I Have Photoshop Needs
Written by David Charney
Posted: September 14, 2007 (11 months, 2 weeks ago) | 4 comments
Good news Adobe! - I have Photoshop needs. I have been using Photoshop since 1994. I am not sure if that was version 2 or 3 but I remember it had this new thing called “layers” and they intrigued me. Photoshop has always been there for me. We have laughed and cried together. Once Photoshop threw this big party and everyone was smashed and Photoshop was gone after like the third beer and layers and colors were everywhere - it was a mess the next morning… Many great new features and new additions have been added to help photographers and designers expand their creative abilities. Now I believe those at Adobe are doing a great job at keeping the program fresh and new and I understand that “simply adding a feature” could realistically mean a year of work between three programmers, but (and here is the good news again), I want a few more core features and because I don’t have to go to work for another hour, I’m gonna tell ya about them.
The following Photoshop requested features have been rated PG-13. Parents Strongly Cautioned.
1. Instanced Based Groups
Let me start with an example: When a user makes a UI design which has 10 buttons and the client (god love ‘em) needs a small adjustment, the user must update every button on the screen slowly and painfully. With instance based groups the user simply makes one group, sets the text layer to be independent, copies the group 10 times and adds in the different button text. If the client needs a small change, all the user must do is change one button and the rest of the lemmings follow suit. Similarities to this can be seen in Flash, 3D Studio Max, and Maya.
2. Non Destructive Rotateable Canvas
I yearn for the day when I can rotate Photoshop’s canvas 20 degrees… no wait, 72 degrees without destruction to my beautiful works of art. It is nice to have that ease with a tablet when painting. Painter shouldn’t get all the fun.
3. Editable and Hortizontable Toolbar
Now that I use multiple monitors and with CS3s new toolbar features, this one isn’t as important but I still want what I want. I would be ever so happy if I could edit the toolbar’s icon set to hide/show and reorder the items I use most often. I should probably learn the hotkeys but I really don’t feel like it. I would also love the ability to display the toolbar horizontally. Often I work on very horizontal based images with plenty of space above to throw the toolbar.
4. Hiding Pallets on Lost Focus
Flash does a very nice job at this. When you move to any app and Flash loses focus, all of it’s pallates vanish. Too often I will load up a program over Photoshop and because I see the toolbar still there, my brain tends to think it will work in notepad, I click on marquee and BAM - Photoshop pops up. Scares me every time.
5. Eyedropper Revisited
I use the Eyedropper Tool all the time but I continuisly run into an issue. I need to select the true color on a given layer. The current tool selects the current pixel(s) color value on screen as-is. If I need a specific color on a layer and that layer has opacity levels and blending modes set, I have to unset them to get the color and then set them back. Very annoying. So how about an Eyedropper mode that adds an ability to sample a color as if the layer’s opacity was set to zero and the blending mode was set to ‘Normal’… Thanks!
6. Better Batch Tools
I would like Adobe to revisit their actions/batch tools to streamline them and make them easier to use. Am I the only one who understands yet gets confused by this? From within Photoshop (I am not a heavy Bridge user yet) I want to quickly rename files, change file types, adjust widths/heights, and add watermarks or logos - to name a few. Please make this more intuitive.
And a few others…
• Stronger Image Distortion & Mesh Tools
• An ‘Opened Files’ floating pallete
• An ‘Image Size’ floating pallete
G is the paint bucket, shift+G changes between paint bucket and gradient fill. Now you’re on your way to learning shortcuts! Next week I’ll tell you another. I know you can’t wait
That is a little too much info for me. If I knew I was going to have to hit buttons I would have hired an intern.
To #’s 1 and 2, smart objects can fix that. #3 would be cool if it existed, the closest I got to that was via tool presets and/or custom hotkeys.
For batch processing, you can do pretty much anything you want… though some 3rd party apps can do some stuff faster, like renaming files. Bridge can rename stuff but it’s slow and messes up sometimes.
You can also set the image size to display on the bottom of every window…
Hey Devchang, Smart Objects don’t quite do what I am looking for in both 1 and 2. In number 1, you can convert a layer set or bunch of layers to a Smart Objects (which creates a psb that can be editable). This object can be edited and the changes will appear through any instance on the screen. I use this but because I am needy (sorry) I want a stronger system that doesn’t force open another file and also allows a layer within a set to be considered “unique”. This way fields can be filled in using XML, etc. This will help prototype sites and nav systems much more quickly. On number 2, Smart Objects are great for non destructive rotation of a Smart Object, but not of the entire canvas.
You can do pretty much everything you want using Photoshops batch processing but for most people (including myself) it is still slow and can be confusing.
And I should say by “Image Size” I mean the panel that lets you adjust the image size (or canvas size). I wish this could be a stand alone panel.