{"id":12544,"date":"2007-11-05T12:21:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T12:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.adobe.com\/jnackdev\/2007\/11\/photoshop-as-seen-through-johnny-cash.html"},"modified":"2007-11-05T12:21:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-05T12:21:00","slug":"photoshop_as_seen_through_johnny_cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/05\/photoshop_as_seen_through_johnny_cash\/","title":{"rendered":"Photoshop, as seen through Johnny Cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

In One Piece At a Time<\/a>*,<\/em> Johnny Cash tells the story of building a Cadillac from 20 years’ worth of evolving, mismatched parts.  I’ve gotta say, I know the feeling.<\/p>\n

Photoshop has been accreting power & users for the better part of two decades.  The once-little app has proven almost endlessly adaptable to new needs and workflows, but all that morphing has a price.  In many cases we’ve traded simplicity for power<\/a>, and not all the pieces look like part of a cohesive whole.  In fact, 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.  (Cue old-timey prospector voice: "Oh, Lighting Effects–you can see the scorch marks from the great fire of ’43…"<\/em>) <\/p>\n

This isn’t exactly a news flash–far from it<\/a>.  So, the question is, What exactly are we gonna do about it?<\/strong>  No one wants to work with–or work on–some shambling, bloated monster of a program.<\/p>\n

The good news is that we’ve been plotting the solutions for a number of years, chipping away at the problem.  Good stuff comes to the surface in bits and pieces, but we haven’t quite turned the corner–yet.  A few thoughts:<\/p>\n

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