a.k.a., Stuff that already works as requested.
Thanks for all the great feedback on our JDI initiative. We’ve been combing through 300+ individual sets of suggestions (!), plus many hundred additional responses. I hope to get a chance to comment on more suggestions via blog comments, and maybe via a dedicated post discussing notable ones.
In the meantime, I’m seeing quite a few requests for things that Photoshop already does. On one hand I’m always happy to tell people that they can get what they want right now–no waiting, no fee. On the other, it’s a bit of a bummer that people don’t find features, much less answers, on their own (and we’re talking about people savvy enough to find this blog).
I thought you might find it useful to have some of these requests, plus their solutions, listed here.
- “PLEASE PLEASE stop the open doc window resizing when I zoom in or out, just leave it alone.”
- This has been a preference since the dawn of time: “Zoom Resizes Windows.” For some weird historical reason, by default it’s enabled on Mac & disabled on Windows.
- “Allow resizing of the Curves display” [in the CS4 Adjustments panel]
- It’s the little button at the bottom of the Adjustments panel, second from the left.
- “Curves: Let me Cntrl-click to set a point on the curve again! The on-image editing is fine, but old habits die hard.”
- You’re referring to using the Adjustments panel instead of the Curves dialog box. Using either one you can Cmd-click/Ctrl-click with either the Eyedropper tool or the on-image adjustment tool.
- “Adjustment layers that can limit to groups: right now they affect everything below them. Be cool to drop them in a group and have it only affect that group.”
- That capability has been there since layer sets/layer groups were introduced: put the adjustment layer into the group, then set the group’s blending mode to Normal. (By default it’s set to “Pass Through.”)
- “Ability to remove tools from Toolbar, like the 3D tools.” Also: “Unhide the tools. The pop-out tools is a hold over from when monitors were 640×480.”
- Check out Configurator.
- “Where is ContactSheet II in PhotoshopCS4? I want it back!”
- “Merge visible into new layer, instead of having to create a new layer, hold down option key, and then choose merge visible.”
- Hit Shift-Cmd-Opt-E/Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E. (Update: Sorry, made a typo the first time around.)
- “Change the default layer stroke color to something usable (Black?)”
- Haven’t tried CS4, then, eh? What we really need, though, is either to make the Layer Styles dialog sticky (so that the next drop shadow you create starts with the last one’s settings), or to let you set your own default values (your preferred starting point for each adjustment–e.g. global light off).
- “Close all other tabs” command, similar to browsers”
- Cmd-Opt-W/Ctrl-Alt-W; also File->Close All.
- “Add smudge tool (with strength slider) to brush presets.”
- Brush presets don’t record the values in the Options Bar, which would include the Strength slider. You can create a tool preset (via that icon at the left of the Options Bar–the one you never click) that does the trick, however. (Think of tool presets as a higher level of brush preset: they capture everything the brush preset would–brush tip shape, dynamics, etc.–plus whatever’s in the Options Bar.)
- “Enable the Save For Web dialog to allow for exporting just selected slices.”
- The feature is there: Inside the S4W window, select the slices you want & hit Save. In the subsequent dialog (save location/options), choose “Selected Slices” from the “Slices” menu at bottom (screenshot).
And just on keyboard shortcuts:
- “Please, enable user to adjust his own hotkeys. I’m using photoshop since 1.0”
- Yes, but apparently not one who values this capability enough to have chosen Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts at any point in the last four versions. (Sorry, this sort of thing gets a bit depressing. And please let’s not say, “Well, it wasn’t intuitive or discoverable where you put the command…” Sure it is.)
- “Cmd-H should hide Photoshop”
- That’s debatable. In any case you can (on Mac) choose Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts, then open the Photoshop menu, choose Hide Photoshop, and hit Cmd-H. (JDI-wise, I’ve added a request to have Photoshop ask what to do the first time you hit this command.)
- “Bring back Ctrl+1-4 channel shortcuts for good (new are too stretchy)”
- Download this plug-in (Mac)/registry entry (Win). (Details.) I’ve added a JDI request that the Edit Keyboard Shortcuts dialog add a checkbox for toggling this preference, rendering the plug-in/reg entry thing unnecessary.
- “Give an option for the Adjustment Layers Palette to automatically hide, perhaps by hitting some hot key.”
