Photoshop® CS4 All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 5. Customizing Your Workspace and Preferences

In This Chapter

• Saving your workspace as a preset

• Customizing keyboard shortcuts and menus

• Defining preferences in Photoshop

• Managing settings with the Preset Manager

Now, more than ever, Photoshop lets you have it your way without having to make a trip down to the local burger shack. You can easily customize the look of your workspace, specifying everything from the location of panels to the arrangement of dialog boxes when you begin a session. You can even store these physical layouts and recall them anytime you like. And, in addition to customizing your keyboard shortcuts, you can also customize your menus to highlight certain workflow commands.

Photoshop also makes it easy to choose how certain tools and features operate. You can choose how the cursors for tools such as brushes look, tell Photoshop your preferred way of storing files, and specify just how much memory you want to set aside for image editing. You can set all these preferences once and then forget them, or you can change them from time to time when your needs change. This chapter shows you how to customize your workspace and preferences so that Photoshop works your way.

Creating Workspace Presets

Photoshop is a complicated program; the more you learn, the more complicated (and routine) your activities become. For one project, you may find yourself using the Styles panel ...