Preferences

Using the Preferences option under the Application/Edit menu will streamline how Photoshop works for you.

The General panel in Preferences handles the fundamental ways Photoshop works. Handy options include saving the palettes you have open, so they’ll be in the same locations the next time you launch Photoshop.

The Dynamic Color Slider option shows you which color you’re going to get as you move the RGB or CMYK sliders when creating a color.

File Handling deals with what you see once you’ve saved a Photoshop image. One of the more valuable pieces here is the option to add the file format extension to your images. This ensures that you’re saving things in the right format for a particular job, rather than just naming the file with any extension you decide to type in.

The options in the Display & Cursors panel determine what the tool cursors look like while you’re working. This is a hugely personal choice. Since most people who are learning the software for the first time don’t necessarily mess with the default preferences, they’re used to having the Paintbrush, for instance, always look like a paintbrush. When you really get into it, however, being able to actually see the size of the brush is very handy. If you like it both ways, you can use the Caps Lock key to toggle between views.

Use the Transparency & Gamut panel to establish the way Photoshop will handle displaying transparent areas in a document, and how it warns you when you’ve selected a color that’s outside the range of your current color mode.

The Transparency options determine whether or not you get a checkerboard pattern in any areas that have no color. This is moderately handy. I prefer no checks, but there are times when being able to see where you’ve neglected to eliminate a white background on a layer is useful.

Gamut refers to the colors that Photoshop might be able to display, but your printer may not be able to reproduce. You can choose to have Photoshop “colorize” these areas with gray, or any other color you choose, so you’re aware that there may be issues when the file is printed.

Units & Rulers options establish your measurement system (pixels, points, inches, and so on), along with a column size feature (used when working on images that will be used in a publication such as a newspaper or magazine) and your points per inch preferences.

Remember, you can change your ruler increments any time while you’re working by Ctrl/right-clicking in the ruler and choosing a different system from the contextual menu.

The points per inch option is truly a leftover from pre-digital typesetting, more than anything. Using the PostScript version of 72 points per inch is fine.

The Guides & Grids panel lets you choose your color and how the guidelines and gridlines will be displayed. If you’re working on images destined for the Web, you might want to show the slice numbers as well as determine the color overlay that will show you where they are.

If you have third-party plug-ins for filters and effects, use the Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks panel to point Photoshop in the right direction to find them.

Scratch Disks are secondary and tertiary storage media you specify. If you run out of temporary storage space on your hard drive, Photoshop makes use of empty disk space in another location. This works best if the second and third sources are permanent external drives, rather than removable media such as a USB stick or an iPod.

The Memory & Image Cache settings can be frequently overlooked, since they aren’t terribly intuitive (Figure 1.23). They are important, however, since the settings here can really boost the speed with which Photoshop can display modifications you might make to your image. If you have 512 MB of RAM or more on your machine, then you can easily use a Cache Level setting of 8.

Photoshop has always been a “RAM hog.” A modest 20 MB file can easily eat up all of your RAM and then some in order to remember all of the history states you’ve specified (in the General Preferences panel), along with all the other cool things it does. Establishing the maximum amount of RAM it’s allowed to use is a good idea, especially if you have other software running at the same time. The default setting of 70% is fine in most cases. If you like to have sixteen programs open at once, then adjust the percentage down. When all else fails, buy more RAM.