- A) You can choose “Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels” via preferences.
- B) You can assign a keyboard shortcut to the Adjustments panel, then use it to hide/show the panel.
- “Add a shortcut to show/hide current layer.”
- You can assign one to Layer->Hide/Show Layers.
- “Switch Cmd-Z and Cmd-Opt-Z shortcuts.”
- Bet you know what I’m gonna say! 🙂
re: “Bring back Ctrl+1-4 channel shortcuts for good (new are too stretchy)”
-by “for good” I’ve meant: I know about the plugin, I’m just afraid that it won’t be supported in CS5 (or 6 or 7) and we will be left with unacceptable stretchy shortcuts.
Your suggestion of _permanent_ preference is the perfect solution.
Thank You for engaging with the community in this open way 🙂
Regards
I really find the idea of asking the user the first time they initiate the command what to do (as with the Command+H) interesting. This is really popular in video games as they sneakily ask you to look around in the beginning to set your look-axis preference.
Just this week, I was wishing Photoshop asked me on a fresh install what I use Photoshop for (web design) so that it would set my Color Settings, Units, etc. appropriately. When a computer crashes and we have to reinstall, it inevitably takes a day or so before we realize the Print Color Settings are messing with their web optimized files we save out.
Oh and can you please bring back the Change Fill Layer Content Command? Pretty please.
Great posting. I liked the sarcasm.
[I hope I didn’t come off as too petulant. You should see some of the crummy, hostile stuff people put into the survey comments; so pointless, so fruitless. –J.]
I suppose one can be forgiving of people not noticing features of a program due to its complexity, however sometimes you just know that people just haven’t looked very hard for their solution.
[That’s the drag. People swear up and down that such-and-such enhancements would be The Best Thing Ever. Someone like me often then goes and champions the idea, babysitting it for months or years so that it doesn’t fall off the list. Then you ship the feature, and years later people say, “Oh, you know, it would be great if you did {X Thing You Already Did Per Their Request}.” Clearly they never really cared, or they’d have found & used the feature. But no one ever said it was gonna be easy. –J.]
Heck, when I pay for software that I like, you better believe I exhaust the menu system, plugins, CD extras and even website freebies and scripts.
Now for MY requests..(Mwahahah)
I want the “Merge Layers” to work with just one layer. Sometimes I create a new layer just to use it anyway. Could be called “Merge Selected Layers” or “Make Layer Solid”. A better way?
Also, I’d love the “Canvas Size” dialog box to have a checkbox for “crop canvas to selection.” I guess it would calculate then “gray out” the numerical inputs for me. That way I can crop my canvas quickly without losing the outside areas. Sure there are ways around this, but I hate how both Crop tool and Image > Crop deletes everything outside the canvas.
[Good point. –J.]
Next, I kind of want the “Save For Web” dialog to allow for just exporting selected slices. So many times I thought I was selecting the slices that would save out, but it always saves all of them.
[The feature is there: Select the slices you want, then from the “Slices” menu choose “Selected Slices.” I just tried it & it worked like a charm. –J.]
Next, I wish the actions panel would let me directly save an action to a droplet right from there. Seems more logical instead of going to File > Automate.
Next, I wish when creating guides, I could get some onscreen numerical feedback, such as pixel coordinates and even relative distances from nearest left/right guide. Of course holding the shiftKey works well too. =)
[FWIW, I’d like to see PS take a cue from AI and ID, displaying a little set of coordinates & dimensions when moving/sizing objects on screen. This would extend very naturally to guides. –J.]
My last thing I think Photoshop could do, I actually came up with a fun way to do it without changing the software. I’ll write it up as a tutorial and share it later on. I’m pretty excited about it for improving a personal workflow.
[Cool; looking forward to seeing it. –J.]
About custom hotkeys: I dont know of a way to change the keys for tilde and brush larger/smaller []. not everyone uses a us based keyboard layout, so that is a big Flaw. sure you could change the keyboard to funtion with us settings, but that would leave one hunting for keys when typing layer names and file names. So being able to change the hotkeys we actually use the most would be wonderfull 🙂
or at least an option to say always use x key instead of tilde / [ ect.
Im using a danish keyboard on a mac.
/Lasse
keyboard shortcuts guy…
where where you..? I mean… come on… since 1.0…
I bet it was Deke.
