Editing Menus

As Photoshop has developed over the years, its menus have gotten a bit overgrown. The Layer menu alone is now 29 items deep, and that's not counting the commands hidden on its submenus! This incredible range of choices has the unfortunate side effect of overwhelming a casual or beginning user. Part of the reason that so many commands exist is that Photoshop is very good at more than one specialized task; you can use it for print graphics, Web graphics, or pure photography. However, that means that for any given user's needs, entire sections of Photoshop's menus may not apply at all, and may simply be in the way.

As usual, Photoshop provides a way out. You can optimize menus by using the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog box. By optimize, I mean that you can emphasize the menu commands that mean the most to your workflow. You can emphasize your favorite commands either by applying a highlight color to them or by removing the commands you don't need.

To edit Photoshop menus:

1.	Choose Edit > Menus (Figure 2.11). Figure 2.11.
2.	In the Menus tab of the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog box, choose a menu set from the Menu For pop-up menu.
3.	Scroll to locate the menu command you want to edit.
4.	For the command you're editing, click the Visibility column to hide or show the command, or click the Color column to apply a color to the command.
5.	Click the Save icon (the first one to the right of the Set pop-up menu) to save your changes to the current set.
6.	Click the Save New Set icon (second from the left) to create a new set based on the current settings. After you create a new set, you can choose it from the Window > Workspace submenu.

Your menu customizations are as flexible and editable as keyboard shortcuts and palette arrangements, because Photoshop can save a menu configuration as part of a workspace. The built-in workspaces found under the Workspace menu in Photoshop CS2 are examples of workspaces that change only the menus, not the keyboard shortcuts or palettes. To see what I mean, choose Window > Workspace and then choose any of the commands in the menu section, starting with the Automation command in the Workspace submenu. Choose one or two and take a look through the menus to see how they're highlighted. When you want to restore the Photoshop factory default menus, choose Window > Workspace > Reset Menus.

To restore the Photoshop factory default palette locations, choose Window > Workspace > Reset Palette Locations.