• portalpotty
  Thank you so much for this. I was an avid user of both Photoshop CS2 and CS3, and when I got CS4, I couldn't understand why everything opened in tabs like that. It is unbelievably unhelpful, especially when previous versions allow you to drag content from one floating window to another. Thanks for allowing me to actually get some work done in Photoshop again!
  
  Even though you can drag the tabs down to the canvas, when opening a new document and pasting, it begins the tabbing cycle again!
• Janne Jylhä
  hhaugli: you can switch between open documents with Ctrl+Tab.
  
  But this does't help with toolbars that are lost under big amount of documents, because documents float above toolbars in CS4. Anybody have a sollution this? Solution would be to set the toolbars so that they allways float above documents. Another solution would be an option or shortcut key to bring the tools to front (above all documents). Also if i could just browse through toolbars like through documents with Ctrl+Tab, that would do the job. But can't seem to find any of these features in Photoshop CS4!? What the hell...
• David
  Thanks a lot for this very usefull tip, dragging to the top toolbar, who would of thought of that. Been driving me crazy for some time now to, again, many thanks.
• Joey
  Thanks alot, I love tabs, but it PS it drives me CRAZY...after spending the last 30mins patching back in Automate>WebPhotoGallery... I figured I'd fix this too.. Thanks
• hhaugli
  I too can't find much good to say about the tabs. But as soon as you've disabled them my old shortcut for switching between open documents (Cmd+<) doesn't work. Arrgh! Any tips?
• Michael Chagala
  Thank you for the quick, clear, easy solution to this! ...took 5 seconds after looking at your screenshots.
• Eric
  Pretty f'ing dumb in my opinion. Thank you. I found your solution quicker than I did on Adobe's website/help!
  
  They need to disable this feature by default and let people ENABLE it.
• evan
  I don't know why on earth adobe thought this would be good UI. Pretty ridiculous.
• Jessica
  Mr. Randy Jensen, you are officially my hero. Now, if you could just tell me how to drag and drop new files into an existing file and have them appear as new layers... then, you would be a superhero.
  
  I know I'm not totally insane... this used to be a feature right? Stupid upgrades, they are supposed to make these programs better, not worse.
• randyjensen
  Wow. Not sure that I can live up to that!
  
  What exactly do you mean "drag new files into existing files"?
  
  If you have several files open and want to drag and drop a part of a file into another one, you can still do it the same way. Just drag the layer and hold it over the tab or the workspace of the other file and let it go. Is that not working for you?
• ts
  This doesn't really disable tabs. If you drag and drop an image, it still dumps it in a tab.
• randyjensen
  Read the two updates after the post. It doesn't seem like there is a perfect way to kill them completely
• fredclown
  I think I have found almost the perfect solution for this. Here are the steps.
  
  1. Go to the Actions palette and click click on the "Create new action" button. Call the action something like "Minimize". You may want to put this action in its own group as well. It's really up to your own preferences.
  
  2. Click on the little arrow in the top right of the Actions panel. Select "Insert Menu Item".
  
  3. It should now give you the option to select a menu item. Go to the Window menu and select the Arrange sub menu. Click on "Float in Window".
  
  4. Go back to the Actions panel and click the stop button.
  
  5. Go to the File menu and select the Scripts sub menu. Click on "Script Events Manager".
  
  6. If the top check box is not checked check it.
  
  7. In the "Photoshop Event" drop down change it to "Open Document".
  
  8. Click on the "Action:" radio button.
  
  9. Select the action set that you just created the new action in. Also select the action you just created.
  
  10. Click the Add button.
  
  Now whenever you open a document is opened this action will run ... thus untabbing it. The only downside is that if you open lots of images it can take a while to run the action on all of them. But for just a few images it goes fairly quick.
• randyjensen
  Wow Fred, that's a hell of an idea.
  
  I don't think I would want it running on every document I open, but I'd like to be able to run it when I wanted.
  
  Nice work!
• Alex
  CS4 tabs system SUKS!
• ridley
  you can actually just click on a tab and drag it down to the canvas and it becomes a floating window.
  
  thanks again for the tip, really helpful.
• randyjensen
  Glad it helped.
  
  I'm going to add your comment to the post. Another great tip, Thanks!
• ridley
  thanks a lot gov i hate those tabs as well. totally agree with everything you said.
• michelle Roberts
  thank you thank you thank you!!!! it was driving me insane!!!
• Glenda Ketcham
  Thank you SO much! This feature was driving me crazy. I even trashed my PSCS4 version and went back to PSCS3. Then I thought, this is crazy, why can't I use PS4? I will just have to learn to like the tabs feature. But I hate it and don't want to like it. I finally found your solution . . . hadn't been able to figure it out on my own. Again, thank you!
• randyjensen
  Hey Glenda,
  
  Glad it worked for you! I still haven't gotten used to the tabs...
• randyjensen
  Hey guys, be sure to check out Scott's comment (He posted it to the wrong post so I'm pasting it below)
  
  It looks like the tabs show up depending on where you drop your files. If you drop them in the main window, they open as tabs. If you drop them on the tool bar, the open in floating windows. Thanks Scott!
  
  
  "CS4 tabs are annoying. However, you can successfully drag multiple images to CS4 and have them all open in floating windows IF you drop them on the top tool bar. I know that may seem strange versus previous version of Photoshop and common sense, for that matter, but it works for me on XP x64.
  
  Scott"
• eugenia
  Me too - hate the tabs. Tries your way but couln't get the windows to sit nicely under the toolbars and menus - is there something I am missing?
• Janne Jylhä
  Has anybody found a way to get the document windows to float UNDER the toolbars and menus? It gets VERY annoying when you have like 10 documents open and you move them around. Sooner or later you have documents all over the place (over toolbars and menus. Even over the top toolbars and menus of the whole application!!) and all the tools are hidden somewhere under all the documents. Grrrh...
• randyjensen
  I haven't found anything like that yet. I don't think it's possible without some type of third party software or a hack simply because of how the chrome in Photoshop was developed. I think they consider it a "feature" not a bug.
• Janne Jylhä
  I wish there was even a "Bring all tools to front" option or something like that... or you could still put tool panels as tabs OUTSIDE of the working area like in CS3.. god damned, this "feature" really makes my work harder.. :(
• randyjensen
  I've had quite a bit of trouble with the tabs in CS4. What I've found so far is that it depends on how you open files. If you drag files from your desktop into PS, they are forced into tabs no matter what you have chosen. If you open an image by going to File Open, it doesn't use a tab...
  
  Not sure if that helps, but to be honest, I haven't found a perfect solution for completely removing the tabs.
• Rob
  I've got a habbit of dragging files into photoshop, and the tabs are really bugging me! You would of thought there be an option somewhere to fully turn this off. Photoshop dual screen + tabs = weak.
• fergotron
  agreed... I use 2 screens in photoshop with it stretched across both, and when I drag an image in it just sits between the 2 screens, making it totally useless.
  
  They shouldn't mess around with basic usability like this. Photoshop is a designer's tool, and things should feel intuitive, not more complicated!
• randyjensen
  Not a bad habit at all!! That's exactly how I use PS and I think how most professionals use it, especially with two monitors.
  
  I know that software design is difficult, but I can't figure out how they missed the boat on this one so badly. Did they beta test it with graphic artists at all?

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