Just before the holidays, Adobe did the unexpected and released a public beta of Photoshop CS3. One of the most notable features of the new version is a totally revamped interface. While Adobe has not announced the fact, it is widely expected that this is not just for Photoshop alone but will be the new interface for InDesign CS3 and other members of Adobe Creative Suite 3 as well.
You can still see the familiar Photoshop palettes in the new interface, but the way they are organized is new. They are arranged in vertical “stacks” called docks. You can easily click on the gray strip at the top of a dock to toggle the dock between its expanded view and a contracted view that shows only an icon for each palette. Clicking on a palette’s icon opens that palette. Clicking the icon again (or choosing another palette’s icon) closes it.
You can quickly add palettes to a dock or create new docks. Dragging a palette (or group of palettes) over a dock shows a thin blue drop zone, which indicates where the the palette or palette group will land if you release it. If you want to create a new vertical dock, when you drag a palette or palette group toward the edge of an existing dock, a gray receive strip animates out to indicate that dropping there will create a new dock.
The new interface makes very efficient use of limited screen real estate. It also ensures that palettes can’t hide behind other palettes which can easily happen in InDesign CS2. You also don’t have to turn your head sideways to read the labels as with InDesign’s current “stashed” palette interface. However, if you don’t like the dock system, you can still float palettes and palette groups as you can now.
There are other changes as well. By default the Toolbar opens at the left as a single column of tools. This takes up less space. But at any time, you can click at the top of the Toolbar to switch it to the more familiar two-column view.
One of my favorite features in the Photoshop CS3 beta is what happens when you hide all your palettes and the Toolbar by pressing the Tab key (the same behavior we’re familiar with in InDesign CS2). When the palettes are hidden, if you move your cursor to the edge of the screen, the palettes or Toolbar appear so you can select them. Moving the cursor away, hides them again.
To get a preview of these new features, it’s not necessary to download the Photoshop CS3 beta. There are several video podcasts which demonstrate the new interface: Check out Mordy Golding’s PEN 12.06 Special Edition, or Terry White’s Creative Suite podcast of 12/14. You can also read an interview John Nack, Photoshop product manager did with the interface designers on his blog.
Update: See this post for new CS3 information.
This article was last modified on January 18, 2023
This article was first published on December 29, 2006
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