Today’s Question: During one of your presentations on Photoshop you were showing several different panels and moving them around, but then quickly reset to your initial panel configuration. How do you do that?! I have a habit of making a mess with many panels, and would love an easy way to get back to my typical configuration.
Tim’s Quick Answer: If you save a panel configuration in Photoshop you can quickly reset the panel layout based on the saved configuration using the “Reset Workspace” command.
More Detail: It can be quite helpful to create your own custom panel layout in Photoshop based on the specific tools and features you use most regularly. For example, I use a custom layout that primarily includes the Layers, Channels, and Properties panels.
After configuring the panels to your liking, you can save the arrangement by going to the menu and choosing Window > Workspace > New Workspace. In the dialog that appears enter a meaningful name for the workspace and turn on the checkboxes if desired to preserve any changes you’ve made to keyboard shortcuts, menus, or the toolbar. Click the Save button to save the new workspace.
While using Photoshop with a saved workspace, you might find that you tend to bring up additional panels, move panels around, or otherwise make changes to the overall panel layout. When you want to revert to the saved version of the currently selected workspace, simply go to the menu and choose Window > Workspace > Reset Workspace. Note that the command will also reference the current workspace name, such as “Reset Tim Grey Workspace”.
In this way you can save different workspaces for different tasks, switching between them at any time, but then also resetting the panel layout if you’ve made changes while working with a saved workspace.
