Photoshop Preferences

Transcription

1 Photoshop Preferences

2 Photoshop Preferences In this lesson, we re going to take a look at Photoshop s preferences. We re not going to cover every setting within the Preferences dialog. Instead, we re going to look at what might cause the Preferences file to become corrupt, how to reset your preferences, and what kinds of things will be lost when you do reset the preferences (as well as what kinds of things are retained). The Preferences file may become corrupt if: Tool acts oddly. (Try resetting the tool first by right-clicking on its icon on the far left side of the Options Bar.) Photoshop is running very slow. (Check your open hard drive space and quit other apps first.) A feature is acting erratically. (Try turning off the Use Graphics Processor setting within the Performance tab of the Preferences dialog.) Multiple program error messages. Photoshop bombs on a regular basis. Resetting the Preferences (Three methods) Go to the General section within the Preferences dialog and click the Reset Preferences on Quit button. (You will then need to quit and restart Photoshop.) One way of resetting the preferences is to open the Preferences dialog and choose the General category. Then, click the Reset Preferences on Quit button (circled). Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 2

3 At launch, hold down the following keys: Mac: Shift+Option+Command; Win: Shift+Alt+Ctrl Manually delete the file named Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 Prefs.psp Location on Mac: user*/library/preferences/adobephotoshop CC 2019 Settings Location on Win: C:\Users\user*\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Photoshop\*\ Adobe Photoshop Settings\ (Any time you see a * in the above paths, it means that there will be a name that is unique to your machine.) What s Retained After Reset Unsaved Presets (Brushes, Swatches, Gradients, Styles, Patterns, Contours, Shapes, Tool Presets) Actions Workspaces Libraries Camera Raw Preferences (ACR has its own Preferences file.) Bridge Preferences (stored in a different Preferences file) What s lost after reset Preference dialog box settings Unsaved toolbar, menu & keyboard shortcut changes (accomplished via the choices at the bottom of the Edit menu) Tool settings (Found in the Options Bar across the top of the screen) Panel side menu settings (the little menu in the upper right of each panel) Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 3

4 Application menu settings (workspace, keyboard shortcuts, color settings, view settings) Warning dialog settings (font replacement on open, no pixels were selected, converting to smart object, etc.) Preferences settings The Preferences can be found by clicking on the Photoshop menu and choosing Preferences. (In Windows, this will be located under the Edit menu.) Here, I will cover the settings that I would change when starting fresh with a new copy of Photoshop. These will be listed based on the settings category on the left side of the Preferences dialog. General HUD Color Picker I will first choose to view the General category within the Preferences. At the top of the dialog, I will set the HUD Color Picker menu (stands for Heads Up Display) to Hue Wheel. This setting controls what kind of color picker will pop up when we access the color picker using the Brush Tool. With the Brush Tool active, we would hover the cursor over the image window, hold down Ctrl+Option+Command and then click the mouse over the image to bring up this color picker. When the Hue Wheel option was chosen, the color picker will be represented in the form of a wheel. If I had instead chosen the Hue Strip option, the color picker would appear as a vertical color strip. Note that there are three different Hue Wheel options and these will simply give us different sizes of color wheels. I like the wheel option because it easily allows me to see what a color s opposite is. Within the General category, I like to change the HUD Color Picker menu to Hue Wheel instead of Hue Strip. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 4

5 The default setting for the HUD Color Picker is the Hue Strip, which is shown to the left of the dialog. I prefer using one of the Hue Wheel options, and there are three size choices, as you can see above. Disable the Home Screen The other setting I turn on within the General section of the Preferences dialog is the Disable the Home Screen check box. The Home Screen is the window that appears by default when there are no Photoshop documents open. It will show the most recently-opened documents, file settings presets, etc. I personally would rather this screen not appear. When I have no open documents, I prefer to simply view my Photoshop interface. You may prefer to view the Home Screen and if that s the case, leave this check box turned off. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 5

