Examining the Photoshop Environment

As environments go, the Photoshop working environment is pretty cool: as inviting as a landscaped backyard and not nearly as likely to work you into a sweat. Each of the many tools in Photoshop is custom-designed for a specific chore and chock-full of more options than a Swiss Army knife.
When you’re familiar with your surroundings, you’ll be eager to make like Monet in his garden, surrounded by palettes, brushes, buckets of paint, and swatches of color, ready to tackle the canvas in front of you.

Getting a Warm Welcome

When you launch Photoshop CS for the first time, you’re greeted by Photoshop’s rendition of the friendly neighborhood welcome wagon. The handy Welcome Screen, provides a virtual plethora of goodies for everyone from the beginner to the advanced user. New feature descriptions, tutorials, tips, tricks, and help with setting up color management are all at your fingertips. Don’t worry about exploring every item when you first launch Photoshop. You can call up the Welcome Screen anytime by choosing Help➪Welcome Screen. Some of the information provided is in PDF (Portable Document Format) format, which can be read in Adobe Acrobat Reader (a free download from www.adobe.com). Other information is available through links to the Adobe Web site. There’s even a movie that details all the new features. So grab some popcorn and enjoy.

If you prefer to access the Welcome Screen at your own leisure and don’t want it to appear every time you launch Photoshop, deselect the Show This Dialog at Startup option in the bottom left corner of the Welcome Screen window.