Find your way around the Editor

This is a map of the Editor screen, top to bottom and left to right. Once you know where each thing lives, you can find any tool or setting without hunting, and the rest of the Editor articles will make more sense.

The layout follows Photoshop and Photopea on purpose. If you have used either, the menus, tool keys and panel names will feel familiar. The Editor uses Ctrl on Windows and Linux and Cmd on a Mac: wherever this article says Ctrl, Mac users press Cmd.

Open the Editor

The menu bar#

Across the top: File, Edit, Image, Layer, Select, Filter, View, Window and Help. Every command in the Editor lives in one of these menus, with its shortcut shown beside it. The same list feeds the command palette (Ctrl+K) and the keyboard shortcuts, so a command always has the same name everywhere.

• Click a menu to open it, then slide across the bar and the next menu opens under the pointer, like a desktop app. Arrow keys move through items and Escape closes.
• Press Alt on its own to jump into the menu bar from the keyboard.
• With no design open, only File, Window and Help are available.
• On a narrower window, such as a tablet, the menus fold into a single Menu button so everything still fits.

The white V button at the far left holds links to Home and all designs, Studio: briefs and brand, Effects: one-click looks and Quick tools, plus Preferences… and Your privacy.

In the middle of the bar is the design name. Click it to rename the design. Beside it a dot and a label tell you where the work is: Saved on this device, Saving, or Private session, not saved. On the right are Undo, Redo, Search (the command palette), Add (photos, text, shapes, a blank layer, your logos, adjustments and filters) and Export.

File tabs#

Under the menu bar, each open design has its own tab with a close button. Switching tabs saves the design you are leaving. The New design button on the tab bar takes you back to the start screen to open or create another. See Saving and your files for where designs are kept.

The options bar#

The thin bar below the tabs changes with the tool in your hand. It holds the settings you reach for most while using that tool, so you rarely need a panel. A few examples:

During a free transform (Ctrl+T) the bar switches to the transform modes with Apply (Enter) and Cancel (Esc). When a selection is active and you are using a non-selection tool, the right end of the bar offers Copy to layer, Make mask, Invert and Deselect.

The tool rail#

The column of tools on the left. Hover a tool to see its name and shortcut. A small triangle in the corner of a tool means it holds a family of related tools: right-click it, or press and hold, to pick another. Pressing Shift with a tool key cycles through its family, so Shift+L switches between the lasso and the polygonal lasso.

At the bottom of the rail are the Main colour and Second colour chips, a swap arrow (X), a reset to black and white (D), and the quick mask toggle (Q). Colour and swatches covers these in detail.

The canvas#

Your design sits in the middle. Getting around:

Ctrl plus the mouse wheel, or a trackpad pinch, also zooms. The middle mouse button pans. With the Move tool and one layer selected, a small floating action bar appears above the layer with the next things you are likely to want: Remove background and Filters for photos, Edit text plus font and colour for text, and a More menu with Centre on page, Duplicate, Clip to below and Delete. Turn it off with View, Contextual action bar.

Panels on the right#

By default the right side shows just two panels: Properties on top and Layers below. This is the Simple workspace, set up so a quick job needs nothing else. Properties changes with what is selected: with nothing selected it shows the design size and Background colour; with a photo selected it shows Quick actions such as Remove background, Mirror and Flip; with text it shows the Type settings.

Every other panel is one click away under the Window menu: Channels, Paths, History, Colour and swatches, Adjustments, Character, Paragraph, Info, Brand kit, Navigator, Layer styles and Brief. Window, Workspace switches to a fuller layout (Essentials, Photo, Design or Minimal). Panels can be resized, collapsed, merged into tab groups and pulled out as floating windows: see Workspaces and panels.

The status bar#

The strip along the bottom shows, from left to right: the zoom percentage (click it, type a number and press Enter), the design size in pixels (and dpi if one is set), the pointer position, a hint for the current tool, and the save state. Once a design gets heavy, it also shows how much memory the layers and undo history are using. There is a Feedback button at the right end. Hide the bar with View, Status bar.

Make it fit your screen#

• Window, Interface size sets menus, panels and tools to 90%, 100%, 110%, 125%, 140% or 150%. Preferences has a finer slider from 80% to 160%. The canvas is never scaled.
• Compact and Comfortable density are in the same menu.
• View, Touch mode (bigger controls) makes controls larger for tablets. With a pen in use, fingers pan instead of painting. A two-finger tap undoes and a three-finger tap redoes.

On a phone#

Below 768 pixels wide the Editor uses a layout built for phones: a top bar with back, the design name, undo, redo and Share, the canvas, a Layers button with a count, and five modes along the bottom (Select, Text, Image, Shape, Effects). The other desktop tools are under More tools in the Select sheet. See Designing on a phone.

Good to know#

• Press ? for the shortcut sheet. It is built from the same list as the menus, so it is always complete.
• Can't find a command? Press Ctrl+K and type what you want to do. See Command palette and menus.
• If a panel you expect is missing, check the Window menu. Window, Workspace, Reset workspace puts the current workspace back as it started.