6 Interface UI Font Size The second category of settings that you will find on the left side of the Preferences dialog is Interface. When you click on this category, you will find a UI Font Size setting near the middle of the dialog. UI stands for User Interface, and this setting controls how large the fonts are within all of Photoshop s panels. If you have a retina display, the pixels are so small that the text can become tiny and difficult to read. You can use this setting to make up for it by choosing a larger font size. I like to set this menu to Large and I also turn on the Scale UI to Font check box, which tells Photoshop to scale up the icons and other interface features to match the chosen font size. Above, you can see that the Photoshop interface text looks like with the various Font Size settings. Left to right, you can see the smallest size to the largest size. Display settings You can use Photoshop s font size settings (discussed above) in conjunction with your computer s display settings to fine-tune your workspace to the perfect size. On a Mac, you can access your display settings via the Settings panel (the icon looks like gray gears). If you switch the setting from Default to Display to Scaled, you will get several options for text size. The larger the text Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 6

7 At left, you can see two screen shots of the Settings dialog on a Mac. The top one shows the resolution set to Default for Display and the bottom shows the resolution set to Scaled. When set to Scaled, there are different text options to choose from. size, the less space you will have in the various program interfaces. I find that I can use a smaller text size, and therefore get more space, if I first go into Photoshop s preferences and make the text size larger. This allows me to get more space in the interface (by changing the operating system font size) while keeping the Photoshop fonts at a readable size. Workspace Large Tabs Within the Workspace settings, pay attention to the Large Tabs check box. If this setting is turned on, then the tabs at the top of all the Photoshop panels will be larger and therefore take up more screen real estate. I like to keep this check box turned off so that the tabs don t take up as much space in my interface. If you are working on a tablet where you need to tap on things with your finger, then it could be useful to keep this setting turned on so that the tabs are easier to target. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 7

8 Enable Narrow Options Bar Within the Workspace settings, you will also find the Enable Narrow Options Bar check box. This can get turned on if you are working on a lower resolution screen and will make it so that some of the settings in the Options Bar get reduced down to small icons instead of descriptive text. I like to keep this check box turned off. Here, you can see the settings I use in the Workspace section of the Preferences dialog. I make sure that the Large Tabs check box is turned off and that the Enable Narrow Options Bar is turned off as well. Tools Use Rich Tooltips The Tools category within the Preferences dialog also contains some settings that are good to know about. The Use Rich Tooltips check box is one of them. A Tooltip is an informative box that pops up when you hover your cursor over a tool, letting you know what the tool is. A Rich Tooltip is a larger box that contains pictures (and sometimes animations), describing the particular feature. I find this larger box to be distracting, so I prefer to keep the Use Rich Tooltips check box turned off. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 8

9 Show Reference Point when using Transform When you use the Free Transform command, you will see transform handles appear around the layer or selection you are transforming. In the middle of the transformation rectangle is a little crosshair that you can move around to determine the rotation point. The Tools section of the Preferences dialog contains a setting that allows you to specify whether this center point is visible or not. It is a checkbox called Show Reference Point when using Transform, and I like to keep this turned on. That way, I can see and move (if need be) this little pivot point. The Free Transform command is being used on this shape layer and the Reference Point is circled. The Tools preferences let you decide whether this point should be visible. File Handling Ask Before Saving Layered TIFF Files I always save my layered files in the TIFF format, so I find it irritating if I get a pop-up box every time I Save. This pop-up box would warn you of the larger file size that comes along with layered files. Because of this, I will keep this check box turned off. Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility This menu is located near the bottom of the File Handling settings. This compatibility setting must be turned on in order for your images to be viewable in programs that do not support layers (like Lightroom). When the setting is turned on, Photoshop will save a flattened version of the file that is used within those other programs. Because of this, I keep this menu set to Always so that all of my saved files are viewable in other programs. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 9

