The Photoshop menu bar works like the menu bar
in any other standard application. Thus, for example, the "Save" and
"Save As" operations will be found in the "File" menu item and "Copy"
and "Paste" will be found in "Edit". No surprises here.
Similarly, the Photoshop menu follows the standard keyboard
shortcuts that you expect to see. Thus, the ALT-F combination will
access the "File" menu and the ALT-F SHIFT-N combination will access
the "New" menu choice from the "File" menu
item.
It is a good bet that if in any application you
see a menu item with a single letter underlined, that you can access
that menu item by using the ALT key in combination with the letter.
Similarly, menu choices should be accessible by using the SHIFT key in
combination with the underlined letter. Using keyboard shortcuts can
greatly speed up your work since you do not have to navigate the mouse
all over the screen. Why not take a moment to practice accessing menu
items using the keyboard? If you commit to learning one keyboard
shortcut per week, you will be a master of the menu in a couple of
months.
Of course, there are a few non standard menu items such as
"Mode" and "Filter", but these will be explained in detail later. For
the moment, let's keep our discussion focussed on the basics. Let's
move from the menu Bar to the Drawing Canvas.
![[Menu Bar]](Images/menu_k.gif){kind=small}
