In this introductory chapter, which has been adapted from The Photoshop Anthology, 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks and Techniques, I’ll cover some of the basic tools and tasks that we’ll draw on in the later chapters. I’ll also share some of the shortcuts and time-savers that I use frequently. This chapter won’t give you an exhaustive review of the many things that Photoshop can do, but it should provide the bare bones that will help get beginners started.

The Photoshop Workspace

Photoshop’s “out of the box” workspace consists of the following components:

• Menu bar – You will probably already be familiar with the menu bar from other programs. This runs across the top of your Photoshop window, and contains various menu options for Photoshop’s tools.
• Options bar – The options bar sits beneath the menu bar and holds contextualized options for different tools. It also contains the workspace menu, where you can save and load arrangements of palettes.
• Toolbox – By default, the toolbox sits to the left of your Photoshop window, and contains shortcuts to Photoshop tools.
• Palettes – Individual “panes” that hold information or options for working with your file, known as palettes (or panels), float on the right-hand side. Each palette is labeled with a tab, and can be minimized, closed, grouped with other palettes, or dragged in and out of a panel dock. In the example that follows, the Navigator palette contains a thumbnail of the image that allows you to zoom in or out of the image quickly, and to change the part of the image displayed on the screen.
• Document windows – Each open document has its own document window with a status bar along the bottom. The status bar sits to the right of the zoom percentage displayed in the bottom left-hand corner, and displays information that’s specific to the document.