10 Scratch Disks Within these settings, you can tell Photoshop which hard drives it can use to store temporary information. An example would be the information that is saved when you use the copy command. Click on the Scratch Disks category and you will see a list of all the hard drives connected to your machine. By default, the top one is the only one with a check mark next to it. If there are other drives that you always have connected to your computer, you can turn on the check boxes to the left of each drive name so that Photoshop may use these as scratch disks. This way, if you ever fill up one of your hard drives, you won t get the message that tells you the scratch disk is full. It will simply use another drive as the scratch disk. You can also use the up and down arrows to the right of the hard drive list to change the order of the hard drives. This way, you can determine which drive should be used first. Personally, I place my fastest hard drive at the top of this list so that Photoshop will use the most efficient drive as the scratch disk. Note that these settings will not take effect until you close Photoshop and restart the program again. We re viewing the Scratch Disks category within Photoshop s Preferences dialog and you can see the list of hard drives connected to the machine. Here, you can determine which drives can be used as scratch disks by toggling the check boxes to the left of the disk names. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 10

11 Cursors Full Size Brush Tip By default, the round brush tip that you see when the Brush Tool is active shows you the halfway point between where the brush will paint at 100% opacity and where it will paint at 50% opacity. In other words, it represents the half-way point of the fade-out. If you turn on this Full Size Brush Tip check box, the brush tip will instead show the entirety of the area that will be affected (even the outer area that will be almost transparent). The brush tip will also appear larger if you turn this setting on. This is just a matter of personal preference. I recommend trying the Brush Tool both with this setting on and with it off so that you can decide which you like better. Plug-Ins Show All Filter Gallery Groups and Names The Filter Gallery can be accessed via the Filter menu and it contains dozens of creative effects that you can apply to your images. If you turn on this check box (Show All Filter Gallery Groups and Names) within the Plug-Ins category of the Preferences dialog, then all of the Filter Gallery filters will also be listed in the regular Filter menu at the top of the screen. I like to keep this setting turned on because it makes it easier to tell what filters have been applied to a smart object. When you apply a filter to a smart object, that filter will be listed below the smart object layer name in the Layers panel. If you accessed the filter from within the Filter Gallery, then it will simply be listed as Filter Gallery. If, instead, you added the filter from the Filter menu, then the actual name of the filter will be listed. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 11

12 Tool settings to think about after resetting the Preferences After resetting your Preferences, there will be inevitably be settings that you need to customize again. Let s look at a few. The Move Tool When the Move Tool is active, the Auto-Select Layer feature will be turned on by default. When this setting is turned on, any time you click within your document, the layer directly beneath your cursor will become active. I find this to be irritating, so I ll turn this check box off. Know that you can keep this setting turned off but still access the feature temporarily while you are using the Move Tool. To temporarily activate the Auto-Select Layer feature, hold down the Command key (Ctrl on Win) while clicking on the thing within your document that you want to target. Release the Command key and the Auto-Select feature turns off again. Retouching Tools Each one of the retouching tools has a setting that allows you to determine which layers the tool can work with. When the Spot Healing Brush is active, this setting will be the Sample All Layers check box that is located within the Options Bar above the image window. If this check box is turned off, then the tool can only work on the layer that is currently active. I like to keep this check box turned on so that I can complete my retouch work on an empty layer. This will allow the tool to sample from underlying layers while applying the retouching on the empty layer. With the Healing Brush and the Clone Stamp Tools, the setting to look for is the Sample menu, also located within the Options Bar. I will set this menu to All Layers or to Current & Below, which will include the empty layer I m doing the retouch work on as well as all of the layers beneath it. If you want the retouching tools to sample from layers other than the active one, you ll need to change a setting in the Options Bar. For the Spot Healing Brush (above), turn on the Sample All Layers check box. For the Clone Stamp Tool & Healing Brush (left), set the Sample menu to Current & Below. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 12

