Photoshop’s greatest strength is that has tools for every job, and the greatest challenge using it is finding and using the handful of tools you actually need. There are tools for making drawings, vector art, websites, videos, 3D graphics, image analysis, card templates, layouts/mockups, and dozens of other applications you probably don’t use. Photographers only need a handful of tools, and you can make Photoshop significantly easier to use and understand by customizing it to your needs. In this tutorial, you’ll learn tricks to help both new and advanced Photoshop users.

The Photoshop user interface has several key elements, each of which offer various ways to make important tools more prominent and hide the remaining clutter:

Panels:

• Individual panels are launched via the Window menu (for panels that come with Photoshop), the Plugins menu (for newer UXP plugins) or via Window / Extensions (for legacy UXP plugins). Note that some 3rd-party panel-like elements (such as the Nik Collection 7 palette) are launched via File / Automate.
• Important panels can be moved to key locations (floating or docked at the right, bottom, or left), resized as desired, grouped for easy access, and customized via their flyout menus
• Other panels can be hidden, minimized to a icon, or moved to a secondary monitor.
• Panels can be resized by clicking and dragging the bottom or left edge (some panels have a fixed or minimum size).
• Panels may be closed by right-clicking the tab name to choose to close the panel (or its group). You can also use the Window menu when the panel is open, but it’s less convenient.
• Panels may be docked on the left or right to form a column:
  • This is the easiest way to manage panels (faster to show/hide, resize, and minimizes clutter).
  • When clicking and dragging panels to move them, you’ll see a blue line anywhere you can dock (or group) the panel.
  • You can easily change how height is allocated by either dragging the separating edge or double-click a tab name to collapse a panel / group.
  • The entire column may be minimized to icons.
    • This frees up a lot of space for items you only need occasionally – especially if you want a tall panel (such as for history) or the panel height varies a lot (such as properties).
    • You may show one panel at a time from the same column.
    • If a panel is opened from a minimized to an icon and you enable “Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels” (right-click a panel tab or go to prefs / workspace), that panel will collapse back to the icon anytime you change layers or use a tool. Most people probably won’t like this option.
    • You can expand it to view all the panels as needed (via << at top right), drag it wider to see names by the icons, or click an icon to pop open on that one panel.
  • When placing panels in a column, watch out for interactions in height with panels that have a fixed size (such as info) or that may need different heights (properties).
    • The properties panel often works well in a column minimized to icons, this lets you hide it when not needed and the variable height won’t matter.
    • Alternatively, variable height panels may be a good time to use floating instead of docked.
  • Note that panels may also be docked at the bottom
    • This isn’t often useful as most panels are designed to be narrow and cannot be docked side by side in a row.
    • There are a couple panels which work well at the bottom: the Timeline (for video) or potentially the Actions panel (if using “button mode”).
  • When you don’t have a clear reason to use floating, docking is usually best. It is less cluttered, won’t block your view of the image, and can easily be hidden temporarily with the shortcuts below (<tab> or <F>).
• Panels may be floating
  • This is what happens if you drag a panel and do not see a blue indicator when you release the mouse.
  • Floating panels are not as visually clean as docked. They can block your view of part of the image, and often will if you zoom in or fit the image to the screen. They also do not move out of the way if you resize  However, they can also maximize the image area (as you do not have to dedicate an entire column to them).
  • On MacOS, floating panels are hidden anytime Photoshop is not the foreground app.
  • Floating may be a better choice than docked when:
    • Moving panels to a secondary monitor (it’s the only option there).
    • When you need to keep a panel or two continuously visible and you do not want to create another column.
    • For panels you seldom use and would generally rather close than minimize to an icon (brush settings, paragraph/character).
• Panels may grouped (to tabs):
  • This is supported for both floating and docked panels.
  • Just drag one panel’s tab onto another. You can click and drag the tabs to reorder them.
  • You can easily minimize all of them by double-clicking the tab title.
  • You can move all of them as a group by clicking and dragging the top bar, or pull a panel out of a group by clicking and dragging the tab name.
  • If you open a panel which was in a group (when last used), the entire group is opened. So it may be ideal to group related panels (such as character/paragraph for text work).
  • Groups are a good choice for:
    • Saving space. You can put more panels into a column this way, and you can quickly minimize a group by double-clicking any of the tabs in it to free up more space for another panel (such as layers).
    • Occasional access without having an icon panel pop out over your image.
    • Plugins (which tend to be focused on a workflow, or may have multiple panels for the same product) or if you want.

Contextual Task Bar:

• Launched via Window / Contextual Task Bar
• This will show a set of dynamic options that are shown automatically based on things you might want to do for the currently active layer.
• You cannot dock it, and it will automatically center itself under the active layer or selection (which is probably easiest, but you may click … and choose “pin bar position”).

