The Photoshop CS6

user interface
The Photoshop user interface
Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers: www.photoshopforphotographers.com

The Photoshop user interface Macintosh default workspace

The Photoshop CS6 interface shares the same design features as The Macintosh default workspace setting
all the other CS6 creative suite programs, which makes it easier uses a classic layout where the panels
to migrate from working in one CS6 program to another. You can appear floating on the desktop. If you go to
also work with the Photoshop program as a single application the Window menu and select ‘Application
window on both the Mac and PC platforms (Figures 1 and 2). This Frame’, you can switch to the Application
arrangement is more in keeping with the interface conventions for window layout shown in Figure 1.
Windows, plus you also have the ability to open and work with
Photoshop image documents as tabbed windows. But note that now
the Application bar is gone, the Workspace options can be accessed
via the Options Bar. Meanwhile, the documents layout options are
now solely available via the Window ➯ Arrange menu.

Tools panel Tabbed window document Options bar Mac OS menu Photoshop panels Workspace options

Figure 1 This shows the Photoshop CS6 Application Frame view for Mac OS X, using
the default, dark UI settings. To switch between the classic mode and the Application Frame
workspace, go to the Window menu and select or deselect the Application Frame menu item.

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The Photoshop user interface
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Tools panel Options bar Windows OS menu Tabbed window document Photoshop panels Workspace options

Figure 2 The Photoshop CS6 interface for the Windows OS. This has been captured
using the middle light gray theme and the Photography workspace setting.

The Photoshop panels are held in placement zones with the

tools panel normally located on the left, the Options bar running
across the top and the other panels arranged on the right, where
they can be docked in various ways to economize on the amount
of screen space that’s used yet still remain easily accessible. This
default arrangement presents the panels in a docked mode, but over
the following few pages we shall look at ways you can customize
the Photoshop interface layout. For example, you can reduce the
amount of space that’s taken up by the panels by collapsing them
into compact panel icons.

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The Photoshop user interface
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User interface brightness

The most noticeable new change in Photoshop CS6 is the interface,
which not only has newly-designed panels and icons, but also
offers the user four color themes with different levels of brightness
(you can adjust the program’s appearance via the Interface
preferences shown in Figure 5).
Having the ability to adjust the brightness of the interface has
to be a good thing. But, having said that, you do need to decide
carefully which setting is right for the kind of work you do. By
default, Photoshop CS6 uses a dark color theme and Figure 3
shows an example of how the Layers and Histogram Photoshop
panels will look when this is selected. Now, dark themes can look
quite nice when they are implemented well. For example, the
Lightroom interface has been a great success. But the thing to be
aware of here is that the dark default setting in Photoshop CS6
isn’t particularly easy to read, especially if you are working on
a large display where the panel lettering can appear quite small
(more of which later). More importantly, the canvas color is linked
to the interface brightness setting, and in the case of the dark
default, it’s almost completely black. This can lead to problems
when editing photographic images because how we perceive
tone and color is very much dependent on what surrounds the Figure 3 This shows an example of how the
image. To show you what I mean, take a look at the photograph Photoshop panels look when the default UI
setting is selected.
in Figure 4. Do you think it looks OK? Now compare this with
the Figure 7 version on page 7. Does it still look the same when
viewed against white? Actually, I adjusted these two versions of
the photograph separately using a Curves adjustment to obtain
what I thought looked like the best-looking result, first against
the black background and then against white. You can see a
comparison of these two versions, both displayed against a neutral
gray background (Figure 8). This highlights the fact that the canvas
color can greatly affect the edit decisions we make. What you have
to understand here is that Photoshop is a program that’s used by a
wide variety of customers. For example, those who work in video
will probably find that a dark interface works best for them. This
is because the work they produce is intended to be viewed in dark
surroundings. Photographers on the other hand are mostly focussed
on how photographs will look when they are printed, and where Figure 4 This shows an image that was
the photographs they edit will ultimately be viewed against a paper curves adjusted while viewed against a black
white background. canvas color.

