PSP8 Survival Kit: Page 4

4. The New Toolbar Options.

Check out the standard toolbar, above left. There are those good old Windows stalwarts: 'new' and 'open', but then they start to look a little more unfamiliar. Here's a brief run-down. First of all the open drawer icon is the new Browser shortcut (there is also a new Browser toolbar as well which gives you a lot more options when you browse through your folders - more on that in a minute).

That thing that looks like a snapping crocodile is in fact a scanner: 'Twain Acquire' (so you can scan stuff straight into PSP8 hot off the presses...and yeah, I know you can do that already in PSP7 ;-). And then there's the 'save', 'printer', 'undo' and so on. But wait a minute....what on earth is "Enhance Photo" doing there?? Before we get into that, right click on the empty space next to it and you'll see this pop-up menu:

Select the first option, 'Toolbars', drop down to where it says 'Photos' and click.....poof! The Photo Enhance toolbar has gone. Want it back again? You may prefer to keep it up there if you work with photos a lot? Just go back and click on it again. Or, if you're like me and prefer minimalism (I hate a cluttered workspace!) then you'll keep it off there unless you really need it. Now's your chance to add whatever else you want up there too (and remember, save your workspace when you get it exactly how you want it......just in case ;-)

Let's go back and have another look at those options. You'll see little squares around some; that means they've already been selected and are showing (tools, for instance). If for some reason in the future you accidentally lose your toolbox or materials palette and start to go into meltdown over it, this is the first place to come back to to get them back again. (Hey, it's been known to happen.....even to the best of us....have I given myself away yet?! ;-)

While you're there, have fun checking out the other options (and there are plenty of them, believe me, I've only touched the tip of the iceberg here). There's also now a complete Browser toolbar, Effects toolbar, and so on. In a nutshell, all of this is the new way of placing the shortcuts on the toolbar, and customizing the whole shebang to suit your personal taste. Oh, and yes, you can still add individual tool shortcuts also: drop down to the 'Customize' pop-up menu, select the 'Commands' tab (if it's not already at the front) and you can do it from there (see right). Would you like to learn about this in more detail right now? I have a tutorial on how to do this very thing right here. You can also still add those little divider thingies (although it is a little more trickier now). Right-click on the menu bar again to get the fly-out; hit 'Customize' to get the dialogue box again, but this time just ignore it; instead go up to the exact point where you'd like to place a divider, (i.e. click on the icon of the tool you want to be first one in your new group) and right-click....this will bring up a mini-menu. Click on 'Start Groups' and ta da...... you have your divider. Overall, there are several different customizing options, including even making your own toolbars from scratch, and I've only touched on them briefly. After some experimenting, everyone should ultimately find what will best suit them.

Finally, you can also slide the toolbars around and place them at different ends of the toolbar if you like. There are many more toolbar options that I just don't have the time to go into right now; just play around with it and see what happens. I'm sure you'll soon find out how to set it all up exactly as you want.


So much for the toolbars......now let's explore the palettes (below, left).

The first thing you'll see is a similar pop-up to the toolbar menu. Here you can customize to your heart's content....you can toggle your Materials palette on and off, or leave it on there as a roll-up (great for when the pesky little bugger gets in the way of a big image!)....leave your layers palette visible if you want (Aha! So that's where it went! ;-) You can do the same for the overview window, and so on. The Magnifier tool (part of the new Zoom tool) is really funky to watch.....just run your mouse over an open image and you'll see what I mean!) You can even toggle your toolboxes here again, as you could on the Toolbar menu. There's also the "Learning Center".....and I'm hoping that this will stay for the final version, because it's so handy to have it there. All in all, some pretty smooth options, huh?

(Footnote: you can also access the toolbars, palettes, docking and customization options via the View drop-down menu: View>toolbars>browser etc.)

Hang on a minute though, let's backtrack a little......what's 'Script' (found in Toolbars) and what on earth is 'Script Output'?? (You may have seen that one in Palettes). Hmmmm.......want to take a closer look at what is arguably the biggest (and best) new feature of PSP8? O.k, for a brief overview of that, and some of the other amazing new stuff, let's go!