Pop open menu peculiarity

[C62008]

I'm new to Mac so please don't groan if I'm stumped by the obvious. I'm frustrated by the way menus extend upwards off the screen out of view. For example, in Photoshop CS3 if I position the Layers palette at the top of the screen and then need to view the drop down layer blending options the list pops out but most of the selections are off screen and I then need to press the scroll arrow to scroll the options down the screen. It's not the end of the world, but when there are a lot of options or you do it frequently it becomes irritating. I've noticed this on a variety of programs that have pop open lists at the tops of their palettes so I think it's an OSX thing but i don't see a setting like in Windows Office to just open all menus entirely when they are clicked. Is there a setting somewhere I've missed?