Today’s Question: While in Photoshop I was exploring the panels at the right side of the screen with attention focused on the Layers tab. I decided to click on the tab and drag it into my image area, which was fine. The only thing was, I clicked the small “x” at the top left corner of this floating panel thinking this would cause it to go back to its place at the bottom right corner of the screen. It disappeared! I have had a search through the help section of the application but have turned up blank so far. Can you please advise me on this?
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can bring back any “missing” panels in Photoshop by choosing the panel by name from the Window menu. So in this case you can choose Window > Layers from the menu to bring up the Layers panel.
More Detail: All of the various panels available in Photoshop can be found on the Window menu. The panels can be docked to the side of the main Photoshop window, left floating within the interface, or minimized to a iconic button you can click to view the full panel.
As noted in the question, if you drag a tab for a docked panel you can “drop” it elsewhere in the interface to make it a floating panel. Clicking the “X” at the top-left corner of the floating panel will close the panel. But you can bring any panel back to view by selecting it from the Window panel. Note that a checkmark to the left of a panel name on the Window menu indicates that the panel is already visible within Photoshop.
To help maintain your preferred interface arrangement within Photoshop you can save a custom workspace. Start by configuring the panels within Photoshop the way you want them. Then choose Window > Workspace > New Workspace from the menu. In the New Workspace dialog you can type a name for the workspace, perhaps using your own name or the nature of the tasks you’ll be performing with that workspace configuration.
Once you’ve saved a workspace, anytime you make changes to the panel layout you can reset to the saved configuration by choosing Window > Workspace > Reset. Note that this “Reset” command on the menu will also include the name of the saved workspace you are currently using.