New Photoshop Interface: November, 2015

- Now as you're probably aware Photoshop CC is a fluid application, meaning that Adobe updates the program every few months or so. Which is generally a great thing, because it means that we continually have access to the latest and greatest technology. But it presents a challenge where teaching the program is concerned. Because it means that what you see in my videos and what you see on your screen maybe somewhat different. For example, on November 30th, 2015 Adobe released an update to Photoshop that changed some of its onscreen appearance, that is to say they revamped the interface.

Which is why I'm going to introduce you to the new interface right now, right upfront inside this very movie. Now if you already saw me walk through the new interface at the beginning of the Fundamentals course then you can move onto chapter 16. Otherwise hold onto your hats, because for better or for worse it all starts the moment you launch the program. At which point you're going to see this start screen, which is going to present you with a couple of different options. If Recent Files is highlighted then you're going to see a list of files that you've recently opened inside Photoshop, or if you'd prefer to create a new document you can click on Presets to see a list of predefined document sizes.

You also have the option of clicking on the New button to bring up the New dialog box. I'm just going to go ahead and Cancel out of that. Or if you want to open an image that you haven't opened recently you can click on the Open button. In my case I'm going to go ahead and switch back to Recent Files over here on the left side of the screen. And I'm going to switch from the list view to the thumbnail view, which you do by clicking on this icon. At which point you're going to see a bunch of thumbnails of your recent documents.

Assuming that is to say that you've previously opened the files in the most recent version of Photoshop. In my case let's say I decide to open this very first image right here. All I have to do is click on it in order to open the image like so. At which point, assuming the image contains layers, you may end up seeing this flashy New Library from Document dialog box, which in my case is offering to store a few Colors and Layer Styles inside a new library, which would be available to me from the Libraries panel.

Now I'm not really interested in doing this at this point, and my guess is that you're not either, in which case, unless you want to keep seeing this dialog box every time you open a layered image, I suggest you turn on the Don't Show Again checkbox down here at the bottom of the dialog box and then click on the Cancel button to gain access to your image. And now just so it fills up the screen I'll go up to the View menu and choose the Zoom In command in order to make that image a little bit larger. The next thing you're going to notice is these new, so called flat tool icons over here on the left hand side of the screen inside the vertical tool box.

Starting with this four-way Move Tool up here at the top, and ending with this magnifying glass with a slight highlight inside of it. Now the good news is that even though these tools look slightly different they work exactly the same as I document them inside the videos, and they appear at exactly the same positions, as well as inside the same flyout menus. So in other words, in this very important regard your experience and mine will be exactly the same. The other difference that you're going to notice is the color of the dialog boxes.

So notice if I go up to the Image menu and choose the Image Size command, which allows you to scale your image, instead of seeing a light colored dialog box as you will see in chapter three of my course you'll see a dark dialog box instead, assuming of course that you're working inside the most recent version of the software. In every other respect however, once again your experience is going to be the same, because all of the options are located in the very same positions. So once again, I'm just going to go ahead and Cancel out.

Finally, you can modify the brightness of your interface by going up to the Edit menu here on the PC, that's going to be the Photoshop menu on the Mac, and then you drop down to the Preferences command, which is much higher in the menu on the Mac, and then you want to choose the Interface command in order to bring up this dialog box right here. At which point you can select a different Color Theme. So if you want things to be lighter then you can click on a lighter color, like so, which is not only going to lighten the interface, but it's going to lighten your dialog boxes as well, or you can darken things up if you like.

I'm going to leave things set to their defaults, which is this second to darkest option right here. And then I'll go ahead and click on the Workspace item over here on the far left side of the dialog box, so I can show you one more option, which is this Large Tabs checkbox. Which you can either turn on or off and you're going to see the effect on the fly. So notice these tabs at the top of the panels over here on the right hand side of the screen. Right now they're pretty darn tall, a little taller than their names.

If you want to save a little bit of space then you can turn off the Large Tabs checkbox and that's going to make those tabs a little shorter. Which by the way is how things are going to appear inside my videos. And so to permanently apply that effect I'll go ahead and click on the OK button. And that folks is a run-through of the main differences that you're going to see in the November 30th, 2015 release of Adobe Photoshop CC.