LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET

SPECIAL PROGRAM IN ICT 7&8

DIGITAL MEDIA 7&8
First Quarter, Week 2

Name of Learner: _____________________________Date:__________________________

Grade Level /Section: __________________________

Working the Panels

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR LEARNERS

Works we do in Photoshop involve the use of its panels. It is important to know more
about these panels especially if you are new with Photoshop. Knowing how to manage your
panels will make you maximize your workspace.

Sample panel found in Photoshop (Color panel)

Panels are found in a column on the right side of your Application Frame. It lets you
work with commonly used features like colors, adjustments, layers, and so on. There are two
panel columns by default. The main column on the right side and the secondary narrow
column beside it on the left side.

Panels can be free floating on your screen, or it can be attached to the top, bottom,
left, or right side of your screen. You can put panels together into groups, which you can then
move around the application frame.
 Sample floating panel (Color panel)

Each panel contains its very own menu called a panel menu. It is located in its top-
right corner and its icon looks like four little lines with a downward-pointing triangle.

Click the panel menu (encircled on the left picture) to show other menus (picture at the right)

Look at the right side of your screen and you will see that Photoshop starts with three
docked panel groups. The Color and Swatches panels are the first group. The second group
includes Adjustments and Styles and the third group are Layers, Channels, and Paths. If you
want to use the panel, just activate it by clicking its tab.
 First group
of panels

Second group
of panels

Third group
of panels

Your panels are very flexible because you can collapse, expand, move, and resize them.

You can also swap them. Here are steps on how to do them:

• Collapse or expand panels. If panels are covering your editing space, you can
shrink them both horizontally and vertically. To collapse a panel (horizontally), click
the tiny double arrow in its top-right corner; click this same button again to expand
the panel.
To collapse a panel (vertically), just double-click the panel’s tab to make it roll up like
a window shade; single-click the tab to roll the panel back down.
 To collapse or expand horizontally Expand Collapse

Double click the tab

to collapse

To collapse or expand vertically Collapse

• Add and modify panel groups. You can open more panels by opening the
Window menu on the top portion of your application and then select the name of the
panel that you want to open. The panel that you have selected will then appear in a
column to the left of the secondary narrow column. A tiny button is added to its right
that you can click to collapse it horizontally and vertically.

STEP 1: Click on the Window menu

STEP 2:
Select the panel you
wanted to use
STEP 3:
A column will be added on
the left of secondary narrow
column.

STEP 4:
A tiny button will also be
added on the secondary
narrow column.

• Undock, redock, and close panels. Your option bar is found on the top portion
of the application frame by default. You can set this panel group freely anywhere on
your screen. To do this, select the tab and pull it out of its group, and then move it
anywhere on your application frame.
 STEP 1: Drag the panel anywhere at the screen

STEP 2: After dragging, the panel will be detached from its original position

To dock the panel or panel group again, drag it back to the top portion of your screen.

When docking again, you will see a blue line indication that it can be dock to this place.

Docking and undocking of panel or panel groups is a way to make you work easily with
Photoshop.

CUSTOMIZING YOUR WORKSPACE

You can customize your workspace on Photoshop according to what you like.
Customization is about arranging tools and panels you needed the most. Saving your
customize workspace can be found on the options bar’s far right corner called workspace
menu.

These are the preset workspaces in Photoshop:

1. Essentials. It is the default workspace on Photoshop. It includes panels that most
of the people use.
2. “New in CS6” includes only new features.
3. Motion is for video editing. Yes, you can edit video on Photoshop.
4. Painting is for painting.
5. Photography is use if you are working mostly on photos.
 6. Typography is use when working with text. To swap between these workspaces,
just simply click one of these and Photoshop will do the arrangements.

Preset workspaces
in workspace menu

Clicking the Workspace Menu will show different workspaces.

To save your own custom workspace, follow these steps:

STEP 1: Arrange things the way you wanted.
STEP 2: Go to the Workspace menu and select New Workspace.

STEP 2: Select New Workspace

STEP 3: A dialog box will appear on the screen and you can now name your
customize workspace.
STEP 4: Click Save.
 STEP 3: Rename your
workspace STEP 4: Click Save

Do not forget to name your customize workspace

Sometimes you’ve created workspace that is not useful anymore. You can delete it
from your workspace menu. Here are the steps:

STEP 1: Make sure you selected the workspace you want to use.

