The Professional Webspace of Designer and Illustrator Kevin Cornell:
"Design, Art, and Lackluster Humor."
Lately, I've been running into the same set of annoying usability problems with Photoshop. Now, I only use CS occasionally, since not everyone at work has it (and the ability of CS to downsave is a horrid lie - at least on PC); otherwise I'm using Photoshop 6. But I can list my main two complaints with confidence that Adobe still hasn't solved these problems.
So - here's my two beefs:
Usability Issue 1:
Ever had multiple layers of text in Photoshop? Say you turned off the top layers, and wanted to select the text in the bottom. You should just click on the text and it will be active, right? Wrong. Even though you obviously don't want the other layers (why else would you have turned them off?), Photoshop feels you probably always want to select the topmost layer. How thoughtful! So the only way I'll be able to select the text I want is to actual find the layer it's on and make it the active layer? How efficient - I'm glad YOU know what I want, Photoshop!
Usability Issue 2:
This one bugs me especially after I run into Usability Issue 1. Why is it that Photoshop refuses to consider changes to layers as an item in the History Palette? Turning those layers off and on were legitimate changes Photoshop! Why don't you give them the recognition they deserve? And after you fuck me by selecting the invisible topmost layer of text even though I wanted the visible bottom layer, and I undo your mistake, why do I have to go back and make all those layer changes I took the time to do?
I'm not surprised at this kind of behavior. Inanimate objects (especially computers) are always looking for a way to screw me. But their little injuries only bother me until I complain; after that I can return to ignoring the problem by, say, not writing Adobe about said problems. So go ahead - do things the bearskinrug way and feel free to badmouth Photoshop with me!
Comments on this Article
There are currently 22 comments.
2. bearskinrug
I've always had my suspicions about you, RJ. I'd go to select text, and I'd think "I bet RJ's responsible for this!"
4. Jason Santa Maria
Why ruin a seemingly useful feature like right clicking on your document to select a layer only to have Photoshop's guess at which layer you're trying to get to along with EVERY layer set in the document as well. Fucking stupid. It makes sense to give me the layer I am clicking on, and some surrounding ones in case I am inept with my mouse, but why every fucking layer set? Arbitrary shit.
5. bearskinrug
Ever have photoshop continually default to the "HTML and Image" selection when you Save for Web, even though you've eradicated every TRACE of a slice?
6. Rob Weychert
Photoshop 7 included a long-overdue feature in the Preferences that allowed you to customize the Undo settings. So rather than use the Photoshop default, in which Command+Z (or Control+Z, for you PC users) toggles between Undo and Redo, I could set Command+Z to continually undo backwards through the document's History, and Command+Shift+Z would do the opposite (which is the way it works in Illustrator, and the way it should work everywhere). Photoshop CS has done away with this option, assuming that if I want any more than one level of Undo, I'll be more than happy to open up the History panel to get where I need to be. Considering the fact that it's only been about 6 years since multiple undos were even introduced in Photoshop, I guess I should count my blessings. But I won't. Command+Z must be the most-used key command in Photoshop, and I want to customize it, dammit.
7. bearskinrug
AHA! That's a problem I can solve!
They moved the option to change your undo's to the Keyboard Shortcuts section under File.
8. RJ Hampden
My lack of payment for Adobe products will reduce that option (as well as many others) to nothing more than a stick and a piece of lime green yarn.
9. Jason Santa Maria
I also hate the way the text box bounding boxes work... sure you can resize the box, as long as you only want to do it from a corner. What's that? You want to do it from a side? No, those pull tabs are just for show.
10. Murten
so true. I hate it when you save something as a ... for instance: .jpg it makes your document name name copy.jpg.. I don't want "copy" behind it, and I am too lazy to change that.
12. bearskinrug
No one here is crying, dammit.
Oh - wait - maybe I am...
I am either crying, or I got urine in my eyes.
13. Admiral von Steuben
Good Lord! How do you manage to do all those scripts and silkscreens and hlm's with such a subpar piece of software! The very thought!
P.S. I'm being sarcastic. And I do know what a jpeg is. For real.
14. Murten
eh Kev, do you take pics of your drawings for the 'sketches' section?
btw: can I call ya kev? :D
15. niff
NO you can't call him kev! that is reserved for freinds and perverts....and i mean REAL PERVES! not these sissy ones like you is!
hurmf!
hi kev.
16. niff
p.s.
bandelin says he pees cranberry juice. with pulp. he should be the one after ocean spray.
17. bearskinrug
Murten - No pics - It's usually a scan, but in some cases the binding just raises it up. It's like a picture by a scanner.
You can call me anything but Sugarbuns, which is reserved for my by my mom... :)
18. Mike Perve
Glad to see the Perve family getting some recognition on this forum. I was beginning to think that you guys had something against Italians.
19. Kim
I love Photoshop! I like to snuggle up with it at night and if I ever I do something stupid, it forgives me in many different ways.
22. Kim
I have a real one now.
In PS 7, has anyone had a problem with spontaneous duplication of items whether you're using the arrow keys or the move tool?
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1. RJ Hampden
i've helped implement such annoyances by never paying for photoshop. therefore i practically speak for adobe when i say, 'go fuck yourself'.