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Adobe to Unclutter Photoshop UI
spotplace writes "It's not common to see a company blast their own product for failing to adapt to times and people's necessities, unless they're trying to give you a reason to buy the latest and greatest of said product. That's exactly what Adobe has done. John Nack, senior product manager at Adobe, says the old Photoshop interface doesn't cut it anymore: "I sometimes joke that looking at some parts of the app is like counting the rings in a tree: you can gauge when certain features arrived by the dimensions & style of the dialog. No one wants to work with — or work on — some shambling, bloated monster of a program.""
Inspiration for new UI can be found here
(I kid, I kid)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Good, now can you do Acrobat next?
the Photoshop UI always confuses folk like me. They should drop CMYK support while they are at it.
I'm still using 5.5 most of the time because I didn't like the last major overhaul with 6.0.
Allow photoshop to multitask. I cannot believe that still in 2007, with my Macbook Core 2duo with 3GB of RAM, I cannot edit images while I am using my scanner. Why can't photoshop scan negatives in the background while I work on other images in the foreground?
Jonathanjk.com
I'm always glad to hear of a serious attempt to clean up the user interface of a major application. All too often, keeping an interface clean comes second to keeping it similar to how it was in the previous major version. As it sounds like they will be splitting the existing functionality between modes for different classes of tasks, I just hope they don't mess up and force their users to continually switch between different modes to do everyday tasks.
Insert self-referential sig here.
this is a bad idea for 2 reasons:
1) those who use it for real/business reasons will have to completely relearn the interface
2) it will make it easier for untalented idiots to post their bullshit "art" all over the internet
Since I started with Word 2007 (using it on a daily basis) i must say, the ribbon is one of the best new features of Office. It saves me a lot of trouble and it is very intuitive. Maybe that is a good place to start. (now bash me for my Office simphaty :)
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
#3 Means "provide good defaults so regular users don't have to mess around with UI customization".
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
Must have been all the people in their forums bitching that their interface needed to be more "GIMP" like ;)
What I've always wanted is for Photoshop to use several windows for editing! One for tools, another for layers, another for the image, etc. The way Photoshop is, I can't use my window manager to manage the different components of the interface, and that bugs me. I'm unaware of any graphics editing software that does this.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Holding chairs? Modern taskmasters hurl chairs. Far more efficient.
Launchy.net changed my world.
use a ribbons!
Photoshop is one of those apps where the users (at least the ones who tend to pay for it), graphic designers etc. are usually power users who spend all day with it and make heavy use of keyboard shortcuts and are used to its quirky interface. Changing too much of the UI at once could affect the productivity of a whole lot of people. Not that it matter too much since photoshop is the only choice for them so they'll just have to learn it again but still...
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Few Photoshop profis I knew in past were telling to work effectively in Photoshop (or any other similar application for that matter), you need to learn (1st) keyboard shortcuts and (2nd) plug-ins menu.
It always seemed to me that Photoshop professionals were unfased by the clutter of its GUI.
In many aspects, Photoshop is optimized for several workflows and most newcomers work solely within one of such workflows: steep learning isn't much of problem then.
But probably do-it-all freelancers would be happy with cleaner simpler interface...
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
yes, photoshop is lacking in the wizards department. A few random wizards that pop up second-guessing what you're trying to do and that ask a bunch of silly questions ultimately resulting in the automatic execution of only two or three possible outcomes. Maybe they could even hire clippy to solicit help by drawing upon a database of five or six different help-topics incessantly.
ôó
The whole floating windows and palettes system is fiddly and pointless.
I used to use TV Paint on the Amiga, when you opened up an image it opened pretty much full screen except for a palette on the right. You could hide this with one keypress.
Professional systems in the past have had this approach, full screen canvass with a palette. Think Quantel Paintbox and the like.
An artist does not want to have to keep shifting windows around.
The irony that this product is THE most used among design professionals, and is itself an ugly monstrosity, designed by committee, very badly.
This has needed to happen for a very long time. Although it does mean that those of us who are professionals are probably going to have retrain to rid ourselves of the esoteric plethora of keyboard shortcuts we've had to learn to use over a long period of time.
