Photoshop Interface

This section provides a brief overview of the Photoshop interface

and describes its commonly-used components.
To open Photoshop, click the blue Photoshop icon in your computer's

dock or taskbar. If you don't find it there, you may have to search your

computer's installed applications to find it.

Photoshop Workspace

The portion of the Photoshop interface that is used to view and edit documents is known as the workspace. A wide variety of windows, tools, and menus (known as panels) can be displayed within the workspace in order to provide quick access to the features needed for a given task.

Pre-Defined Workspace Layouts
Photoshop offers an incredible amount of features and tools, which often causes the workspace to become cluttered quickly. Luckily, Photoshop has pre-defined layouts of panels and menus, known as workspace layouts.
In the menu bar at the top of the screen, select Window > Workspace. Here you can see a full list of all pre-defined workspace layouts available to us, including workspaces made for typography, 3D graphics, and much more.

Select "Essentials" from the menu. This is Photoshop's default interface, and the one we will be using. However, feel free to explore and compare the other workspaces on your own.

Common Interface Components

Photoshop's interface consists of five main areas, labeled below.

• Document Window: The document window displays the file that you are currently working on. If you have multiple files open, each file appears as a tab in the document window.

• Menu Bar: The menu bar contains drop-down menus common to many applications, such as File, Edit, and View, as well as a few that are unique to Photoshop. These menus provide access to nearly all commands and options available in Photoshop. Some commands/options are duplicated within panels, but others are available only through the menu bar.

• Tools Panel: The tools panel contains tools used to create and manipulate artwork. Tools with a triangle in the lower-right corner have additional tools beneath them.

The Document Tab

At the top of the Document window is the document's tab. The tab displays the name and file type of the document ("AdobeStock_145722872.jpeg") and its current zoom level (25%). The tab is also how we switch between document windows when we have more than one image open in Photoshop.

                                                              The Document window tab.

The Zoom Level And Status Bar

In the bottom left of the Document window, we find more information about the image. The current zoom level is displayed, just like it is in the document's tab. And to the right of the zoom level is the Status Bar. By default, the Status Bar displays the color profile of the image. In my case, it's Adobe RGB (1998). Yours may say something different, like sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

                              The document's current zoom level (left) and the Status Bar (right).

Click and hold on the Status Bar to view additional information about the image, like its Width and Height, Resolution, and color information (Channels):

The Status Bar displays more info about the image when you click and hold on it.

You can also change the type of information that the Status Bar displays. Click on the arrow on the right of the Status Bar to open a menu where you can choose to view different details, like Document Sizes (the file size) or Dimensions (the width, height and resolution). I'll leave it set to the default, Document Profile:

                      Use the Status Bar to view many types of information about your document.

The Toolbar

The Toolbar (also known as the Toolbox or the Tools panel) is where Photoshop holds all of its tools. You'll find it along the left of Photoshop's interface. There's tools for making selections, for editing and retouching images, for painting, adding type or shapes to your document, and more:

The Toolbar in Photoshop.

Expanding The Toolbar

By default, the Toolbar appears as a long, single column of tools. Clicking the double-arrows at the top will expand the Toolbar into a shorter, double column. Click the arrows again to return to the single-column layout:

The Toolbar can be viewed as a single (default) or double column.

The Toolbar's Hidden Tools

Photoshop includes lots of tools. In fact, there are many more tools than what we see. Most of the tools in the Toolbar have other tools nested in with them in the same spot. Click and hold on a tool's icon to view a menu of the other tools hiding behind it.

For example, by default, the Rectangular Marquee Tool is selected. It's the second tool from the top. If I click and hold on the Rectangular Marquee Tool's icon, a fly-out menu appears. The menu shows me that the Elliptical Marquee Tool, the Single Row Marquee Tool and the Single Column Marquee Tool can also be selected from that same spot. 

Most of the spots in the Toolbar hold several tools, not just one.

The Options Bar

Directly linked to the Toolbar is Photoshop's Options Bar. The Options Bar displays options for whichever tool we've selected in the Toolbar. You'll find the Options Bar along the top of the interface, just above the document window. Here we see that, because I currently have the Rectangular Marquee Tool selected, the Options Bar is showing options for the Rectangular Marquee Tool:

Options for the selected tool appear in the Options Bar.

If I choose a different tool from the Toolbar, like the Crop Tool:

Selecting the Crop Tool.

Then the options in the Options Bar change. Instead of seeing options for the Rectangular Marquee Tool, we're now seeing options for the Crop Tool:

The Options Bar updates each time a new tool is selected.