13 The Quick Selection Tool When the Quick Selection Tool is active, you will find an Auto Enhance check box within the Options Bar. Turning this check box on will give you a smoother result when you re finished making your selection. It may slow the tool down a bit, but I find that it s usually worth it. The Crop Tool Any time you use the Crop Tool, you will have the choice of what to do with the areas that appear outside of the crop rectangle. When you hit Enter/Return to lock in the crop, the areas outside of the crop rectangle can either be saved or deleted. The Delete Cropped Pixels check box can be found within the Options Bar and, when this setting is turned on, the areas outside of the crop rectangle will be deleted. I like to keep this setting turned off so that I m not permanently cropping my images. If you keep this setting turned off and then crop your image, there are two ways to un-crop it to bring back the hidden content. You can either re-activate the Crop Tool and drag the crop handles outward or you can click on the Image menu at the top of the screen and choose to Reveal All. The Eyedropper Tool When the Eyedropper Tool is active, there will be a Sample Size menu in the Options Bar and this menu is set to Point Sample by default. This means that when you click on your image using the Eyedropper, it is going to target the color of the exact pixel that you clicked on. This can be problematic if you have a lot of color noise in your image. If you use this menu to choose a slightly larger sample size, it is going to look at the average color of the area around the point where you click. I like to set this to either 3 by 3 average or 5 by 5 average. If the sample size is 3 by 3, then it s going to look at the 3 by 3 grid of pixels beneath your cursor and use an average of those pixels in determining the color. Note that this setting affects more than just the Eyedropper Tool. It will also affect how a selection is made with the Magic Wand Tool and it will affect the eyedroppers that are located within the Levels and Curves adjustments. The Pen Tool When I use the Pen Tool to make a selection or a shape around something, I will click to add a point wherever there is a transition from one kind of curve to another. After dragging out one or more segments using the Pen Tool, I will hold down the Command key (Ctrl on Win) while clicking and dragging on one of the lines in order to fine-tune its position. When the Command key is held down, Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 13

14 it is actually temporarily targeting either the Path Selection Tool or the Direct Selection Tool and there is an important setting relating to these. When either the Direct Selection Tool or the Path Selection Tool is active, there will be a Constrain Path Dragging check box in the Options Bar. If this setting is turned off when you click and drag on the line of a path, it will be able to change both the length of the handle lines AND the angle of the handle lines. If you turn on the Constrain Path Dragging check box, then when you drag on one of the path lines, it will only be able to change the length of the path handles and not the angle. I actually prefer this, so I will keep this turned on. In both screen shots above, we are holding down the Option key (Alt on Win) while clicking on the line of the path in order to fine-tune its position. At left, the Constrain Path Dragging check box is turned off and you can see that the angle of the path handles is changing. At right, the Constrain Path Dragging setting is turned on. As a result, the length of the path is changing but the angle is staying the same. Panel settings to think about after resetting the Preferences All of Photoshop s panels have a little menu in the top right corner of the panel. These menus contain a lot of options that will be changed back to their default settings when you reset Photoshop s preferences. There are some that you ll want to pay attention to because you might want to change them. When I refer to a panel menu, I m talking about the little menu in the top right corner of each panel. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 14

15 The following are settings that I would personally change after resetting my preferences. Note that if any of these panels are not visible on your screen, you can access them via the Window menu. The Info Panel I like the Info panel to be small so that I can leave it open on my screen while I adjust my images. By default, there is some extra information visible in the panel that makes it take up more room. Click on the little menu in the top right corner of the panel and choose Panel Options. A dialog box will pop up and there will be a series of check boxes on the bottom half. These check boxes all represent different pieces of information that can be listed in the panel. I like to turn all of these check boxes off so that I am only viewing the number values within the Info panel. This makes it so the panel can be as small as possible. FAR LEFT: The Info Panel Options contain a series of check boxes that allow you to specify what info you want shown in the panel. DIRECTLY LEFT: You can see the difference in the panel when we have some of the check boxes turned on (top) vs. turned off (bottom). Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 15