Configurator’s great, but you know that its existence doesn’t close the door to useful modifications to the Toolbox, right? Unless you want duplicate toolboxes, you’d have to reimplement the entire toolbox as a custom panel. I don’t think that’s a fair answer.
[Perhaps I should have elaborated. I’d like to enable the kind of direct customization you & the requester have in mind, but it always gets pushed to the “nice to have” (as in, not this time) pile.
Configurator is an attempted end-run around having to go begging each team to make a point of enabling toolbar customization, then making sure they don’t cut the feature or deviate from the plan, etc. (That would be a shoot-me-now PM mission you’d give only to some poor soul who’s either so mediocre or so burned out that they won’t care when it all gets ground down into self parody.) –J.]
Avenues to extensions are great, and I’m happy Photoshop is doing something about it, but please don’t let it turn into a shelter against valid requests that have been around for ages.
“Configurator is an attempted end-run around having to go begging each team to make a point of enabling toolbar customization, then making sure they don’t cut the feature or deviate from the plan, etc.”
I suppose I can see the truth in that. You know the effort involved much more than the poor users, and I’m inclined to believe that you’re not misrepresenting anything. However, if the cats can be herded to the extent that the palette/app frame normalization in CS4 could be executed, then surely some level of customization for just the tools in the toolbox could be achieved.
[“Anything’s possible; it’s all just code,” the engineers always tell me. And you’re right that the apps have been working together to put more of the foundation onto a common platform for just the reason you suggest: making it possible to move forward efficiently & consistently. –J.]
Maybe even just for Photoshop; it has the worst mess, by which I mean broadest array of disparate features, from what I’ve seen of the CS.
It gets a little ridiculous when a valid feature request hinging on an existing instance of poor usability is turned down with the reason “we can build in 3D engines and GPU acceleration, but we’re too defeatist about our internal process or capacity to reinvent this”. Pithy, I’m sure, but I don’t think it’s an entirely unfair representation of what you just told me.
[I was being uncharacteristically candid–and maybe over the top–in describing the inner workings of the sausage factory. But I’m not defeatist; I’m a pragmatist. A frontal assault on toolbar customizability isn’t going to get anywhere at the moment, so we need a different approach.
I have a plan to get Configurator to support *all* the Suite apps, without those apps’ active participation. It’ll take time but I believe it’ll happen. (Making it possible to remix the app UIs on the fly is, I believe, critical to the long-term viability of the Suite.)
Even if the head-on approach were in the cards, I’d question its value. Simply “re-arranging the deck chairs” without adding context (“what the hell is this thing, and how do I use it together with other ones”) would limit the utility of the feature.
So, my approach with Configurator is twofold: Build something with enough flexibility to serve everybody (from newbies to pros), and build it in a way that’ll actually get into the apps in our lifetimes. Don’t just give people what they say they want; give them what you know they really need. –J.]
And that surprises me, knowing how many “unmovable objects” have started to rattle once John Nack decided it was time to start cleaning up Photoshop.
[Heh–I’m flattered you see it that way, but I can’t take so much credit. It’s a team effort, and there’s commitment in every discipline (engineering, QE, PM, etc.) to moving the bar. I’m just the guy who jabbers about it publicly. –J.]
I posted earlier about saving only selected slices. Maybe it’s different on Mac, but on Windows, there is no Slices Menu > Selected slices. At least not from the “Save for Web dialog”
[Here’s a screenshot of the option I mean. –J.]
However I DID learn how to do this. Using the slice select tool, double-click or right-click on a slice (both on the canvas or inside the ‘Save for Web’ dialog) and you’ll get the Slice Option dialog. from there, you’d change the Slice Type to “No Image” to remove it from being exported. A little slower, but it works. I’m too lazy to check my Mac right now to see if it follows what initially John recommended.
Thanks again, John for the meta-feedback!
I forgot two JDI: Smart Guides do not work when free transforming an object while maintaining its aspect ratio: Two layers with offset objects, scale an object with one corner handle, smart guides will work. Add Shift, and voilà (or not!) no smart guides anymore…
On the Mac platform, have a way to highlight the blending modes (or other) drop-down(s), and change them with the arrow (yes, I am aware of other shortcuts, but it feels so natural to do on windows)
[Heh–I have to laugh because another commenter went on a profane rant about keyboard focus getting put onto drop down menus in Windows, blaming/hating Adobe for it. Man, you sure can’t please everybody.