Tools:

• Important tools can be put in any order you like.
• You can group related tools to make the toolbar visually simpler to navigate
  • Click and hold to see all options in the group, or use <shift> and the tool shortcut to cycle through (such as shift-W to cycle through quick select, magic wand, etc).
  • Grouping can reduce clutter by putting similar tools together, but should probably only be used for obviously related tools (so you know where to look for hidden tools)
• Other tools can be stashed away under “extras” (…)
• The entire toolbar can be moved to a secondary monitor
• Go to Edit / Tool to configure the details
• The toolbar itself can also be set to 1 or 2 columns, and dragged anywhere on screen. The default (single column docked at left) is probably best.
• The tool options (Window / Options) for the active tool may be moved or hidden, but this is generally not a good idea (they cannot be docked anywhere but the top)

Menus:

• Important items can be set to any of 11 different colors.
• Options you don’t need can be completely hidden
• See this tutorial for more info: Simplifying Photoshop with Custom Menus

Workspaces:

• The configuration of all the above (panels, the task bar, tools, and menus) can all be saved into custom workspaces via the icon at top-right of Photoshop (or via Window / Workspace). Panel size/location is always saved in a workspace, but menu / tool setup is optional.
• This lets you quickly change between different configurations, or share the same configuration with other users / computers. This may be helpful for different kinds of work (where you need different tools/layout), but is probably not something most photographers need.
• Any changes you make are associated with the active workspace. If you toggle to another space and come back, you’ll return to where you left things – but may get back to the last saved version by using “reset _____”.
• There is no direct option to update the defaults for a saved configuration, you just overwrite it. So if you need to update a workspace (so that you can reset to a known setup), use the “new workspace option” and type in the same name (it is not case sensitive).
• You can delete any of the workspaces (you cannot delete the active workspace, so change to something else first).

You can also temporarily hide the above elements through a couple of options:

• <tab> will toggle all visible tools and panels
  • If you have enabled check “Auto-Show Hidden Panels” (right-click a panel tab or go to prefs / workspace), the tools and panels can be revealed by moving the mouse over the grey bars at far left/right. I find it easier to just click <tab> when you need these.
• <F> will cycle through screen modes: standard (everything), full screen with most options (document tabs and bottom info are hidden), and full screen (nothing but the image).
  • If you are on MacOS and enable Prefs / Workspace / Enable Native Full Screen, clicking <F> will not cycle through those three options. It will open in a separate full screen space and clicking F will just toggle the top menu bar. It also prevents the potential for using Photoshop on less than the entire screen. You probably don’t want this option.

Other options to customize:

• There are endless options under Edit / Preferences in the first four tabs (general, interface, workspace, and tools)
• Right click the canvas (area outside an image) and you may change its color.

Recommended configurations:

If you have Lumenzia, it has a feature to automatically optimize PS prefs, tools, menus, and the workspace (panel layout). Just go to Lumenzia’s flyout menu (top-right four bars icon) and click on Utilities / Optimize. It’s designed to give you choice, so you control which improvements it does or does not make. Note: some people decide they don’t like the colored menus it offers, and you can always revert via Edit / Menus and choose “Photoshop defaults” in the set dropdown.

If you do not have Lumenzia, I recommend the following manual setup for photographers:

• Try to avoid floating panels / toolbar:
  • They can be confusing as they will disappear anytime Photoshop is not the foreground app.
  • They can cover the vertical scroll bars or obscure other panels if not positioned carefully.
  • They seem to have some glitches / bugs (panels may jump when resized, you may not be able to resize without detaching adjacent columns first)
  • They generally don’t save enough space to be worth it unless you have a very large monitor or use a secondary monitor.
• Create an open, docked column of panels for the most important panels.
  • This should include Layers by itself, a group with important 3rd-party plugins you use, and probably a group with Info / Histogram / Navigator. This creates easy and reliable access to the most important panels.
• Create a collapsed, dock column for panels which are very tall or have variable height, such as History, Actions, and Properties.
• If you put the minimized icons on the left, any expanded panels will cover up part of your image.
• If you put the minimized icons right of the open column, the expanded columns will not cover your image.
  • This may be a bit visually confusing (make the temporary panels wider makes it less confusing).
  • Clicking on any other panel will collapse the open one, so you save the time / trouble of minimizing them.
• Leave the tools docked on the left and organize them as you like via Edit / Toolbar. It’s probably best to hide tools you will never use like slice, count, pattern stamp, etc.
• You may the toolbar and panels to a secondary monitor if you have one (which could include a laptop screen when connected to a monitor, or an iPad for MacOS users) to see more of the image. Note that these will all be undocked and subject to the concerns above. Additionally, if that monitor is disconnected, the panels may move to a strange location.

There are some panel options which are helpful to free up more space, which is very helpful for a small laptop screen (you’ll have to set these manually even if you have Lumenzia, as there is no support for scripting these settings):

• In the Properties panel flyout, set Filter Options to “hide”. You’re unlikely to benefit from them, so save the space.
• Right-click any thumbnail (other than the background) in the layers panel and choose “small thumbnails“. This allows you to see 2x as many layers in the panel compared to “large”, and lets you read long layer names without making the column wider.
• In the Info panel flyout menu / Panel options, turn off “show tool hints”. This consumes a lot of space without adding much value.
• Un-check PS prefs / Workspace / Large Tabs.