Dual monitor support

"Jason Warren" a

Firstly, you must ascertain that you video card has dual (or multiple) monitor support. If not, then nothing in Photoshop is going to help you.

If yes, then you’d want to configure your display to "Extended Monitor" or some similar name to that, depending on you graphics card. Once you’ve done that, start PS and position everything as you like. FWIW, I have my image and toolbox on my main monitor, and all the other windows on the other, with "layers" and "history" each occupying an entire column, at the edge of the display closest to my main monitor. How you distribute things is really up to you.

To ensure that you don’t have to redo all this positioning in the event that PS somehow loses this info (for example, if you start PS with only one monitor active), you can SAVE WORKSPACE using a name that you can recall anytime (I don’t remember where this SAVE command is, and I don’t have PS here. Sorry).

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 02:27:56 GMT, Jason Warren
wrote:
[snip]

looked through PS help and didn’t find anything. I am running Win XP Pro. Can someone give me a starting point to find out how to do this (if it’s even possible!).

Dual output video card, plus a dual monitor configuration (eg extended desktop). Works fine under XP Pro SP2, Photoshop CS2, with a CRT/LCD combo (both at the same resolution but the LCD is turned through 90 degrees). I have calibrated the CRT with a spider and use that as my primary display (even though it’s on the secondary output of my video card it’s easy to swap them around in the OS).

In PS CS2, I can move menus and images from one screen to the other, and save different arrangements for easy switching.

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In article ,
says…

Through a happy accident, I am about to acquire a small LCD monitor.

Thanks all for your help. I installed the monitor today, rotated it to portrait orientation, and after some baffling time with the ATI controls, everything is working as you suggested it would.

Thanks for the tip on using a PS workspace to capture the setup.

Now I just need to fiddle a bit more and de-saturate the LCD display so it doesn’t glare in my face next to the calibrated CRT.

One thing I haven’t figure out–maybe it’s not possible–is how the PS controls for full-screen can be made to operate only on the primary (CRT) monitor. The Tab and "F" keys work as I’d expect, except that the secondary monitor goes blank.

Jason

Jason Warren wrote:

One thing I haven’t figure out–maybe it’s not possible–is how the PS controls for full-screen can be made to operate only on the primary (CRT) monitor. The Tab and "F" keys work as I’d expect, except that the secondary monitor goes blank.

Not sure what you mean. If my image is on the main monitor, and I make it full screen, nothing else is affected. And, since the TAB key is supposed to make all non-image windows disappear, then the secondary monitor going blank is exactly the correct result. Sorry if I’m misunderstanding your issues.

In article ,
says…

Firstly, you must ascertain that you video card has dual (or multiple) monitor support. If not, then nothing in Photoshop is going to help you.

If yes, then you’d want to configure your display to "Extended Monitor" or some similar name to that, depending on you graphics card. Once you’ve done that, start PS and position everything as you like. FWIW, I have my image and toolbox on my main monitor, and all the other windows on the other, with "layers" and "history" each occupying an entire column, at the edge of the display closest to my main monitor. How you distribute things is really up to you.

To ensure that you don’t have to redo all this positioning in the event that PS somehow loses this info (for example, if you start PS with only one monitor active), you can SAVE WORKSPACE using a name that you can recall anytime (I don’t remember where this SAVE command is, and I don’t have PS here. Sorry).

One small caveat – after you have used PS in a dual-monitor config, it will be likely that you will drag some of the dialog boxes to the second monitor, i.e. Highlight & Shadow. If you then go back to a single monitor setup, you can " reset" Palettes for the single monitor, however, the dragged dialog boxes might not appear on it, as they are not positioned for the other monitor. If you ever do run with just the main monitor, be prepared for some boxes to not appear. The solution is to just drag them back from the second monitor to the main, before you shut down. Otherwise, you’ll be purging configs, etc. wondering where they disappeared to. Other than that, as stated, if your video card will support it (or you add a vid-card), you will love the increased real estate.

