Photoshop Tutorial for Fashion Design (Part 24)
Other Palettes, Layer Comps, Workspace

The Clone Source palette offers extended options for the Clone tool and allows you to set multiple clone sources. I’m sure it’s a precious feature for photographers. As a fashion designer, I don’t use the Clone tool or the Clone Source palette, for that matter. I find it easier just to select, copy and paste.

Character and Paragraph palettes are related to text. Character palette provides you with all the options from the option bar like font and size, and in addition allows you to adjust the spacing and the width and height of your letters. And in the Paragraph palette, you can find additional text formatting options. Personally, I was just fine with all the options available in the option bar so I’m just going to close this entire window.

And the final palette in the default workspace is the Layer Composition [Layer Comps]. It is a very cool and handy feature somewhat similar to the History Snapshot. Layer Comps remembers your layer positioning, visibility and style and I use it a lot for my presentation boards. Instead of saving different versions of the same presentation as separate files, I can have one document with as many layouts and styling as I want accessible with a simple click. Let’s see how it works.

We are going to start with saving the layout we have. To do so, just click on “Create New Layer Comp” shortcut at the bottom of the palette. I’m going to have everything checked and keep the default name. Next, we are going to move layers and groups around and create another composition. Click on the icon at the bottom of the palette to save your new layout and click “OK”. Last Document State, at the top of the Layer Comps palette remembers the last state even if it wasn’t saved. And to apply saved settings, simply click on the far left section of the desired composition. You can also scroll through the states using the left and right arrow keys at the bottom of the palette.

Of course, you can delete, duplicate and modify layer composition at anytime. To duplicate a layer composition, simply click and drag it to the “Create New Layer Comp” icon at the bottom of the palette or use the palette menu. To delete, simply click on the Delete icon. To modify an already existing layer composition first make sure it’s selected, then make the desired changes, and when you’re done click on the “Update Layer Comp” icon at the bottom of the palette.

As you can see, Layer Comps not only remembers a layer’s position within the document but also layer styling and visibility. As opposed to the History Snapshots that get discarded as soon as the document is closed, layer compositions will be saved with your document and will be available to you every time you open it.

As I was introducing you to the wokspace I’ve made some changes to suit my needs. And just like with almost everything in Photoshop, I can save my workspace for future use. To do so, you can use the Workspace shortcut in the option bar. Simply click on the icon for the pull-down menu and choose “Save Workspace”. Once saved, Adobe Photoshop will list it in the Workspace menu and at anytime you can go back to the Default Workspace and go back to your saved one.

Just to remind you: all the available palettes are listed in the Window menu in alphabetical order, so if you’ve accidentally closed one just go to the Window menu and choose the desired palette.