After years of using Photoshop, this version (PS2024 Mac) is baffling! What is going on?

Could you please post screenshots with the pertinent Panels visible? 

Does turning off »Use Graphics Processor« in the Performance Preferences (Photoshop > Preferences > Performance > Graphic Processor Settings) and restarting Photoshop have any bearing on the issue? 

Regardless of what Photoshop looks like when you open it, in the current version you should be able to open and edit a file the same way you have since Photoshop 1.0 in 1990: Go to the menu bar and choose File > New or File > Open, and there will be tools on the left and panels on the right.

If you can’t even see a menu bar or Photoshop workspace, your Photoshop installation might not be working properly, because what you describe you are seeing doesn’t sound normal. Can you post a screen shot of what you’re seeing? It almost sounds like a graphics glitch, which some Mac users report.

Also…

The online help link posted by the others is the detailed manual. You can’t buy it, “unfortunately” it’s only available for free on the Web. 🙂

Yes, a lot of people would rather have something that looks like a book with pages, but the online help probably contains more detailed information than any of the print manuals ever did. This is because all printed manuals had to leave out info because of the hard page count constrained by the printing budget, but for online help there is no restriction on how much detail can be added. And it can be searched easily, unlike the limited index of the printed manuals.

I've been using Photoshop since version 2.5 and it hasn't changed THAT much. You are probably seeing the Home screen. Close that and move on.

You can post some screen shots if you want additional help.

Photoshop has arguably the most tutorials, guides, help pages, etc of any consumer software on the market. Start with Adobe's help pages:

https://helpx.adobe.com/support/photoshop.html

Hi @birckcmi what was the last version of Photoshop you used? 2024 is not dramatically different than 2023, 2022 so I'm guessing you are taking a bigger leap. This page has  a section for Photoshop on Desktop that is a good starting guide.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/get-started.html