16 The Properties Panel The Properties panel will change depending on what s currently active in your Layers panel. If you have certain adjustment layers active, there will be a little hand icon within the Properties panel. If this targeted adjustment setting is turned on, then you can click and drag within your image to target the color or tone that you clicked on. I like to have this setting on by default. You can specify that this setting stay on by clicking on the little side menu in the top right corner of the panel and choosing Auto-Select Targeted Adjustment Tool. If you would like the Targeted Adjustment Tool (circled) to be active by default, turn on the setting in the panel menu, shown above. The Actions Panel When you click on the side menu for the Actions Panel, there are a lot of options and there is one in particular that you should be aware of. By default, the Allow Tool Recording option is turned off. This means that certain tools (like the Brush Tool) will not be recorded within the action. I like to turn this setting on so that all tools will be recorded with my actions. You can tell that one of the options is turned on because it will have a little check box to the left of its name. The Layers Panel Click on the side menu for the Layers panel and, if you scroll down far enough, you will find Panel Options. Click on this to call up the Panel Options dialog for the Layers panel. Here, you can choose the size of the layer thumbnails that will show up in the panel. At the bottom of the dialog are three check boxes. I like to turn off the Use Default Masks on Fill Layers check box. The Solid Color, Pattern Overlay and Gradient Overlay adjustment layers are the ones that would be considered to be Fill Layers and I prefer that these do not include a layer mask by default. This is obviously a personal preference. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 16

17 At left are the settings for the Layers panel. By default, the name of every effect will appear expanded below the layer name (top right). If you turn off the Expand New Effects check box, the list of effects will be collapsed (bottom right). If you add a layer effect (drop shadow, bevel & emboss, outer glow, etc.), the name of the effect will be listed below the name of the layer you re applying them to within the Layers panel. You can click on a little triangle next to the layer name if you would like to collapse down the list of effects. If you do this, you would simply see the letters FX to the right of the layer name, indicating that there are layer styles added. I like to have the list of effects collapsed down automatically, and you can specify this by turning off the Expand New Effects check box near the bottom of the Layers Panel Options dialog. I also like to turn off the Add copy to Copied Layers and Groups check box. This tells Photoshop not to add the word copy to the end of the layer name when you duplicate a layer. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 17

18 The Paragraph Panel Within the Paragraph panel, one of the settings I like to keep on is called Roman Hanging Punctuation and it can be found within the side menu. You can use the Text Tool to click and drag in order to define a box within your document. Then, when you start typing, it automatically wraps your text into multiple lines. When you turn on this Roman Hanging Punctuation setting, it will allow certain punctuation marks (commas, quotations, etc.) to extend beyond the boundaries of that box and this tends to make the text look better. Another setting I like to turn on within the Paragraph panel menu is the Every-line Composer setting. This will tell Photoshop to think about all of the lines of text (not just one line isolated by itself) when the text wraps from one line to another. This means that it can decide to make the first line break differently based on the way the last line breaks. The Color Panel By default, the Color panel is set to the Hue Cube, which gives us a vertical gradient bar where we can choose a particular color. I prefer to view the Color Panel as a Color Wheel, and you can specify this using the side menu. Note that the Color Wheel option will only be available in the most recent versions of Photoshop. Again, I like the Color Wheel because it allows me to better see what a color s opposite is. By default, the Color panel is set to display a Hue Cube, shown at left. I like to use the side menu to change the display to a Color Wheel, shown at right. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 18

19 The Histogram Using the side menu in the Histogram panel, I like to choose the Expanded View. (It is set to the Compact View by default.) This gives me a better view of the histogram. The Expanded view also includes the Channel menu at the top of the chart, which allows you to determine what information the histogram is showing. When you choose the Expanded View, you will be allowed to display certain information below the bar chart and you can turn this on by choosing the Show Statistics setting that is also located in that side menu. The History Panel The History Options panel can be accessed via the side menu in the History panel and it contains some important settings. There is an entire Masters Academy lesson dedicated to the History Panel, so we won t go into detail here, but I like to turn on the following check boxes: Automatically Create First Snapshot, Allow Non-Linear History, Make Layer Visibility Changes Undoable, Automatically Create New Snapshot when Saving. Above, I am changing the Histogram menu from Compact View to Expanded View. Tool Preset Menu The far left side of the Options Bar contains an icon for the tool that is currently active. If you click on the little down-pointing arrow to the right of the tool icon, you will get a menu that shows all of the tool s presets. At the bottom of this menu is a Current Tool Only check box and it is on by default. This means that the menu is only showing the presets for the current tool. If you turn this check box off, the menu will show a list of presets for all tools. It is a personal preference as to whether you want to view the presets for your active tool or for all the tools. If the check box at the bottom of the Tool Preset menu is turned on, it will only list presets for the active tool. If it s turned off, it will list presets for all the tools. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 19

