Photoshop
Interface
General Preferences
Preferences are accessed by going to Edit > Preferences (Photoshop > Preferences). This will open a secondary menu (shown here) and you can choose which preferences you want. Note that some preferences will not take effect until the program is re-launched.
The preferences are categorized as follows:
- General
- Interface
- File Handling
- Performance
- Cursors
- Transparency & Gamut
- Units & Rulers
- Guides, Grid & Slices (Guides, Grid, Slices & Count in Photoshop CS3)
- Plug-Ins
- Type
- 3D (Photoshop CS5 Extended)
General Preferences
This dialog box is used to set overall preferences for the operation of the program. You can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-K (Cmd-K) to open the General preferences dialog.
View a full-sized version of the General preferences or the CS3 version.
All of the preferences can be accessed from within the same dialog box using the Prev and Next buttons to scroll through the various preferences. They can also be selected directly by clicking the preference name from the list in the pane on the left.
To find out additional information about the various preference options, hold your mouse over the option for a second and a tool tip will appear with a description of the option as shown below.
- Colour Picker
- This menu allows the user to choose which dialog will open when colour swatches are clicked on. The choices are Adobe, Windows, or Apple Macintosh. Often it is useful to use the Windows/Apple colour picker as other applications use it exclusively, so colour matching between Photoshop and another application is much easier. For most purposes however, you will want to leave this set to the Adobe colour picker.
- HUD Colour Picker (CS5)
- The Heads Up Display (HUD) colour picker lets you select colours while painting. Your computer needs to be equipped with OpenGL. For more information the HUD colour picker or OpenGL, please see the Photoshop CS5 Help file or check the Links page for this chapter.
- Image Interpolation
- This menu controls the interpolation method used when changing the size/resolution of an image. The default setting is Bicubic.
- Nearest Neighbor - preserve hard edges (lowest quality)
- Bilinear - medium speed and quality (medium quality)
- Bicubic - best for smooth gradients (highest quality)
- Bicubic Smoother - best for image enlargement (high quality)
- Bicubic Sharper - best for image reduction (high quality)
- UI Font Size (CS3)
- This option allows you to change the size of the font used throughout the Photoshop user interface (UI) in places like panels but excluding the menus. If you are using a high screen resolution (as some people like to do when using programs like Photoshop), the fonts can sometimes be a little hard to read. This allows you to have some control over the size of these fonts. This option has been moved to the Interface preferences in later versions of Photoshop.
- Automatically Launch Bridge (CS3)
- Checking this option will open Adobe Bridge in the background when you start up Photoshop.
- Auto-Update Open Documents
- This option will update files open in Photoshop when they are edited in another application or by another user working in the same document.
- Beep When Done
- When this option is checked, the computer will beep when it has finished performing a task. This is useful when doing very complex, time-consuming tasks, but can be annoying for faster tasks.
- Dynamic Colour Sliders
- When checked, this option causes the colour swatch in the Colours panel or colour picker to dynamically update as the slider is adjusted. This can slow down the operation of the application, but most people prefer this option to be active.
- Export Clipboard
- This function, when selected, causes the clipboard to be exported to the operating system clipboard so the content can then be pasted into other applications.
- Use Shift Key for Tool Switch
- Clicking on this will enable you to use the Shift key to toggle between tools and their subsets.
- Resize Image During Place (Resize Image During Paste/Place in CS3 and CS4)
- This option will resize an image to fit during a paste/place procedure.
- Animated Zoom (CS4, CS5)
- When enabled, holding down the left mouse button while using the Zoom tool will continuously zoom in on an image. Your computer must have OpenGL to enable this feature.
- Zoom Resizes Windows
- This option will automatically resize a window when you change the image's magnification. The window must be floating in order for this to work.
- Zoom With Scroll Wheel
- This option will allow images to be zoomed in or out if you use the mouse's scroll wheel. If you have this option selected, you will no longer be able to move up and down with the scroll wheel as you would normally. Some people find this to be a very useful function of Photoshop.
- Zoom Clicked Point to Center (CS4 and CS5)
- When you use the Zoom tool to click in an image document with this option enabled, the point you clicked on moves to the centre of the document window.
- Enable Flick Panning
- This enables an action performed with the Hand tool when OpenGL is also enabled. If you want to scroll an image in a document window, click and flick (drag briefly) then release the mouse button. The image will continue to scroll briefly.
- Place or Drag Raster Images as Smart Objects (CS5)
- Enabling this option allows you to convert raster images into Smart Objects which we will be covering later in the course. This option requires a great deal of processing power so enabling it might cause your computer operations to slow down.
- History Log
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Enabling the History Log lets you keep track of the changes you've made to an image. The log data can be stored in the following ways:
- Metadata stores the history inside the image document itself but it increases the file size.
- Text File stores the history inside a separate text file.
- Both stores the history as both metadata and text.
- The Session Only option records only the date and time of your edits.
- The Concise option stores the text data that appears in the History panel as well as the date and time.
- The Detailed option also records the commands that were used to edit the file.
- Reset All Warning Dialogs
- When clicked, this button will reset all dialog boxes so that the default message, "Do not show me this dialog box again" will be displayed.
General Preferences Summary
- There are several sets of preferences that affect how different areas of the Photoshop program operate:
- General
- Interface
- File Handling
- Performance
- Cursors
- Transparency & Gamut
- Units & Rulers
- Guides, Grid & Slices (Guides, Grid, Slices & Count in Photoshop CS3)
- Plug-Ins
- Type
- 3D (Photoshop CS5 Extended)
- General Preferences set options for the overall operation of the program.
- Colour Picker sets the type of colour picker for choosing colours.
- HUD Colour Picker (CS5) lets you choose colours while you're painting.
- Image Interpolation sets the default interpolation method when resizing images or changing their resolution.
- UI Font Size (CS3) provide options for displaying the font size in the interface.
- Automatically Launch Bridge (CS3) will launch Adobe Bridge in the background each time you start Photoshop.
- Auto-Update Open Documents will automatically update open documents when they are modified outside of Photoshop.
- Beep When Done causes Photoshop to beep at the end of every task it performs.
- Dynamic Colour Sliders updates the colour swatch dynamically while the sliders are being moved.
- Export Clipboard saves copied content to the operating system clipboard for use in other applications.
- Use Shift Key for Tool Switch allows you to cycle through tool variations when used with the tool's keyboard shortcut.
- Resize Image During Place (Resize Image During Paste/Place in CS3 and CS4) will scale down a pasted or placed image if the target document is smaller than the document being pasted/placed.
- Animated Zoom (CS4, CS5) enables a continuous zoom effect when using the Zoom tool.
- Zoom Resizes Windows causes a floating window to scale when zooming in or out.
- Zoom With Scroll Wheel lets you zoom in and out using the mouse scroll wheel.
- Zoom Clicked Point to Center (CS4 and CS5) will centre the point clicked on in the document window.
- Enable Flick Panning allows you to flick the image with the Hand tool for animated scrolling.
- Place or Drag Raster Images as Smart Objects (CS5) let you convert a raster image to a Smart Object.
- History Log enables you to save document editing history as image metadata or in a separate text file, or both. It also allows you to specify how much detail to store.
- Reset All Warning Dialogs will re-activate the default message, "Do not show me this dialog box again" in all applicable dialogs.
General Preferences Keyboard Shortcuts:
- Open General Preferences: Ctrl-K (Cmd-K)
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