Easily Reset Photoshop's Preferences

 

Chihuly Glass Sculpture and Evergreen Tree
Chihuly Glass and Garden Exhibit, Seattle, Washington

Sometimes Photoshop's tools or interface stop working correctly. Frequently, just resetting Photoshop's preferences fixes the issues. In the past, resetting preferences required holding down three modifier keys immediately after launching Photoshop. It was often hard to get the timing right to accomplish this, so we had to make multiple attempts to reset the preferences.

Adobe has taken pity on us and given us a simple button to click when we want to reset Photoshop's preferences. The process is the same on Mac and Windows computers. Here's how:

1. On Windows, choose Edit > Preferences > General.
   On Mac, choose Photoshop > Preferences > General.
2. In the center click on "Reset Preferences On Quit".
   Photoshop displays a confirmation window.
3. If you do want to reset all preferences, click OK. If you change your mind, click Cancel.
4. Then quit Photoshop.

When you start Photoshop again, the program appears with the default settings.

New Photoshop Reset Preferences Button

Confirmation window to reset preferences

Now we no longer have to perform keyboard contortions when we need to reset Photoshop's preferences. Thanks, Adobe!