Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [15]
Lastly, there is the Mini Bridge panel which I haven't included here because it deserves a more thorough discussion. You can read more about Mini Bridge on page 81 as well as in the latter section of Chapter 11.
Photoshop CS5 Tools panel
The Tools panel that's shown in Figure 1.35 contains 71 separate tools. Clicking any tool automatically displays the tool Options bar (if it is currently hidden) from where you can manage the individual tool settings (see page 32). Many of the tools in the Tools panel have a triangle in the bottom right corner of the tool icon, which indicates there are extra tools nested in this tool group. You can mouse down on a featured tool, select any of the other tools in this list and make that the selected tool for the group (see Figure 1.35).
Figure 1.35 On the left you can see the default single column panel view. However, you can click on the double arrow (circled) to toggle between this and the double column view shown on the right. Where tools are marked with a triangle in the bottom right corner, you can mouse down on the tool to see all the other tools that are nested in that particular group.
You will notice that most of the tools (or sets of tools) have single-letter keystrokes associated with them. These are displayed whenever you mouse down to reveal the nested tools or hover with the cursor to reveal the tool tip info (providing the ‘Show Tool Tips’ option is switched on in the Photoshop Interface preferences). You can therefore use these shortcuts to quickly select a tool without having to go via the Tools panel. For example, pressing on the keyboard selects the move tool and pressing will select one of the healing brush group of tools (whichever is currently selected in the Tools panel). Photoshop also features spring-loaded tool selection behavior. If instead of clicking you hold down the key and keep it held down, you can temporarily switch to using the tool that's associated with that particular keystroke. Release the key and Photoshop reverts to working with the previously selected tool again.
Where more than one tool shares the same keyboard shortcut, you can cycle through the other tools by holding down the key as you press the keyboard shortcut. If on the other hand you prefer to restore the old behavior whereby repeated pressing of the key would cycle through the tool selection options, go to the Photoshop menu, select Preferences General and deselect the ‘Use Shift Key for Tool Switch’ option. Personally, I prefer using the Shift key method. You can also -click the tool icon in the Tools panel to cycle through the grouped tools.
There are specific situations when Photoshop will not allow you to use certain tools and displays a prohibit sign ( ). For example, you might be editing an image in 32-bit mode where only some tools can be used to edit the image. Clicking once in the image document window calls up a dialog explaining the exact reason why you cannot access or use a particular tool.
Figure 1.36.
This shows the Tools panel with the keystroke shortcuts shown in brackets.
*Note that the count tool is only available in the extended version of Photoshop.
Options bar
The Options bar (Figure 1.37) normally appears at the top of the screen, just below the Application bar, and you will soon appreciate the ease with which you can use it to make changes to any of the tool options. However, it can be removed from its standard location and placed anywhere on the screen by dragging the gripper bar on the left edge (circled in Figure 1.37).
Figure 1.37 The Options bar, which is shown here docked to the Application bar.
Hovering tool tips
In order to help familiarize yourself with the Photoshop tools and panel functions, a Help dialog box normally appears after a few seconds whenever you leave a cursor hovering over any one of the Photoshop buttons or tool icons. Note that this is dependent on keeping the ‘Show Tool Tips’ option selected in the Interface preferences.