The Photoshop canvas is the part of your Photoshop screen that can be edited. The canvas is where you see your images, and it is the platform on which you modify your images.

 

In a sense, your image and the canvas you work on are not the same thing. For example, you can increase the size of the canvas, showing more of a border around the image. Although the image size value will increase to include this border, the “picture” part of the image hasn’t really changed. Only additional canvas space has been added. Of course, you can make changes to the “picture part” of your image without changing the canvas. Furthermore, if you add more canvas to your image, you can select where your “picture” will be oriented in regard to the additional canvas.

 

The document window is the viewing window that contains your image canvas. If you resize the window, you will see an area surrounding your image. It is possible to colour this area of the document window. For example, if your final image will be set against a strong bright colour; you can change the colour of your document window background so you can see how the changes you make to the image appear against the appropriate colour.

 

 

This graphic shows a picture of a sand dune on an enlarged orange coloured canvas, against a bright green document window. Notice how the paint strokes can cover the picture, and the orange extended canvas, but the strokes cannot cover the green document window background. The image canvas is the editable part of the Photoshop screen.