Photoshop CS3 interface changes Jan06 '07

I've been using Photoshop CS3 on my Intel Mac for almost a month now, and although there are dozens of new interface features, I've noticed a couple that stand out.

"Hidden" menu items

So far the biggest change I've had to adjust to in Photoshop CS3 is the "hidden" menu items.

Much like Microsoft Office products, when you click on a menu item, you aren't shown all of the options right away. You have to click Show All Menu Items.

Screenshot of Photoshop CS3

This is counter-productive, in my opinion. I have to click three times just to get to a hidden menu item (once on the menu title, once on Show All Menu Items, and once on the actual menu item). I suppose I could set up keyboard shortcuts for all hidden menu items, but that seems like a lot of extra work.

More importantly, unlike Microsoft Office products, Photoshop CS3 doesn't even seem to remember the most commonly used menu items, in order to display those as "unhidden," or on top.

And there's no obvious way of turning this feature off.

Collapsible palettes and toolbars

Photoshop CS3 seems to focus a lot on screen-space saving, as all menus, toolbars, and palettes are collapsible to various degrees - some down to tiny little boxes, with some icons that hardly make any sense to me, at a quick glance. For example below, can you immediately tell which icon is for Layers?

Screenshot of Photoshop CS3

I can't see what immediate benefit this offers, other than screen-space saving.

Personally, the ability to collapse my Layers palette down to a little box is too many extra clicks. If I need more screen-space, all I have to do is hit Tab once, and boom! - all palettes and toolbars disappear, leaving me with a uncluttered screen. Hitting Tab again brings everything back.

The "F" key also cycles between a full screen view - one with a gray background, or one with a black background. This is also useful when juggling screen-space.

Categories: Photoshop , Software , Usability

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I was very frustrated by this as well, couldn't figure out the logic behind making it harder to get to certain menu items. For instance the Charact ... Read more.

I agree. The Character/Paragraph palette always seems to be hidden, even in previous versions. I always remember having to manually go to the Windo ... Read more.

To get rid of that gayassed "show all items" thing, you go into edit>menus... so the tutorial I just read says. HTH ... Read more.

This is indeed the solution to this annoyance. Thank You ... Read more.

The solution is worse than the problem? Do I have to go thru every menu item to fix this? It will take an hour. Isn't there a "Show all" button I c ... Read more.

i just found a preset, you can download, so you don't have to turn all menu items to visible by hand: http://www.clkoerner.com/2007/07/23/s ... Read more.

Thanks for showing me how to rid this extra step I had to take every time I wanted to convert a file to CMYK in Photoshop CS3! I was really hating ... Read more.

Thank you all for the helpful comments. My Photoshop life has now gotten better! ... Read more.

i like it a lot. though, i'm a younger user. try moving the boxes around near the main groups of menus. notice the blue line indicating the ways th ... Read more.

Oh man, I hate the "Show All Menu Options" thing. I want to see them all initially, I don't want some of them hidden from me. I miss CS2 ... Read more.

In Edit>Menu there is a drop down for presets, "Photoshop Defaults" seems to turn on the visibility for everything. Just choose that one and hit OK ... Read more.

Thank you (7 of 11): Rob for telling how to show all menu items by default. Yay for you! ... Read more.

Finally I was able to turn that darn thing off. Thank you very much guys! ... Read more.

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