Hunt

Hunt wrote:

In article ,
says…

Firstly, you must ascertain that you video card has dual (or multiple) monitor support. If not, then nothing in Photoshop is going to help you.

If yes, then you’d want to configure your display to "Extended Monitor" or some similar name to that, depending on you graphics card. Once you’ve done that, start PS and position everything as you like. FWIW, I have my image and toolbox on my main monitor, and all the other windows on the other, with "layers" and "history" each occupying an entire column, at the edge of the display closest to my main monitor. How you distribute things is really up to you.

To ensure that you don’t have to redo all this positioning in the event that PS somehow loses this info (for example, if you start PS with only one monitor active), you can SAVE WORKSPACE using a name that you can recall anytime (I don’t remember where this SAVE command is, and I don’t have PS here. Sorry).

One small caveat – after you have used PS in a dual-monitor config, it will be likely that you will drag some of the dialog boxes to the second monitor, i.e. Highlight & Shadow. If you then go back to a single monitor setup, you can " reset" Palettes for the single monitor, however, the dragged dialog boxes might not appear on it, as they are not positioned for the other monitor. If you ever do run with just the main monitor, be prepared for some boxes to not appear. The solution is to just drag them back from the second monitor to the main, before you shut down. Otherwise, you’ll be purging configs, etc. wondering where they disappeared to. Other than that, as stated, if your video card will support it (or you add a vid-card), you will love the increased real estate.

Hunt

Never had this problem. If I start PS with only one monitor active, even after previously using it with extended monitor configuration, PS simply gives me another view – probably the default one.

In article ,
says…

– snip –

since the TAB key is
supposed to make all non-image windows disappear, then the secondary monitor going blank is exactly the correct result. Sorry if I’m misunderstanding your issues.

The misunderstanding is all mine…! After I posted, I thought about it and re-read the Help info. PS is behaving as it should. Darn.

Jason

In article ,
says…

Hunt wrote:

In article ,
says…

Firstly, you must ascertain that you video card has dual (or multiple) monitor support. If not, then nothing in Photoshop is going to help you.

If yes, then you’d want to configure your display to "Extended Monitor" or some similar name to that, depending on you graphics card. Once you’ve done that, start PS and position everything as you like. FWIW, I have my image and toolbox on my main monitor, and all the other windows on the other, with "layers" and "history" each occupying an entire column, at the edge of the display closest to my main monitor. How you distribute things is really up to you.

To ensure that you don’t have to redo all this positioning in the event that PS somehow loses this info (for example, if you start PS with only one monitor active), you can SAVE WORKSPACE using a name that you can recall anytime (I don’t remember where this SAVE command is, and I don’t have PS here. Sorry).

One small caveat – after you have used PS in a dual-monitor config, it will

be

likely that you will drag some of the dialog boxes to the second monitor,

i.e.

Highlight & Shadow. If you then go back to a single monitor setup, you can

"

reset" Palettes for the single monitor, however, the dragged dialog boxes might not appear on it, as they are not positioned for the other monitor.

If

you ever do run with just the main monitor, be prepared for some boxes to

not

appear. The solution is to just drag them back from the second monitor to

the

main, before you shut down. Otherwise, you’ll be purging configs, etc. wondering where they disappeared to. Other than that, as stated, if your

video

card will support it (or you add a vid-card), you will love the increased

real

estate.

Hunt

Never had this problem. If I start PS with only one monitor active, even after previously using it with extended monitor configuration, PS simply gives me another view – probably the default one.

I have observed this on two laptops (1 MAC 1 PC), and involved the secondary dialog boxes, which had been draged to the second monitor, which was no longer available. In both cases, I had a spare LCD monitor, which solved these problems.

Hunt

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 07:28:01 +0200, "Jacques" reverently intoned upon the aether:

Photoshop
will remember the position of the windows between sessions.

Unless your computer crashes with PS open. But you can also save workspace settings in PS. Then you can reload the workspace and not have to place all the palettes again.

enjoy,

Sean

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

– Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

New Website
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Last Updated 23 June 2005