Just one personal gripe about PS in case anyone from Adobe is reading -- why on Earth are the dialog boxes modal? When I open up a dialog box, decide that I need to move the picture underneath to see it better (since dialogue boxes are all sizes under the sun), but I can't do that can I? No, I have to close the dialog box, move the picture, and re-open the dialogue box -- that's just plain dumb!
Like most people out there, I love what I can do with Photoshop (and most other Adobe apps) but I despise the product. I would jump ship tomorrow for a better product. I don't doubt for one second that I am alone. Adobe needs serious competition. Considering the preposterous cost of their apps, and the fact that they don't make them well, I don't really understand why there's not a long list of competitors, those guys can't be the only ones who know how to code this type of application.
John Nack's ideas are correct. Photoshop still has a lot of problems but the UI is definitely the worst part. Today, this application is where Office 2003 stood a few years ago. Everything was cluttered and Microsoft needed to redesign it badly. They did a great job with Office 2007, and I picture something similar with the next Photoshop.
I sincerely hope they will implement a skinnable UI. Not that I dislike the current theme, but somtimes when I work with really dark pictures, I would prefer a black menu, not grey. In fact, it would make sense if the UI could adapt its colors to the picture you're working on (user's choice function only, of course). Sometimes the menus are incredibly disturbing because they break the pattern.
Full Tilt
To you, "dual core" is what you've got left over after you've eaten two apples.
Hi rackrent,
You're not the only one - I too use good old PSP 7.04.
After many years of Amiga graphics software - still remember those days fondly - I gave PSP 6 a try and then moved to 7.04. I tried PSP 8.x, but it was getting to look too much like PhotoShop - which I always found to be a bloated, whale of a program. So PSP 7.04 it is! I can do 80-90% of what PhotoShop can do and 110% of what I need.
Long live PSP 7.x!
And to all those harden PhotoShop users who're quaking in their booties at the thought of a redesigned GUI - just stick with your current version! Just because an app gets updated doesn't mean you NEED to upgrade, particularly if it does what you need it to!
ok. I want to quality myself as an expert. I have used Photoshop since it was Barney Scan XP. I have been certified twice to teach photoshop, and have taught classes on expert photshop. ( Color models, the layers interface and channels ). I had a hand in the design of the UI for a photoshop competitor, and worked for a year doing UI design/QA on it. ( and compairing to how photoshop worked and/or didnt work. )
The interface for photoshop has devolved to the point that when they bring out a new version, You NEED to buy the help book. Hell, I do! Things just are so far from being intuitivly obivious, and the guys doing UI design, they used to be good. The early versions from 1.0.7 to 5.5.1 were all fine, but 5.5.1 started to get a bit messy. By CS1(PS8) they were a bit cleaner, but you spent most of your time, thinking that the tool was somewhere else. I remember that I put a note on my wall, as to where I would find things just to rememind me how they had changed. Dont forget that Photoshop 6s color models were extrodinarlly powerfull. You can still do wonders with color control though the workflow, but again, they missed on the UI/explaination. Integration of ImageReady was a tragic mistake.
So many things could have been made easier, and now a simpler UI is a feature? Sucks Less? Suck how much less? Why did tney screw it up in the first place? FEATURE BLOAT, just like Microsoft word. How hard is it to manage a system of alacarte appliations? Its like Linux trying to integrade the webserver into everything, Like I.E.s integration into windows. Im going to stop here, beause I feel like smashing my computer.
You want to see simple? Look at Coyote Linux. Simple, small does its job well. a 4k web server!
Adobe get a CLUE! But the only way they make money is to redecorate the feature list...exactly how car companies sell new cars with diffrent tail lights. every year... diffrent tail lights.
I really, really, really, REALLY hope the have the option to switch between any new UI they create and the old one.
._.
UNLIKE FLASH MX.
Anyone who's ever had a look at their plug-in SDK can tell you that the UI is the least of what they need to overhaul
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Kids these days...
In my time, we were lucky if we had any apples, let alone two.
Two apples? Only for a birthday. If you have been good the whole year. Maybe.
Throwing away perfectly good apple core? Vandalism!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I wonder if this has been catalysed by the need to move from Carbon to Cocoa for future versions of OS X?
