References outside canvas

[Typhonart]

Ayooo, would it be possible to implement something in the lines of PureRef, but working outside the main canvas, without utilizing any artboards? Just press a button to enter the background area, copy and paste images and text to it, lock it and keep it there? Seems like a very simple thing to implement, and would be a huge quality of life improvement for anyone dealing with digital painting, ie entire design in gaming/movie industry in the world :d

Just to visualise the idea:

[jane-e]

@Typhonart 

Have you used PureRef? The video at their site looks like it stores images outside of the Photoshop application and does not hide parts of an image that extend inside Photoshop but outside of the canvas.

My preference would be for a Pasteboard, similar to InDesign and Illustrator.

Jane

[Stephen Marsh]

Seems like a very simple thing to implement

By @Typhonart

I doubt that, especially if one is concerned with backward compatibility with formats that can maintain layers.

[Stephen Marsh]

My preference would be for a Pasteboard, similar to InDesign and Illustrator.

By @jane-e 

Agreed Jane, as you know, the issue is that Photoshop is a pixel and canvas based program, not vector or page based. The challenge, just as with artboards, is that there is only a single canvas.

One could create an action or script that would create a group that would contain all existing groups/layers (not artboards) with a group layer mask for the current canvas size, which then creates an enlarged canvas with a new group for the "pasteboard" area.

[jane-e]

Hi @Stephen Marsh 

I agree that a pasteboard will probably never make its way into Photoshop, but the concept works better than the video I saw on the PureRef page.

I remember the early days of Photoshop. If you dragged a layer with an object slightly off the canvas, you could immediately retrieve it. But if you did other things, then the hidden part of the image would be chopped off and gone. That was in the days of one undo sometimes.

We've come a long way!

Jane