I’d like to know Apple’s official recommendation on this point now. Traditionally popup menus don’t take focus on the Mac, but now in Safari they can. I don’t know if that’s a one-off deal or part of a broader evolution. (I don’t feel like catching a bunch of crap about it from Mac partisans.) –J.]
Regarding the requests for the a customizable toolbar vs Configurator, it might be useful to have a default toolbar set of buttons built in Configurator. (It seems it is what most people want when they talk about custom UI, and they do not regard Configurator as fitting their needs.)
[Honestly, I think that most people like to *talk* about custom UI, but very few have the interest, energy, or discipline to actually create something they’ll use. (Witness the guy asking for custom keyboard shortcuts, never having bothered to look in the app for this long-standing capability.) It’s like dogs chasing cars: if they actually caught one, what would they do with it? –J.]
If the users did feel that they do not have to start from scratch (make one person work once, rather than many doing it individually), they might see that Configurator is really what they need/want…
[We’re certainly thinking about ways to prime the pump with good samples. –J.]
About the shortcuts changes, like the CTRL+1>4, was the opposite also done? (IE, have Photoshop shortcuts appear elsewhere as a choice in the suite?)
[I think that at least one other app (Fireworks) ships with a “like PS” set. –J.]
I do not know the numbers, but I guess that PS is the most used application in the suite, yet it is the one that inherits the other’s shortcuts/terminology: some blending modes got their names from other apps, rather than what it should be. I was wondering if Bridge could not be the place where the user could choose which app has precedence, and propagates its shortcuts-terminology to others… but I can see the can of worms.
For the “close all other tabs” request, I am wondering if the user was not accurate enough in his description, he might be asking for a contextual menu on the tab,
[That’s a reasonable suggestion. –J.]
not all users use shortcuts (too bad for them), and contextuals can be faster (especially when one uses a tablet) I also miss the contextual menu on document titlebars, and wished to have more, like Mode…
Thanks for all the good work that the team is doing!
[Thanks, and thanks for the feedback. –J.]
Didn’t catch the suggestion round the first time, so here are my suggestions.
In the old days(up to CS2) you were able to create a new document based on an already open document.
All you had to do was select ctrl+n and hit Window->Documentname with the “New document”-dialog still open.
That created a size- and resolution- and colomode-wise identical document. Pretty neat and so simple in all it’s glory.
I might have missed a new feature somewhere, but haven’t seen a feature doing that in CS3 and CS4 yet.
Also I miss the ability to pickup colors in the Hue/Saturation-dialog when in Colorize-mode.
Up to CS2 you were able to eyedrop a color used in the image and or the Swatches-palette. For some, for me at least, that feature has now been removed.
So in CS3 and CS4 you’d have to guesstimate various values using the regular sliders rather than just eyedropping eg a swatch or similar.
But again I might have missed a new feature somewhere. If so please enligten me.
“The feature is there: Inside the S4W window, select the slices you want & hit Save. In the subsequent dialog (save location/options), choose “Selected Slices” from the “Slices” menu at bottom”
This is a good idea and very useful, along with the User Slices option.
The problem is that it’s sticky. So that if, for example, I am exporting user (named) slices for a web layout, and I then try to run a set of photos through Save for Web as a batch, the batch fails because there *are* no user (named) slices (because the entire image is a slice, but an automatic one).
Maybe the slice saving option can be saved either as part of an action or as part of the PSD file itself? Dunno how you’d do this, but it’s an annoyance.
…Mike
That’s a bit more like it. I see what you mean a little better now, but it’s still hard when you say “Configurator” to separate from “the ability to create new and custom palettes” and “the ability to eventually change the built-in palettes”.
I mentioned something in my original comment about the toolbox containing a lot of stuff. The deal isn’t that one can’t create a palette with tool buttons. It’s that last time I tried, they didn’t show which one’s selected, you couldn’t fill it up with the controls beyond tool buttons that are there, and there’s no easy way to show your custom tool buttons and just the part of the toolbox that you can’t recreate (color swatches and the Quick Mask button down at the bottom). As part of the workaround to reduce crap, you end up with more crap.
