For years now The Onion has been running their “Ask A {So-And-So}” series of articles (e.g. “Ask A Navy SEAL“), in which a bizarre choice for an advice columnist replies to every inquiry with complete non-sequiturs. Last night my fellow PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes asked me a family-related question that I somehow turned into a discussion of a planned Photoshop feature. “You know,” he said, “this whole thread is straight from the Onion’s ‘Ask a Photoshop Product Manager'”:
Dear PS PM, I’m having trouble choosing a good gift for Valentine’s Day. I just want to do something special for my boyfriend. Do you have any ideas?
PS PM: So, you want to start through Camera Raw or Lightroom, making sure you’re converting to DNG. I really recommend that you preserve the fidelity of your image’s 16-bit data and embrace a Smart Object workflow….once in Photoshop….
Dear PS PM, After giving Camera Raw to my girlfriend, she left me for another guy who believes in LAB and only LAB color. What should i do?
PS PM: Leave her for a woman that knows the value of RAW. Time heals all wounds. For those it doesn’t, use the Healing Brush 🙂
Dear PS PM, are you (meaning Adobe) aware of the amount of frustration (and extra time spent) among PC users caused by terrible inconsistency in the way the Open/Save dialog boxes are displayed accross all CS apps and inability to customize shortcus in most of them? And if so (I don’t believe you’re not aware of it) – are you going to solve this sometime soon?
This is a really big problem for many users, giant pain in the ass, and I’d really appreciate honest reply. If you don’t know what I’m talking about I’d be glad to give you some insights on that.
Kind regards,
Radoslaw Pachowicz
[This kind of work keeps getting pushed off our list by urgent, must-do things (e.g. the mandated move from Carbon to Cocoa). I’d welcome specific feedback on what you’d like to see us do with regard to Open/Save.
For what it’s worth, on the Mac at least I highly recommend using Default Folder to add keyboard accelerators, favorites, etc. I believe similar tools exist on Windows, but it’s been a while since I’ve looked for them. –J.]
Using the standard Windows Vista file dialogs would get you 90% of the way there.
P.S. The move from Carbon to Cocoa does not greatly satisfy PC users, of course.
[Of course. I just want people to understand the ripple effects here. If MSFT made a similar requirement, addressing it would take away time from Mac priorities. There aren’t separate teams/separate allocations of resources. –J.]
Nor does the recommendation for Mac add-on software.
[A) It may be useful to other readers. B) My point was that similar utilities exist on Windows (I think I remember using one from ACDSee ages ago). –J.]
We just want Adobe to be a good Windows citizen.
P.P.S. Yes, we know that the Adobe file dialogs have custom features. 99% of the time, these are not even used. Keep your custom file dialogs if you want, but give us the option to use standard Windows dialogs.
[It’s more complicated than you’d think. The relationships between the various checkboxes, format enablement, etc. can be subtle. –J.]