work canvas–brand new user!

VB
Posted By
Victoria_Bryan
Oct 30, 2003
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243
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7
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Closed
Hi– I just loaded PSE 2.0 on my iMac this morning, so my apologies in advance for this very basic question. (I’m also just new to the whole Mac thing, so that probably doesn’t help either.) The book I am using as a guide (Photoshop Elements 2 Solutions) says that when you first open the program, the work area or canvas area defaults to a grey color. However, when I have PSE up, the background area is my desktop picture, not a grey canvas.

I’ve tried following the somewhat unclear directions from the Solutions book to change the color (select a foreground color, select the Paint Bucket, then while holding the shift key, click inside the canvas), but that doesn’t work. I’ve also tried looking in the PSE User Guide, but I can’t find anything in there that addresses this problem. I’m sure it’s something simple, but I don’t know what it is! Can anyone help me? Thanks for your time.
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BB
Barbara_Brundage
Oct 30, 2003
says that when you first open the program, the work area or canvas area defaults to a grey color.

That is for Windows, Victoria. It’s different for the mac.

As for the second problem, try doing it without the shift key and see if that works.
JC
Jane_Carter
Oct 30, 2003
Hi Victoria, I have a Mac OS 9.2.2. You can go into the Appearance Control Panel and change your desktop pattern to something plain. (I use my own pictures for my desktops, and sometimes they can be rather bright, like flowers, I have them set to appear at random.)

When I started using PSE in early March, I found that I got used to it soon, but you do have the option to make a plain blue, gray, or anything else with a Mac.

Here are some examples, some are really neat,,,,,
<http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.2ccdf7e2> Jane
J
jhjl1
Oct 30, 2003
One of the Photoshop books that I read a while back recommended setting desktop and windows color schemes to a light gray or silver color. The author stated that bright colors, especially blue interfered with the way the human eye sees color therefore skewing our attempts at adjusting photographs.

—
Have A Nice Day,
jwh 🙂
My Pictures
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview

wrote in message
Hi Victoria, I have a Mac OS 9.2.2. You can go into the
Appearance Control Panel and change your desktop pattern to something plain. (I use my own pictures for my desktops, and sometimes they can be rather bright, like flowers, I have them set to appear at random.)
When I started using PSE in early March, I found that I got
used to it soon, but you do have the option to make a plain blue, gray, or anything else with a Mac.
Here are some examples, some are really neat,,,,,
<http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.2ccdf7e2> Jane
BH
Beth_Haney
Oct 30, 2003
I read about using the gray background, too. It’s really dull to look at all the time, but I try to remember to change to that color when I’m heading into a big Elements project, especially when I’m editing images from my digital camera. It doesn’t seem to matter much when I’m working on old black and white photos.
BB
Barbara_Brundage
Oct 30, 2003
Yes, in X you can also get rid of most of the color in toolbars and so on by going to system prefs>general and selecting the graphite appearance.
NS
Nancy_S
Oct 30, 2003
I think the bright blue scheme in Win XP is disorienting for working with color in PSE. Though boring, I did change my screen to neutral gray as seen in my screenshot in another post. FWIW

Nancy
LM
Lou_M
Oct 31, 2003
In Win XP, you can change the color scheme to Silver. It’s much easier to look at than that garish blue color scheme.

Right-click on the desktop and choose Properties. Then I think it’s the Desktop tab (I’m on my Mac now, so I don’t remember exactly) and change the scheme to Silver.

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