Floating Palettes

On the right hand side of the Adobe Photoshop interface, you'll notice a serious of 'palettes' stacked one on top of another. These are commonly known as 'Floating Palettes' and can be used for a whole variety of tasks.

Moving them around
After you have become accustomed to using Adobe Photoshop, you might want to start modifying the layout of these palettes. You can easily relocate them around the interface window by left clicking on the blue bar along the top of each palette and 'dragging' to the desired position.

Group/Ungroup a Floating Palette
You will notice that most palettes contain tabbed sections, i.e. Channel/Paths/Layers. These tabs represent separate palettes that have been grouped together. To ungroup a palette, click and drag the chosen tab away from the group. This should separate now into a floating palette of its own. To rejoin a palette to a group, drag its tab onto a tab within the group you wish it to associate it with.

Closing & Opening Floating Palettes
Your screen can easily become littered with floating palettes, some you have found very little use for. To close a palette, simple click on the at the top right hand corner of the blue palette bar. If you at a later point wish to reopen a palette, click on the 'Window' menu and selecting it from the drop down list. This method can also be used when are having difficulty in finding an already open floating palette on screen.

Tip: You will notice a button at the top right hand corner of each palette, just below the close button, this is the palette's extended menu.

Left-click to open. A menu will drop down listing tasks unique to that particular palette. Make a point of familiarising yourself with these menus. There are plenty of powerful commands that will increase your developement.

Available Floating Palettes:

	Styles: Contains various graphic effects for vector shapes and layers.
	Swatches: Selection of colour systems.
	Colour: Colour palette for choosing and mixing colours.
	History: A log of recent actions and the facility to undo to a previous history states.
	Actions: (Button Mode) 'Quick' buttons for executing prerecorded procedures.
	Actions: Programmable buttons for creating action procedures.
	Tool Presets: Change, organise and save tool behaviours.
	Layers: Helps you to organise and manage layers within your image.
	Channels: Organise, view, create, mix and delete channels of colour information.
	Paths: Organise, view, update, create and delete vector paths.
	Info: Display colour information and position within your image.
	Navigator: Navigate around image and control zoom factor.
	Paragraph: Format paragraphs of selected type within an image.
	Character: Control the typographic appearance and behaviour of selected type.