Chapter 5: Setting Up Photoshop
Chapter 5: Setting Up Photoshop
Overview
Before
any job, there is always preparation. Let s say you are going to change the oil in your car. Before you crawl under it and loosen the plug, you ll need to move the car to an appropriate location ”
The point is, you need to choose the right workspace and prepare it with all of the things you need before you begin the job. In the case of Photoshop CS, that means setting up the program to run at its optimal level, customizing the interface to best suit your needs, and choosing the best
This chapter will describe:
-
Modifying settings and preferences
-
Allocating memory
-
Utilizing the Preset Manager
-
Calibrating the monitor
Modifying Photoshop s Settings
Photoshop s settings control how the program appears and behaves. On the Mac, settings are stored in files, folders, and directories with
When you launch Photoshop for the first time, a set of
preferences
is created. These are the factory default settings. Any changes you make in the appearance or the behavior of the program are recorded in the preferences file. After a work session, when you quit the program, these preferences are stored so that the
Restoring Preferences
If Photoshop starts behaving unpredictably or
| Note |
I recommend that as you begin each of the Hands On projects in this book, you discard your prefs file and restart Photoshop to create a clean set of options. This will make working through the exercises easier. |
To restore your preferences, follow these steps:
-
Double-click the Photoshop program icon to launch the program.
-
Immediately after double-clicking, press Shift-Option-
on a Macintosh or Shift-Alt-Ctrl on Windows.
-
A dialog box asks whether you want to discard the Photoshop s Settings file, as in Figure 5.1. Click Yes, and the program continues to launch.
Figure 5.1:
The Discard Photoshop Settings dialog box
After Photoshop has launched in the Windows version, another dialog box appears