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The Photoshop user interface
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Figure 5 This shows the Photoshop Interface preferences, where you will want to edit the
canvas color and set this to ‘Light Gray’.

Regardless of whichever interface theme you decide to use, I

strongly recommend you customize the Photoshop CS6 canvas
color to make it suitable for photo-editing work. To do this,
Choose Photoshop ➯ Preferences ➯ Interface… (Mac), or Edit ➯
Preferences ➯ Interface… (PC) This opens the dialog shown in
Figure 5, where, if you go to the Standard Screen, Full Screen with
Menus and Full Screen options you can click on the pop-up menu
and choose an appropriate canvas color. If you would like to match
the previous Photoshop canvas color, I suggest you choose the
Light gray option. Do this for each menu and click OK.

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The Photoshop user interface
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Figure 6 This shows a comparison of the different interface options. The top row shows
examples of the four main brightness themes in Photoshop CS6 ranging from the lightest
to the darkest. In the bottom row, the bottom left example shows how these same panels
looked when viewed in Photoshop CS5. Next to this I selected out the second darkest
theme from the top row and captured this using the default small UI font size, next to it the
medium UI font size and lastly, the large UI font size.

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The Photoshop user interface
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The other thing to consider is the legibility of the interface.

Figure 6 shows a quick comparison of the different interface
brightness settings. If you compare the CS6 panel design with that
used in CS5, you’ll notice that the separation between panels is
less distinct and the panel lettering doesn’t stand out so well. This
isn’t helped either by the ‘dark wash’ effect as you select darker
themes. It seems to me that the lack of tone contrast in the overall
interface tends to make the panels blend together such that they are
less distinct compared to CS5. However, there are things you can
do to further tweak the interface. If you refer to Figure 5 there is
an option marked ‘Enable Text Drop Shadows’. This allows you
to add a drop shadow edge to the lettering (actually it’s a white
edge). With the two dark themes this is really effective in making
the lettering stand out more, but with the two lighter themes it just Figure 7 This shows the same image as
makes the lettering harder to read. Another thing you can do is to in Figure 4, but it was curves adjusted while
adjust the UI font size (see Figure 5). Any changes you make here viewed against a white canvas.
won’t take place until you relaunch Photoshop. As you can see in
Figure 6, increasing the font size marginally increases the overall
size of the panels, but this certainly makes the lettering stand out
more clearly. Throughout this book I mainly captured the screen
shots using the medium light gray theme with a medium UI font
size and the Enable Text Drop Shadows disabled.
Figure 8 Here, you see how the image
views shown in Figures 4 and 7 looked
when compared alongside each other using
the ‘Light Gray’ canvas color. The white
background edited version is on the left and
the black background edited version is on the
right. Do they still look the same to you? As
you can see, although these image views each
looked fine when viewed against a black or
white background, when you compare them
side by side, you can see that the canvas color
choice has had quite an impact on how the
image was perceived when making those all-
important tone adjustments.

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The Photoshop user interface
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Adobe™ Photoshop™ CS6 for Photographers

This PDF is supplied on the website that accompanies the Adobe
Photoshop CS6 for Photographers book by Martin Evening. This
latest update in the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers series
contains 768 pages in full color, plus a website containing video
tutorials. The book contains updated advice on everything you
need to know about using Photoshop, from digital capture to print
output, as well as all that is new in Adobe Photoshop CS6.

PDF usage
This PDF extract is available to view and print. You may share
this PDF file or any links to the PDF file with others, but the
copyright of the material and images remain the property of Martin
Evening. The contents may not be modified in any way, or used
commercially without express permission from the author.
To order the book
Website Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers
There is a website for the book from where you can find more is published by Focal Press.
information and download more PDF sample pages from the book. ISBN: 9780240526041
The title is stocked in most major
www.photoshopforphotographers.com bookstores throughout the world and is
also available to purchase from:
www.focalpress.com as well as through the
on-line bookstores: www.amazon.com and
www.amazon.co.uk.

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