The main toolbar is split into a number of categorized tabs.

• File - Opens a common file menu, for opening, saving and closing PhotoPad.
• Home - For common operations such as opening, saving, printing, scanning, and acquiring an image from a TWAIN device, screenshot, or webcam.
• Edit - For basic image operations, such as cropping, flipping, resizing, or rotating the image.
• Select - For selecting parts of the image with various Selection Tools.
• Color - For color adjustments such as changing the brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation of the image.
• Filters - For applying preset filters to your image for added effects.
• Effects - For creating layers which perform special effects, such as blurring or sharpening.
• Tools - For performing various tasks such as creating a panorama, draw layer, text layer, or overlay image.
• Retouch - For photo retouching tools, such as noise reduction and redeye removal.
• Share - Show and share your images to friends and family using social media or email and storage.
• Suite - For exporting your images into a range of NCH applications.

The toolbar also contains the Help documentation for PhotoPad. Help icon is located on the far right edge of the toolbar and top menu. Click directly on the icon to open the help files, or click on the help menu item on the top to view the different help topics.

Each open project is displayed as a thumbnail (small image) of the project. A project can be selected by clicking on it. A project can be closed by clicking the X close button on the thumbnail. Right click on the thumbnail for more options.
Click the bar above the thumbnail browser to expand and collapse the control.

This is the viewing area for the current project, and makes up the largest area of the PhotoPad window. It contains the canvas, where the combined result of all the layers in a project are displayed. Right click in the viewing area for more options.
Zoom controls are located at the bottom left of the window. A preset zoom level is selected by clicking the zoom drop-down next to the percentage. A custom zoom level can be selected by clicking the zoom-in/zoom-out buttons adjacent. Zooming can also be achieved by using the mouse scroll-wheel with the cursor over the image.
When zoomed in, the viewing region can be scrolled using the scroll-bars along the sides of the canvas viewer, or by dragging with the middle mouse button.

For an explanation of the layers concept, see the Concept: Layers section of this manual.
The right sidebar displays the list of layers in the current project. Using this panel, layers may be selected, made visible/invisible, reordered or deleted.

• Layer Ordering
  
  Layers are ordered from top to bottom. Images and text will be placed on top of each other in the order shown in the Effects History and Layers panel. Effects and color adjustment layers will also be applied in this order.
  To change the order of existing layers, click and drag a layer in the Effects History and Layers panel and drop it into a new position.
  
  
• Visibility
  
  A layer is visible either when it is selected, or when a layer after it is selected. When you select a layer in the history list, the layers after it will be hidden until a layer down the list is selected or a new layer is added.
  
  
• Deletion
  
  To delete a layer, click the cross to the right of the layer name. If a layer is deleted by mistake, it can always be restored using Undo (Ctrl+Z).

The currently selected layer will expand to show the properties for that layer. For instance, when a Text layer is selected, the panel expands to show controls for changing the font, color, or alignment of the text.
Many layers will have a reset button in their panel, which will restore the properties of the layer to the default values.