CreativePro Tip of the Week: Customizing the Photoshop Interface

Mike Rankin

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This CreativePro Tip of the Week on customizing the Photoshop interface was sent to CreativeProse email subscribers on June 14, 2017.

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Hi there! Captain Obvious here, just wanted to point out the fact that Photoshop has a lot of menu commands and tools. What might not be so obvious is the fact that you can customize Photoshop’s interface to show just the menu commands and tools that you want.

Just go to the Edit menu and waaaaay down (literally 34 items from the top), you’ll see the commands for customizing menus and the toolbar.

In the dialog box for customizing the Toolbar, drag and drop the tools to rearrange them. For example, maybe you work with paths a lot and like InDesign’s way of having the Selection and Direct Selection tools at the top of the Toolbox. Just drag them to the top of the list. And to get rid of unwanted tools, drag them to the Extra Tools section, where they can appear group at the bottom of the Toolbox (or not at all).

You can also turn off controls for the Foreground/Background colors, QuickMask mode, and Screen Mode.

In the dialog box for customizing menus, locate the commands you want to hide and click the visibility icon (eyeball) to hide them.

Also, consider creating your own menu set with the controls at the top of the dialog box. That way you can turn as many menu items as you like off or one with one click, just by choosing a different set.