How to view more than one file at a time in CS4?

Question

With OS 10.5, and a brand new CS4 Photoshop, I can open many Photoshop files at a time, but can only view one at a time. Must choose one at a time from the "tab". I need to have more than one picture open and showing at a time to work on them. How can I do that? What have I missed? Who can help? Thanks!

Answer 1

"Here's the smart way for all of you on macs. Set up Exposé and a keystroke for 'Application windows'. Then with the press of a single key you can visualize, and swap between documents very easily. By I single keystroke I mean something like Right Control.
Tabbed documents have hardly any genuine advantages for mac users, yet another example of interface decisions in the stupid direction."
This is what I've been saying since I first saw the tabbed view in the new CS4.  On the Mac, tabbed view is a big step backwards as it actually breaks the superior Expose' method of viewing multiple windows and also switching among them.  I would also add that Control/Tab for non-tabbed windows is actually slightly faster than when they are tabbed.  So for the mac, I only needed a minute to decide that the tabbed view was merely change for the sake of change.  There are also operations that I do where I have to recreate a piece of art to match an existing piece.  In those situations I always have the original right next to the the new image.  Tabbed view destroys this as well.  So I don't use it.
For the PC, tabbed views is possibly a tiny step forward, but it's such a small step that I'm not sure if I prefer to use tabs, or have that small amount of screen space that the tabs use.  There was no previously existing "good" method of viewing and moving among multiple windows of a single application on the PC and therefore, tabs might be a small improvement.  Unfortunately though it does seem that in order to bring us tabbed views in CS4, Adobe had to slightly 'break' the regular floating windows view.  On the PC the documents will actually float above the toolbars, palettes,etc making it very difficult to use if not impossible.  So, if you don't like using tabs, then you are really gonna suffer with non-tabbed view or suffer with the tabbed view.  On the Mac, it's the opposite problem.  Documents actually float up and underneath the top toolbar, covering the "close, maximize, minimize" buttons.  Generally I would say that Adobe has created a mess when the best solution was obvious.  Adobe should have copied the expose' method for it's CS4 suite.  Hopefully they will have enough feedback with CS4 to see the light and change it for CS5.  I see that Microsoft has mouse software that has already done just that on the PC, and there are a handful of independent efforts attempting to come up with something like expose' but generally with far less elegant and less "perfect" results.