The toolbar, palettes and files

A new image is created with Ctrl+N or File → New: in the dialog you choose the name, width and height (pixels or cm), resolution (pixels/inch), colour mode (RGB, CMYK, Grayscale) and the background (white, coloured or transparent). An existing file is opened with Ctrl+O (File → Open), and recently used files are listed in File → Open Recent. Ctrl+S saves the file in the same place under the same name; Ctrl+Shift+S (Save As) lets you choose a new name, place or format; for the web, File → Export is used. Formats have their own jobs. PSD is PhotoShop's own format and keeps layers, so save unfinished work in it. JPEG (made by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee) is the most common for photographs, loses part of the data when compressing and does not keep transparency. PNG compresses without loss and supports transparency, while GIF stores at most 256 colours and suits simple animations. TIFF is used in printing and scanning, RAW is the unprocessed data of a camera sensor, and PDF is a document format. BMP and PCX are old formats rarely used now; modern alternatives are WebP and AVIF.