If you are doing extensive work with an image file, you may want to leave written or spoken notes for yourself, or for whoever else will be working on the file. Photoshop CS allows you to save notes with your file, so that when you reopen the file, you can refer to your notes and quickly get back on track.

To add a note to a file, select the Notes tool from the Photoshop Toolbox by clicking on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the notes tool selected, click the spot on your image or canvas where you would like to leave a note and a box with a heavy yellow bar at the top will appear.

 

You can now click in the note box to activate your cursor, and enter whatever text you like. If you click the small white square at the upper right corner of the note box, the box will collapse down to a small note icon (looks like a small page with the lower right corner turned up).

 This icon will be saved with the image file when you save your work, and it will be visible when you reopen the file at a later date. If you right click on the icon, a menu will appear with options for opening the note and for deleting it. You can use the Notes tool to add as many notes as you like to an image. Right clicking on any note icon and choosing Delete all Annotations will remove any notes that you have added to the file.

 

If you wish you can also save spoken notes with your image files. To do this, click the Notes tool in the toolbox and hold your left mouse button down. A sub menu box with variants of the tool will appear to the right of the notes tool. Select the Audio Annotation Tool from this box, and then click in the spot on your image or canvas where you would like to leave a note. The following dialog box will appear.

 

 

(You must have a microphone connected to your computer to take advantage of the Audio annotation tool.) 

 

The next step is to click the Start button to begin recording. After you click Start, speak into the microphone. When you are finished, press Stop to end the recording. You will now see a small icon that resembles a speaker located on your image. If you right click on the loud speaker icon and select Play from the pop up menu, you will hear your spoken notes through your computer’s speakers.

 

You can drag and drop the notation icons to any spot on your image, and you can add both spoken and written notes to your file. When you save your file, the annotations you added will be saved with it.