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A Familiar Tool Palette for Photoshop CS3
The tools palette in Photoshop has changed gradually from release to release over the years. But with the switch to a single column rather than two, Photoshop CS3 introduced a big change. If you want the old familiar toolbar back, there's an easy answer.
Ever since its earliest incarnations, the toolbar in Photoshop has consisted of two columns of tool icons. As each new release became more capable, more tools were added to provide access to the new goodies Adobe had come up with. Row upon row got added, but always in two columns. People got used to where the familiar tools were. Or at least I did. A quick click of the mouse in the upper left hand corner of the screen automatically found its rightful home on the tool icon I was reaching for.
And then along came Photoshop CS3 with its new single-column tool palette. Sure, everything is still there, but they've gone and rearranged stuff. I had to start looking where I was clicking when reaching for a tool icon with the mouse. Some people have always been keyboard jockeys, hitting Control-this or Alt-that (Command-this or Option-that on Mac OS of course) lightning fast, but I've always found it more intuitive to mouse click for most things.
If you've found yourself missing the old familiar toolbar like I have since upgrading to CS3, you can switch back to it if you want. Adobe gave us a way, even if they didn't advertise it too much. Just click on the two small triangle/arrows on the very top of the tool palette. Click it once, and the palette switches to two columns. Click it again and you're back to the single-column version.
Adobe is probably trying to tell us something with the new single-column tool palette though. There may come a day when some new version of Photoshop insists that I learn to reach for the icon I need all down the edge of my monitor in a long single column, but for now at least, I'm sticking with what I'm used to.
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