editing. I've been using this layout for a few days, and it's a huge improvement over what I was using before.
The actions menu is shown in fly-out mode just to show what it looks like. Normally it would be collapsed in the properties panel like the others shown. You can adjust the size of all the fly-out panels by dragging them out.
If you want the user interface font larger you just need to go to preferences (CTRL/K in Photoshop) and select Interface. Change the UI font size to medium or large (large is better) to get a much more comfortab;e view. You need to restart Photoshop to see the changes.
Finally, on appearance of panels - if you have a problem seeing the font previews clearly as they are so small, you can select TYPE/FONT PREVIEW SIZE from the menu and select a larger size, which makes it much more readable. See below.
and that looks like this...
The screen grab is of my entire monitor area. I set up a new workspace profile and moved and docked the panels on the left, including the tool panel. I set up a properties panel with all the other panels (actions, swatches etc) inside it so I can quickly access them on fly-out just by clicking them on/off (see example in the screen grab).
With the panels on the left the document window (with the image in) will be partly covered with the newly positioned panels. So, you have to move the left edge of the doc window across to the right so it sits just next to the right edge of the properties panels. If you have a wide screen (mine is 24in) then you still have lots of room for editing. I've been using this layout for a few days, and it's a huge improvement over what I was using before.
The actions menu is shown in fly-out mode just to show what it looks like. Normally it would be collapsed in the properties panel like the others shown. You can adjust the size of all the fly-out panels by dragging them out.
If you want the user interface font larger you just need to go to preferences (CTRL/K in Photoshop) and select Interface. Change the UI font size to medium or large (large is better) to get a much more comfortab;e view. You need to restart Photoshop to see the changes.
Finally, on appearance of panels - if you have a problem seeing the font previews clearly as they are so small, you can select TYPE/FONT PREVIEW SIZE from the menu and select a larger size, which makes it much more readable. See below.
and that looks like this...
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