Let’s just be clear about what I define this problem as, since I notice I haven’t done so yet: there are 22 tool buttons there. Four of the tools I use are fit into two buttons, while I have never used any tool in six of the remaining buttons. It’s not *that* unreasonable to want those buttons out of the way or the hidden tools unfurled, is it?
I recognize that I’m a miffed user, and miffed users are known worldwide for making requests that are hard to implement. But I’m also an application programmer, and I imagine the work would be hard but straightforward.
And, thirdly, I’m not also a miffed user and an application programmer, but an application designer, so I can sympathize with your plight to give people what will actually solve their problem, rather than what they think will. I am hopeful from your writing regarding this that something better is coming.
But in the interim, that’s still not a carte blanche to consider the problem solved with the use of Configurator when it actually *can’t help you* (per the earlier explanation). I find that disingenuous, and the reason I keep writing here is because I haven’t yet heard it adressed in your (appreciated) play-by-play.
And just to close: I didn’t attribute every positive move (Photoshop or otherwise) since you’ve started to you. But I recognize that you’re one of a few “fire starters” that can keep things moving, and I appreciate that.
Sure there are ways around this, but I hate how both Crop tool and Image > Crop deletes everything outside the canvas.
Actually, you can already use the Crop tool to hide everything rather than deleting it. Just make your crop selection and then check off “hide” from the tool options up top.
Hmm, the save selected slices thing comes up a lot.
I think there is some confusion in the request versus the actual feature that does exist;
If you select slices then hit the no-fingers-wasted Save For Web… key shortcut you get that dialog – however the selections you made before invoking Save For Web aren’t transferred and need to be made again.
I’ve caught myself selecting slices for output twice in a row many times over the years as I rarely ever save all slices in a document and don’t end up coming back to tweak a few.
It’s a tiny thing, but it sounds like this is what is being requested.
“4 – Adjustment layers that can limit to groups.”
This single tip just made my day/week/month. The number of workarounds I’ve made for not knowing you could do this.
The Photoshop tips you provide are excellent and continue to increase my productivity immensely. Weren’t there two developers on Photoshop – one who puts in every feature you could ever want and another one who hides the features afterwards? Thanks for undoing the work of the second one. 😉
“Switch Cmd-Z and Cmd-Opt-Z shortcuts.”
This is aimed entirely at me and you are 100% correct. I completely forgot about the keyboard shortcuts dialog box. That doesn’t invalidate my other requests if it turns out those have no implementation currently. 😉
John, I believe #9 (above) is literally meant to be “Close all OTHER tabs” (i.e., close all but the current/active document). I’m not vying for this feature; just trying to add clarity.
>it’s a bit of a bummer that people don’t find
>features, much less answers, on their own
John, Photoshop has always been way ahead of me and, to tell the truth, I benefited greatly from reading the manual for years. Now that it is all electronic, I just don’t browse it like I used to. Photoshop + computer = work (and a fair bit of creative play).
I knew a teacher once who explained that it was important to divvy up lessons amongst different learning styles: listening, doing and seeing. The analogy is imperfect but the point is that I oversaturate on electronic information just as I reach a threshold with lectures. If there was a printed manual or dossier of new features that either shipped with versions or was orderable separately, then I submit that discoverability issues would be mitigated. The information would separate from the general clutter and perhaps ease into the brain better. I for one would browse printed literature religiously. Flash and Flex and Kuler are all great but they demand that I stay in the same seat. Just a thought.
I am truly impressed by your transparency on this blog. Grateful too.
“Add smudge tool (with strength slider) to brush presets”
This request is not for saving a particular smudge configuration as a preset, but to actually add smudge to the brush presets so it can be used with other tools – particularly with the Brush Tool.
Any chance to add a search function to keyboard command configuration?
Please add an option to save snapshots in the file. So when you re-open the file you can continue working on the different versions and states that were saved. This would be a huge timesaver. Layer Comps is nice, but saved snapshots are so much more powerful, versatile, and time saving.
Most Wanted Tools:
– Global Swatches. When you change in the swatches pallete it will change the color where is applied. Like in illustrator and indesign. (flash should have the same)
– The same for styles. They should be updatable.
– Distribute tool like in illustrator where you can set the distance between objects and the key object.
