Saved Workspaces
Photoshop 7 is filled with
advancements, large and small, to improve
productivity. For some, Saved Workspaces will fall
into the "small" category, but for most of us,
this capability has the potential to be a huge
time saver.
One of my colleagues definitely
counts as a "power user" of Photoshop. He (let's
call him "Bob") produces incredible work at
lightning speed. His brain moves faster than his
Wacom stylus, so any speed advantage he can find,
he takes.
One of Bob's favorite tricks is to
make sure that his Photoshop work environment is
optimized for the task at hand. He even has
different Preferences files for different jobs.
Since the Prefs record the location of each
palette and the current settings for each tool,
swapping files alters the work environment. When
changing from, say, photo retouching to prepress
work, Bob quits Photoshop, changes the Prefs file
in Photoshop's Settings folder, and restarts. When
Photoshop re-opens, his palettes are right where
he needs them, the tools have his preferred
settings, and he's ready to move full-speed into
the next project. Bob swears that this has been
faster and easier than manually changing the
palettes and tools each time. (I think the
re-start is the only time he finds to grab a cup
of coffee....)
Imagine Bob's joy when I told him
about Photoshop 7's capability to save workspaces
and tool presets! No more re-starts to show and
hide certain combinations of palettes. No more
re-starts to produce a specific set of tools
options. (No more re-starts to go grab coffee.
Okay, so Bob's not 100% sure that this is truly a
"good thing.")
Photoshop's preferences have long
been able to remember the last-used arrangement of
palettes. That's still a feature of Photoshop 7 -
when the program is next started, the palettes
return to their most recently used locations on
screen. However, those previous palette positions
may not be appropriate for the next task.
Photoshop and ImageReady now let you to save
multiple palette arrangements and switch among
them through the Window menu.
To save a workspace, simply
arrange the palettes as desired and use the menu
command Window> Workspace> Save Workspace. A
dialog box will give you the opportunity to name
the new saved workspace. The name can be up to 31
characters (and spaces) long.
You can remove unwanted workspaces
from the list using the menu command Window>
Workspace> Delete Workspace. A dialog box opens
that contains a pop-up list of all the saved
workspaces. Select a workspace from the list and
click OK. The pop-up menu also offers the option
of deleting all saved workspaces. Photoshop will
ask you to confirm your decision to delete all
saved workspaces.
So, how valuable can this feature
be? Compare the work environments in these two
screenshots:
One has a palette setup designed
for working with text, the other for color
correction and adjustment. In both cases, it takes
only a few moments to drag the palettes into
position. However, with saved workspaces, it takes
only a single click to switch from one to the
other.
Also consider, if you will,
palette arrangements for working with paths, for
creating Web graphics, for photo retouching. You
don't necessarily need to have the same palettes
available for the different jobs. Rather than
dragging palettes around the screen, and showing
and hiding them with the Window menu, you can save
your basic setups and change among them in a snap.
You can, of course, continue to use the Tab key to
show and hide palettes, and show/hide individual
palettes while working, too.
If you do the same task, all day,
every day, you may need only one palette
arrangement. If, like most of us, you do different
things with Photoshop, then saved workspaces can
become a habit-forming convenience.
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