20 Application menu settings The Application Menu is the menu that runs along the top of your screen. When you reset your Preferences, all of the items in this menu will go back to their default settings. Let s look at the settings I would change from the defaults after resetting the Preferences. Application Frame In earlier versions of Photoshop, all of the interface elements (including the image windows), used to be contained in their own floating window. There was no main box containing all of the elements, and you could look behind the various elements to see your computer s desktop or any other programs you had open. Now, Photoshop has what we call the Application Frame, which contains all of the interface elements and has a solid background that prevents you from seeing other programs you have open on your computer. The Application Frame is a feature that can be turned on TOP: The Application Frame is turned on. DIRECTLY ABOVE: The Application Frame is turned off and you can see through Photoshop s interface to the desktop. by going to the Window menu and choosing Application Frame. You can tell that it s on because there will be a little check box to the left of its name. Know that if you reset your preferences, this feature may get turned off, drastically changing the look of your interface. Turn it on again via the Window menu. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 20

21 Smart Guides When you re moving something around in your Photoshop document, you may find that it s trying to snap to other elements in the document (the document edge, another layer, etc.) This is Smart Guides in action. It can be really useful or really annoying, so it s a personal preference whether you want this feature turned on. Turn Smart Guides on and off by going to the main menu and choosing View > Show > Smart Guides. Color Settings The Color Settings dialog is where you choose the default color space that is used when you create a brand new document. You can access the Color Settings dialog via the Edit menu. When you reset your preferences, all of the color settings that you changed will go back to their defaults and that is probably not what you want. In order to save the Color Settings so that you can retrieve them again later, open the Color Settings dialog and click on the Save The Color Settings dialog is shown above. After you save your color settings, they will appear in the Settings menu that is expanded here. button on the right side. You will be prompted to give the file a name and click Save. (Note that you should save the file in the location that Photoshop automatically navigates you to in your Finder.) Now, you can quickly switch back to these settings in the future by clicking on the Settings menu at the very top of the Color Settings dialog and choosing the file you just named and saved. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 21

22 Keyboard Shortcuts, Menus & Toolbar These are all groups of settings where, if you customized them, those custom settings would be lost when you reset your preferences. In order to keep your settings, you may want to save them first. Let s look at Keyboard Shortcuts. Click on the Edit menu, scroll down to the bottom and choose Keyboard Shortcuts. The Keyboard Shortcuts dialog will appear and this is where you can create any custom shortcuts. In order to save your custom settings, click on the little hard drive icon on the right side of the dialog. You ll be prompted to give the group of settings a name and then click Save. Then, you can access those settings you saved via the Set menu in the top right corner of the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. One of the keyboard shortcuts I always change is the shortcut to quit Photoshop. If you scroll down in the Shortcuts list and expand the menu items found under the Photoshop menu, you ll find that the Quit Photoshop CC shortcut is set to Command+Q. I find that it is way to easy to use this shortcut by accident, so I simply highlight the shortcut in the list and then hit the Delete key to remove the shortcut entirely. When you use the keyboard shortcut Command+H for the first time, Photoshop will ask you whether you d like this shortcut to be used to hide Photoshop or to hide Extras (things like selection edges). I will tell it to use the shortcut to hide Extras, and then I will go into the Keyboard Shortcut dialog and scroll down to expand the Photoshop menu items. Here I will set the Hide Photoshop CC command to use the keyboard shortcut Control+Option+H. This way, I have one shortcut for hiding the Extras, and another shortcut for hiding Photoshop itself. Note that this command is exclusive to Mac. The Keyboard Shortcut Settings are shown above. To save your current set of shortcuts, click the hard drive icon (circled). Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 22

