Documents as Tabs: Photoshop, by default, opens each document as a tab across the top of the work area. You click a tab to bring that image to the front. If you find that you’re constantly dragging tabs off to create floating windows, deselect this option in the Preferences. And if you disable tabbed image windows, you’ll likely also want to disable the Enable Floating Document Window Docking option. This prevents image windows from docking as you drag them around onscreen.
Preferences ⇒ File Handling
Image previews add a little to the file size, but in most cases, you want to include the preview. On Macs, you have the option of including a file extension or not (or having Photoshop ask you each and every time). Even if you don’t plan on sharing files with a Windows machine, I strongly recommend that you always include the file extension in the filename by selecting the Always option. Likewise, I suggest that you always maximize PSD and PSB file compatibility. This ensures that your Photoshop files can be opened (with as many features intact as possible) in earlier versions of the program and that they’ll function properly with other programs in the Creative Cloud. Maximizing compatibility can be critical if you also work with Adobe’s Lightroom CC.
Photoshop includes an auto-recovery feature, one that doesn’t compromise the creative process. If, as with some programs, your open file was simply saved to your hard drive at specific intervals, overwriting the original, your artistic experimentation could be limited to that specified time frame. Say, for example, that you tried a specific artistic filter, took an important phone call, and later found out that the program had rewritten the file on your hard drive and that experimental filter has become a permanent part of your artwork. But you decided you don’t like it after all. Bummer! (Or simply Undo, of course.) Rather than take such risks with your creativity, you now have the option to have Photoshop save recovery information, which doesn’t affect the original file in any way, at intervals specified in the Preferences. Or you can disable the feature by deselecting the check box.
Preferences ⇒ Performance
The Performance panel contains options related to how Photoshop runs on your computer:
Memory Usage: Try bumping the memory allocation to 100%. If things seem slower rather than faster, back off the memory allocation to perhaps 85%. In a 64-bit environment, Photoshop can take advantage of all the RAM you can cram (into the computer).
History States: This field determines how many entries (up to 1,000) appear in the History panel. Storing more history states provides more flexibility, but at a cost: Storing too many history states uses up all your available memory and slows Photoshop to a crawl. Generally speaking, 20 or 30 is a good number. If, however, you do a lot of operations that use what I call “little clicks,” such as painting or dodging/burning with short strokes, that History panel fills quickly. For such operations, a setting of perhaps 50 or even 60 is more appropriate.
Cache Levels: The image cache stores low-resolution copies of your image to speed onscreen display at various zoom levels. Although this process speeds up screen redraw, the price is accuracy. Unless your video card has trouble driving your monitor at your selected resolution and color depth, you might be better served by Cache Levels: 1. That gives the most accurate picture of your work. (But remember to make critical decisions at 100% zoom, where one image pixel equals one screen pixel.)
Graphics Processor Settings: This area displays information about your computer’s video card. If your system has the capability, you’ll see a check box for Use Graphics Processor. Using this processor provides smoother, more accurate views at all zoom levels and other enhancements, including the capability to rotate the image onscreen — not rotate the canvas, but rotate just the onscreen image. And that’s too cool for words when painting a complex layer mask!
Preferences ⇒ Scratch Disks
Preferences ⇒ Cursors
Photoshop offers you a couple of ways to display cursors for painting tools. You can show the tool icon (Standard), a small crosshair (Precise), or a representation of the tool’s brush tip, indicating the size and shape of the brush (Brush Size). With soft-edged brushes, the brush size cursor shows where the tool will be applied at 50% strength or higher. Alternatively, select the Full Size Brush Tip option, which always shows the full extent of the brush tip, regardless of the Hardness setting.
You also have the option of adding a crosshair in the middle of either brush-size cursor. The crosshair option is great for keeping a brush centered along an edge or path, and it just about eliminates the need for the Precise cursor option. As you can see in Figure 3-10 when working with a soft brush, showing all the pixels that are changed even a little (to the right) might not give you an accurate view of your work. (The Normal Brush Tip cursor is shown at the top center and the Show Crosshair in Brush Tip option can be seen at the lower left.)
When the Show Only Crosshair While Painting option is selected in Preferences, the brush cursor appears at the selected diameter display (Full Size or Normal) until you press the mouse button (or press the stylus to the tablet). It then automatically switches to the crosshair and remains as a precise cursor until you release the mouse button (or lift the stylus). Experienced brush-tool-using Photoshoppers might want to experiment with this option — if you know the diameter, you might want to better focus on the center of the brush when you are, for example, painting or dodging or burning along a distinct edge.
Also found in the Cursors panel is the Brush Preview color. Click the color swatch to open the Color Picker and assign a color to use when dynamically resizing your brushes. (If you don’t have OpenCL drawing capability, the brushes can still be resized, but the color preview will not be visible.) With a brush-using tool active, press and hold down the Option+Control keys on a Mac and drag left or right; on a Windows machine, Alt-right-click and drag left or right to resize the brush — on the fly! Want to change the brush hardness? Hold down those same keys and drag up or down rather than left or right.
FIGURE 3-10: When working with a low Hardness setting, Normal Brush Tip is usually best.
