Microsoft Pauses Work on 'Photoshop Killer'

daria42 writes "According to this article, Microsoft has paused development work on some parts of the pro graphics application it first released in beta back in June 2005. The problem? It appears the software giant doesn't see the application as a stand-alone product, but more of a companion piece to its Expression product line. Plus Vista needs to be released first."

Comments

Re:Masochism

[Kierthos]

No kidding. I work at a FedExKinko's, and we flat out tell customers that we can't color match, because what you see on the screen is not always going to look the same on the prints. Especially in the case of our oversize color printer, where MS's default blue (on the screen) comes out as purple on the paper. Fortunately, it's only on the color oversize printer, which is made by HP, which does this. The XEROX based color copiers we have print it as blue. Not the exact same shade of blue, of course, but it's not purple.

Re:I'd like a Photoshop replacement

[BrynM]

* Here's an example of what I mean. To save a .png file after editing it, I should just be able to hit "save". Instead, it takes no fewer than 6 clicks to get the darn file saved. Adobe does little or no usability testing, I'm convinced.

This may sound like a cliche, but that's a feature! It's not letting you save instantly because you've created layers and PNG doesn't support layers. I do things to single layer PNGs all of the time. All it takes is a simple ctrl-s to save. If you've got layers, hit ctr-shift-e before ctrl-s to merge all of the visible layers and flatten the image. You can even undo (ctrl-z) the flattening after your save if you want to continue editing with layers as long as Photoshop is still open. If using three key combinations is too much, you can use save for web (alt-shift-ctrl-s) and save your layered original as a PSD (complete with your save for web settings from the operation) seperately.

CS is all about workflow andnon-destructive editing. That's why production shops (and I) like it. Even if you did have something that took "6 clicks" to do, you could record it as an action, highlight at which points it should ask you questions if at all and assign it to a key such as F5. Sorry, but your usability problem lies with the user on this one.