Oh yes, it certainly is "offtopic" to talk about an already existing configurable interface on a commercial image editing program in an article about a commercial image editing program's luminary writing about contemplating and preparing for a change to a configurable interface. Um-hmm. The humor is beyond the moderators, I'm sure. :-)
But what is even funnier is that this post, which describes exactly how Winimages works, is modded +3 insightful. Yet when I posted that we had already done this along with an invitation to try it for free... zap. You gotta love the mouth-breathers.
This, people, is precisely why you need to read slashdot at -1. It certainly is why I read at -1.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I've always found Adobe's programs useful, but for some reason I've found their interfaces to be counterintuitive, messy time-wasters. PhotoShop is just the worst of a truly horrible bunch in that respect. I absolutely love what you can do with images in PhotoShop, but I can't count the number of times I've had to get up and walk away from the computer in a rage because something that should be dead-simple is buried where no sane person would look for it.
I can't wait to see what the re-design looks like. I only wish to hell they'd asked me first. Not that I'm a world-class expert, it's just that I have a feeling some guy from Adobe sneaks in every so often and has Audition or PhotoShop or Acrobat report on how I use them just so the next version can piss me off all over again.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
...PhotoGIMP!
#2 The crappy interface
#1 The zooming with the scrollwheel does not work as I expect it to and I have not seen any options to customize it to my needs.
Those two reasons alone keep me from using it and staying with Paint Shop Pro.
( a thinly veiled one at that ) to cut down on features as a pre-cursor to moving to their subscription based purchasing. A snr level spokesperson at Adobe laying the groundwork for cutting down on their development budget. The subscription based model means they remove the requirement to innovate continually to get new sales and produce revenue, as with subscription model revenue is a constant stream whether they release new versions or not. Win win for the corporation/shareholder, lose lose for the end user.
This guy uses underlines for things other than links on his web site.
Haha, despite how irrelevant this comment sounds, I had to think the same thing. That guy had me rolling over his underlined text to make sure these weren't links, and he's talking about rethinking a UI.
By the way, is it just me or is Photoshop CS3's interface perfectly fine and that guy sees issues where there aren't any?
You just got troll'd!
Did anyone else see the Adobe Notes thing? John Nack basically admits that Adobe's help system is useless and wants you to write notes to remind you how to do things in Photoshop.
Here's a practical example. Let's say you go into Photoshop's Unsharp Mask dialog box. "Amount" is straightforward, but what the hell do "Radius" and "Threshold" mean, exactly?
I don't know, but you know what should be able to tell me? The help system.
---> You
---> Sarcasm.
If you dig a little, it sounds like they're planning to rewrite most of the UI in Flash. Say goodbye to performance and to looking like a native citizen of your machine. Flash itself went down this route and its CPU requirements have increased astronomically.
I am really, really keeping an eye on the emerging world of OSX-only lightweight image editors that leverage Core Image. The first one to merge a decent UI (which rules out Pixelmator and its fetish for illegibly-transparent palettes) with something akin to PS's adjustment layers will get my $30-75.
egypt urnash minimal art.
I learned very early on that Photoshop's current UI is excellent if you have two monitors. It is horrible on one monitor. This is a critical point that most people trying to use it on one monitor seem to miss. You need one screen for your image and the other screen for EVERYTHING ELSE.
:)
I have a nice workspace saved with all the winlets / pallettes broken out and filling up the second screen. Even the new top bar that they have in CSx I put on the right screen across the top, since it is detachable / dockable.
As another user commented, I am surprised by how good and how well thought out Office 2007's interface is. Usually when you try to contextualize stuff you end up making it frustrating for power users. This has not been the case with Office so far, and I could see Photoshop trying something like that.
The big pitfall to avoid is making it difficult for power users to have access to all the features all at once. I have every palette activated and arranged on the second monitor, so I have instant access to anything I want at any time. The most used pallettes are on the left, near the edge of the screen that crosses over to the primary monitor.
Keyboard shortcuts are also key with photoshop, as others have mentioned. There are some REALLY obscure ones, such as CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-E to put a flattened copy of active layers into the current layer, but I use that one ALL THE TIME, less so now with the advent of adjustment layers but still frequently.
I have used Photoshop for everything from broadcast television graphics to high end photo retouching and photo collage work / print layout design. It's like an extension of my being at this point. It will be interesting to see where they go with it.
--Mike