The grid has become somewhat of a culture icon to many Photoshop users. It’s been a part of Photoshop for a long, long time to help users determine the level of transparency in their images.

But now you get the chance to modify the appearance of this checkerboard-like grid to your own individual tastes. In the Transparency & Gamut preferences dialog box, you not only get to define the color for the out-of-gamut warning, but also customize the size of the classic Photoshop grid.

1. To bring up the Transparency and Gamut preferences dialog box on the Macintosh platform, go to the Photoshop menu and select Preferences -> Transparency & Gamut. On the Windows platform, select Edit -> Preferences and select Transparency & Gamut. If you are in the dialog box from the previous task, select Transparency & Gamut from the dropdown menu at the top of the dialog box.

2. To adjust the size of the checkerboard pattern, select Small, Medium, or Large from the Grid Size drop-down menu under Transparency Settings. If you don’t want to see a checkerboard pattern, select None. You will see a preview of the grid in the preview square that’s off to the right under Transparency Settings.

3. The Grid Colors dropdown menu enables you to pick from a predetermined set of colors and shades for the checkerboard grid pattern. Your preset options are categorized in two groups: shades and colors. The first group includes Light, Medium, and Dark options. The color options include Red, Orange, Green, Blue, and Purple colors.

4. To create a custom-colored checkerboard pattern for the grid, select Custom from the Grid Colors drop-down menu.

5. Click the swatch colors below the Grid Colors drop-down menu to bring up the Color Picker dialog box. Pick the colors you want and then press OK. The colors you picked are displayed in the preview square.

6. If your graphics card supports the overlay of images on top of a live video signal and you want to make use of this feature, select the Use Video Alpha checkbox.

7. To change the color that’s used to indicate a gamut warning, click the Color swatch under Gamut Warning. This brings up the Color Picker dialog box. Pick the color you want and then click OK.

8. To adjust the opacity of the gamut warning color, enter a percentage in the Opacity text field or click the triangle and adjust the slider.