Launching Photoshop and Customizing the Desktop

You start Photoshop just as you launch any other program under Windows or the Mac OS. As with other programs, you can choose the method you find the easiest and most convenient.
Here’s a quick summary of your options:

-->Launch from the Windows Start menu. Windows PCs have a handy pop-up Programs menu that includes your most frequently used applications. Just locate the program on the menu and select it.

-->Launch from the Windows taskbar or Macintosh OS X Dock. You may have inserted icons for your really mission-critical programs in these readily accessible launching bars, usually found at the bottom (or sometimes sides) of your screen. Click the Photoshop icon to start.

-->Launch Photoshop by double-clicking a shortcut or alias icon placed on your desktop.

-->Double-click an image file associated with Photoshop. When you installed Photoshop, the setup program let you specify which type of common image file types (.TIF, .PSD, .PCX, and so forth) you wanted to be associated with (or linked to, for launching purposes) Photoshop, ImageReady, or neither (Windows only). Double-clicking an icon, shortcut, or alias representing the file type you chose launches Photoshop.

When you launch Photoshop, the desktop workspace, appears. Like the real-world desktop where your keyboard and monitor reside, the Photoshop desktop is a place for you to put all the documents you’re working with.
The desktop consists of a main window, called the application window if you’re using Windows (and called the document window if you’re using the Mac OS), which takes up the majority of your screen by default. Within the main window, you see a variety of other windows and boxes, such as the image document window that enables you to view and edit images.

The main window contains the stuff you’re probably used to seeing in other programs — a title bar at the top of the window, a status bar at the bottom (unless you have it turned off) if you’re a Windows user, and menus to help you execute commands and get important information about your image files. But the arrangement of controls may be a little unfamiliar to you. Photoshop arranges controls into groups called palettes.

In Windows, borders mark the left and right edges of the Photoshop window — even if the main application window’s contents fill up more than your screen can show.

Your virtual desktop can become as cluttered as the real thing, but Adobe has built in some special features that let you keep stuff close at hand but tuck things away so they’re not constantly underfoot (or undermouse, so to speak). After you’ve arranged your Photoshop desktop just as you like it for a specific project, you can even save the desktop and reuse it whenever you work on that project.

Every document you ever work on appears within the confines of this window and can’t leave its borders. You can move around some other components, such as the various palettes and the Options bar, both inside and outside the Photoshop application window.

Windows users can close, minimize, and restore the main Photoshop window, just as you can with most windows in other programs. Mac users can choose Photoshop➪Hide Photoshop. To display Photoshop again, simply click the icon in the Dock.

The Photoshop window hides one cool secret for Windows users: If you double-click anywhere in the gray empty area, the Open dialog box pops up, so you can navigate to a file you want to work on without wandering up to the File menu, using the Ctrl+O keyboard shortcut, or using File Browser.