: How to put image reference above all windows when drawing in photoshop? i am drawing in photoshow cs4 in windows7. i am using some image references from google but i have to switch windows

@Ogunnowo857

I personally use the free Honeyview image viewer.

It has in its General Options the 'Always on top' setting.

I like Honeyview because you can set it up so it has no window border/menu/buttons/anything... then you can just put it right beside whatever it is you're working on:



As you can see it's very unobtrusive... The B&W graphic on the left is open in Honeyview where it stays, always on top of Photoshop.

Another similar option (which requires no other 3rd-party programs) is just to open your reference image in another tab within Photoshop, then drag the tab off as a floating window... Only problem versus Honeyview is the window frame itself taking up real estate:



Alternatively (if you just use Windows Photo Viewer or whatever) you can install Dexpot (virtual desktop manager)... When Dexpot is installed every single window you can open gains the 'Always on Top' functionality.

Here I am setting Photoshop (for example) to be always on top:

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@Becky351

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@Nickens508

I'd vote for second monitor. Seriously… if it's just for reference purposes, you don't even need hi-profile top-notch pro monitor – some el cheapo will do. Sometimes it's even possible to get some older monitors for free (equipment rotation in companies, schools etc.). If you don't have too-little-space problem I'd go for that solution. I worked with two monitor setup for some time and – believe me – it's so comfortable it's painful to switch back to single monitor.

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@Jamie315

When you have the document window you are working on in Photoshop CS4 maximized the floating windows for other documents (like your reference images) should keep floating on top of your main document.
You could install Irfan View, open your reference images with it and select "options -> always on top" from the menu.
If you want to get really techy you can dig into autohotkey and write a custom script to switch the "always on top" status of a certain window.
On Win XP ther was an option in the nVidia drivers to activate a special control menu for each window that gave the always on top option, but I think that has been removed. At least I can't find it anymore. But if you have an ATI card it might be worth to look for such an option.

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@Cugini998

You could print it out, this is much cheaper than a second monitor ...

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@Ogunnowo857

I usually place the reference images at the top or the side of the main document and its "drawing area" ( Not really that specified, just an area that I feel comfortable working with. ) and put them in their own group.

I would put images in with different size's and possibly cut out some parts If there's like some specific part I'm interested in. ( just with Rectangular Marquee Tool and click Layer Mask icon. Nothing fancy. )

This of course requires a bit bigger document size, but it works well.
One thing to consider is the placement of reference images. If you need to make the document bigger for your drawing, you might not want to start moving the reference images around.

Basically what you can do is just select bunch of images from a folder and drag and drop into the open photoshop document.

Oh and of course you can copy image from the internets and just paste it into photoshop as well.

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