Select another workspace except for the one you want to delete

STEP 2: Choose Delete Workspace from the Workspace menu.

 Click Delete Workspace

STEP 3: A dialog box will pop-up and you may now select the workspace that you
want to delete and then click the Delete button.

STEP 3
Select the workspace And then click
you want to delete Delete

A dialogue box will appear and then select on the dropdown the workspace you want to
delete.
STEP 4: Photoshop will ask you if you really want to delete it and if you select “Yes”,
the workspace will be deleted from the workspace menu.
 Click Yes to delete the workspace

A dialogue box will again appear asking if you really want to delete the workspace

THE TOOLS PANEL

The Tools panel is where you can find all of Photoshop’s editing tools. It is included
in all built-in workspaces. You cannot work on Photoshop without this panel.

By default, when you launch Photoshop, you can find the tools panel on the left side
of the screen. You can also undock this panel anywhere on the screen. Aside from that, a
keyboard shortcut is set for each toolset so you can easily work on.

The tools panels are located on the left side of the application frame

To expand a toolset, just click and hold the left button of the mouse over the tool or
just right click using your mouse. Once you expanded a toolset, you will see the name of the
tool and the corresponding keyboard shortcut on the right.
 The keyboard
shortcut

These shortcuts are timesaver for your tasks in Photoshop. To access a tool hidden
deep within a toolset (without clicking the active tool to show the toolset), add the Shift key
to the tool’s shortcut key, and you’ll cycle through all the tools in that toolset. For example,
to select the Magic Want tool, press Shift-W repeatedly until that tool appears in the Tools
panel.

Foreground and Background Color Chips

Photoshop can handle millions of colors, but the foreground and background color
chips on the panel can let you work two at a time. This can be found on square color chip at
the bottom of the Tools panel.

The foreground and background color found at the bottom of the Tools panel.
Photoshop uses your foreground color when you paint or fill something with color. To
change either color do the following:

STEP 1: Click the color chip.

 STEP 1: Click
the color chip

STEP 2: Color picker will be shown, select the color you want to use.

STEP 2: Point and

click you mouse
cursor here to
select color

Color picker will be shown for you to select the color that you want to use.

To swap your foreground and background colors, click the curved, double-headed
arrow just above the two chips or press X.

Click this to swap theforeground &

background colors

To set both color chips to their factory-fresh setting of black and white, click the tiny
chips to their upper left or press D (on the keyboard).
 Click this tobring back the default
foreground & background colors

Common Panels

As mentioned earlier, when you first launch Photoshop, the program uses the
Essentials workspace, which includes several useful panels. Here’s a quick rundown of why
Adobe considers these panels “essential”:

• Color. Includes your current foreground and background color chips.

• Swatches. The Swatches panel holds miniature samples of colors, giving you easy
access to them for use in painting or colorizing images.

•Adjustments. This panel lets you create Adjustment layers.

•Styles. Styles are special effects created with a variety of layer styles.

•Layers. It adjusts the size, capacity and layer styles.

•Channels. They edit the individual colors of the image.

• Paths. Paths are the outlines you make with the Pen and shape tools.

• History. It tracks the things you do in the image.

• Properties. It gives you one-stop access to all the settings in an Adjustment layer and
preset menus. This panel also lets you create and fine-tune layer masks.
LEARNING COMPETENCY
Explore, examine and identify the functions of different panels in Adobe Photoshop.

REFLECTION

It is important to know and to be familiar with the functions of the Photoshop panels.
A beginner must learn how to use each panel as well as how to manage it to be able to work
easily and comfortably with the Application Frame. Better output in Photoshop comes with a
comfortable workspace in Photoshop.

REFERENCES

• https://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/managing-panels-in-photoshop-cs6/
• Photoshop CS6 “The missing manual” by Lesa Snider (www.it-ebooks.info)

Prepared by: KEITH O. SAN ANTONIO

Name of Writer

Noted: LABERNE A. LADIGNON, JR

Division ICT Coordinator/ OIC EPS