Screen Modes in Photoshop

When designing in Photoshop there are a couple of options that allow you to review your design without noise around it. Here's a quick overview of how you can take a step back from the digital canvas.

Step away from the canvas

When you are designing you are probably using Rulers and Grids to layout your page. Like painters who need to step back from the canvas so do designers in Photoshop. There is a good deal of clutter around the page you are viewing too. Thankfully there are a number of view options that allow you to see an uncluttered view of the page.

Remove grids and rulers

If you are using grids and rulers you can turn these off For grids hit Apple ' on the Mac or CTRL ' on Windows. To remove rulers hit Apple ; on the Mac or CTRL ; on Windows.

Screen mode

Once you have remove grids and rulers you can cycle through Screen Modes and knock out the rest of your desktop. To do this simply hit F. You'll see there are four options:

  • Standard screen mode
  • Maximised screen mode
  • Full screen mode with menu bar
  • Full screen mode

At this stage we still have the tool menu and all of the option palettes though.

Remove everything else

To get to just our design we hit tab. This removes everything else from the workspace and you are free to gaze at your creation without anything else cluttering it up around it.

If you want to scroll around your design hold the Space bar and drag around. You can zoom in and out using Apple + and out using Apple -.

Watch the video below to see the full cycle of events in the very first Shape Shed video! Woo hoo! The SD version is below but if you want the HD version you'll have to visit the Vimeo site


Screen Modes in Photoshop from George Ornbo on Vimeo.

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George Ornbo is a freelance web developer living in London, UK.
I create usable web applications and interfaces.
I'm available for hire from April 2010.