23 Within the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog, you can also change the shortcuts for the menu items that appear within the side menus for the individual panels in Photoshop. Get to these by setting the Shortcuts For menu at the top of the dialog to Panel Menus. The panel that I use shortcuts for the most is the Clone Source panel. I ll expand the Clone Source item in the panel list to see all of the individual menu items. The one item I always change is the Reset Transform command, which resets the scaling and rotation of the clone source content. This does not have a shortcut by default, so you can assign one here if you feel it would be useful for you. Panel Positions When you reset your preferences, all of the panels in Photoshop will reset to their default positions. Personally, I customize the placement of my panels to optimize my workflow and I do not want to use the default positions. If this is the case for you, you can save the positions of your panels in what s known as a Workspace. To create a new Workspace, either click on the Workspace icon near the right side of the Options Bar or click on the Window menu and choose Workspace. Both of these methods will give you the same options and you ll want to choose New Workspace. The New Workspace dialog will appear and this is where you can give the new workspace a name. You can also specify that the workspace include any custom keyboard shortcuts, menus and Toolbar. Then, the new workspace will be available in the Workspace menu on the right side of the Options Bar or by clicking on the Window menu and choosing Workspace. In the New Workspace dialog, you can name the workspace and use the check boxes to specify that the workspace include Keyboard Shortcuts, Menus and the Toolbar. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 23

24 Warning Screens Warning Screen preferences will also be lost when you reset the preferences. These are little pop-up boxes that appear when Photoshop wants to make you aware of something relating to a command you re using. Some of these include a Don t show again check box, and if you turned that on, you may need to do so again after resetting the preferences. Restart Photoshop after saving preferences After you have saved all of your preferences and settings to the way that you like them, you will need to restart Photoshop in order for all of the settings to take effect. It is only when you quit Photoshop that your Preferences file is saved and updated. The Preferences File and Folder Let s look at how to access the actual Preference file. Open the Finder, navigate to your Users folder, choose your user name and then and then choose Library. On a Mac, you might not see the Library item and that s because it might be hidden from you. You can still access it by clicking on the Go menu at the top of the screen, holding down the Option key and then choosing Library. It s the Option key that will make the Library menu item visible. Within the Library folder, scroll down to the choice called Preferences and double-click on it to open it. Here, you will find a folder called Adobe Photoshop CC (date) Settings. This is your Preferences folder. Open it and you ll find many files inside. The following file is the one that is thrown away when you reset your preferences: Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 Prefs.psp It might be a good idea to back up this file so that if your preferences file ever becomes corrupt, you can restore it using the backed-up file. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 24

25 Looking inside the Adobe Photoshop Settings folder, you will see many other files that may be useful to back up or even copy to another machine in order to transfer a group of settings from one copy of Photoshop to another. You can also look inside the files, as many of them are simply made up of text. To do this, it s a good idea to work with a copy of the file so that you re not changing the original. I like to copy the file to my desktop and then work with the copy. On a Mac, you can hold down the Option key and then drag a file to copy and move it. When you do this, you are moving a copy of the file, while leaving the original in place. Working with the copy, change the file extension at the end of the file name to.txt. Then, you can open it in any regular text editor. At left, we re looking inside the Photoshop Settings folder. This is where you will find many other preset files that you may want to back up. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 25

26 The Presets Folder There is another file that is good to be aware of and that can be found by going back to the Library folder and choosing Application Support and then clicking on the Folder called Adobe. Here, you will find the folder called Adobe Photoshop CC Within this folder, you ll find the Presets folder. Any time you can save something in Photoshop as a preset, it is being saved as a little file on your hard drive and those files are stored here. Therefore, if you ever want to copy over your preferences and presets from one machine to another, you ll not only want to copy the Preferences file, but you ll want to copy this Presets folder as well. Photoshop Preferences Ben Willmore, All rights reserved 26