Altering Photoshop’s Unalterable Image Size Presets

This little trick allows one to edit the presets that appear in Photoshop’s New dialog box. If you’ve ever wanted to change Letter size from 8.5 x 11″ to 7.5 x 10″, you can do it with this. Macintosh users only, AFAIK.

Mac OS X, besides being a pretty cool operating system, gives the power user unexpected control over the innards of our computer and applications. Applications in Mac OS X are basically “packages”, full of XML files, default files and text files that control the application. Photoshop’s package contents are fairly complex and most of the files aren’t easily edited (nor should they be) but there are a few text files in there that can be modified. One in particular is easy to find and controls the presets in the New dialog box, which shows up every time File –> New… is executed.

Here’s how to access the file:

Step 1: In the Finder, Ctrl-click or right-click to view the contextual menu. Select “Show Package Contents”. Just like any other folder, Photoshop opens up and reveals its booty.

Step 2: Navigate to Contents –> Required –> Default New Doc Sizes.txt. It’s just a text document with data like this:

; Version of the file

2

; “Custom” will always get added first
; Followed by a separator

; Default document size – Photoshop will calculate sizes
; based on the current system locale. This label indicates
; where in the menu the default size will go

“Default Photoshop Size”

“separator”

; Standard paper sizes

“Letter” 8.5 11.0 inches print unchanged unchanged 0 1.0 white “working”
“Legal” 8.5 14.0 inches print unchanged unchanged 0 1.0 white “working”
“Tabloid” 11.0 17.0 inches print unchanged unchanged 0 1.0 white “working”

––––––––—

This text is what Photoshop refers to when it shows you document presets like Letter, Legal and Tabloid among many others. I don’t know what all these do, but page size, units and background color are all self-explanatory.

Step 3: Change settings as needed by editing the text document, then save the file.

Step 4: Quit Photoshop if it’s not already, then re-launch it.

Use File –> New… to test out your new presets! The presets that Photoshop always told you couldn’t be edited are suddenly set to what you wanted. This is a great tip for users who hate having to specify all their new documents as having transparent backgrounds, or those who want to work with 7.5 x 10″ files (Letter size minus half-inch margin) but don’t want another document preset dirtying up the preset menu. Why create your own, when you can tell Photoshop what you want?