Hiding Photoshop Home Screen

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Today’s Question: Every time I open Photoshop, I immediately have to wade through several “ads” telling me how I can adjust my photos. Is there a way to skip that so I can get to what I want to do?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The screen you’re referring to is the “Home” screen, which you can disable by turning off the “Auto show the Home Screen” checkbox on the General tab in Preferences.

More Detail: A while back Adobe added a “home” screen in Photoshop, which by default is displayed when you initially launch Photoshop or anytime you close all images that had been open. The home screen shows links to lessons related to Photoshop, along with a list of recently opened images. Along the left side of the home page there are also buttons for creating a new document or opening a file, along with links to cloud-based storage and a handful of other options.

If you prefer not to see the home screen you can turn it off in Preferences. Start by selecting Photoshop > Preferences > General from the menu on Macintosh or Edit > Preferences > Genera on Windows. On the General page of the Preferences dialog you can then turn off the “Auto show the Home Screen” checkbox, found in the Options section. Next time you launch Photoshop (or close all documents) you will no longer see the home screen.

Note that you can bring up the home screen at any time if you’d like by choosing Help > Home from the menu, in case you do want to take a look at the home screen at any time even if it is disabled in Preferences.