– Text and paragraph styles. Everyone creates websites in Photoshop, and websites have a lot o text.
– Curved line tool with stroke.
– Show layer dimensions in the top bar when you click on it.
– Match size (like in flash, should exist in illustrator too)
– Outline view.
– Close effects tab in all layers.
– Gradient controller tool for both gradient overlay and gradient tool.
– Shortcuts for european keyboards. (keep them in the same keys but change the info in the menus)
When saving a Tiff pullllease do not bother me with a second dialogu bos about compression. Or at least make it optional through Preferences! thank you.
Kind of off topic but a plea for adobe. PLEASE add a way other than creating a new document to strip camera metadata. It’s none of anyone else’s business what lens, fstop, asa, etc that I use.
Thanks
[Did you notice that you can do exactly that via Save for Web in CS4? –J.]
Is Photoshop ever gonna get the option to adjust the user interface brightness the way it’s done in Photoshop Elements, Illustrator etc. (let me know, if I missed it somewhere)? The almost white interface is just a little short of blinding, but more importantly, it gets in the way of working with darker images with subtle features which become almost indiscernible. It’s the only reason I’m sticking with CS2.
Thanks for reading. Keep up the good work.
[Did you notice that you can do exactly that via Save for Web in CS4? –J.]
Nice for jpegs and pngs but what about tiffs?
Next topic. I’d like to be able to choose a color for my paths. Cutting paths in grayscale images with a BW line can be a nuisance. We can choose our mask and guide colors, why not paths?
Hello,
Good Day
I have job having 7 Colors and I have been asked to done it in 5 Colors.
(1) Pantone 485CVC (RED)
(2) Pantone 356CVC (GREEN)
(3) Pantone 116CVC (YELLOW)
(4) Pantone 301CV (D-BLUE)
(5) Pantone 279C (L-BLUE)
(6) Pantone 732C (D-BROWN)
(7) Pantone 730C (L-BROWN)
I can use Red, Green and Yellow on separate screens where as remaining
“FOUR COLORS” are Dark Blue, Light Blue, Dark Brown and Light Brown.
Please guide me how I can finish the job in five colors as my boss advised
me to do it in duotone. The job is on Illustrator CS2 and Colors are PMS.
Please guide me how PMS Colors can be done in DUOTONE.
I have been working in filled of screen print for many years but unaware
about duotone in Illustrator.
I would sincerely grateful for your reply and Guidance.
With Best Regards
john
I realize you can make a path and then use it as a selection but that still leaves transparency. I want to be able to crop the image with an adjustable path so I can get results like the image format styles in office 12/14, such as hexagons and whatnot. 🙂 It would be awesome.
What I’d like to see (seriously) is far less painful upgrade installations. I wasted a week with Adobe tech support dealing with a bug in CS2 (so I skipped the CS2 upgrade) and CS4 was even worse with “magic key combinations” and tech support supplied response codes to get it to install (that was painful enough that I didn’t even try to install on my desktop, the second legal installation for use by one person). I wish you’d quit treating your paying customers like criminals…I’ll bet cracked Adobe applications MUST be easier to install. Is that REALLY what you WANT???
This is a handy refresher, thanks.
Although #9 should not be on the list. The existing feature is “Close All” and the feature requested as writted is akin to “Close All But Current”.
Remapping Pen Pressure while using minimum Diameter or Opacity.
Currently the pressure range stay the same while using these feature, it result in just removing a whole range of your pressure mapping, and greatly reducing the purpose of a graphic tablet. (e.g if you use min opacity at 80% you are just using your stylus pressure range from 80% to 100% so you are just using 1/5th of your stylus pressure)
Well I was one of the many that asked in the forum about the “Close OTHER TABS” function like browser.
You reply on this:
“Close all other tabs” command, similar to browsers”
Cmd-Opt-W/Ctrl-Alt-W; also File->Close All.
Now, of the two one:
1. You never used a browser;
2. You think we are dumb.
Close OTHER tabs means that every tab BUT the active one are closed.
Now, to avoid misunderstanding, imagine that you have 10 tabs with files named from 1.jpg to 10.jpg, your active tab is 7.jpg. Close other tabs means that 7.jpg remain open while 1 to 6 and 8 to 10 are closed.
I hope this time is clear enough to understand.
Looking forward for the feature in next updates.