I’ve been an avid Photoshop user since 5.0, and have used it nearly every day of my professional life for the last 10 + years. After all of these years, there are a few things that bug me every time I come across them. This isn’t mean to be a slap in the face to the fine folks at Adobe, I’m just offering up my 2 cents.
1. Brushes: Can we get a brush browser? I am constantly downloading new brushes and there is no real way to tell them apart or know what you’re getting before you load them up. Yes, there is a brush browser for the ones you have loaded, but I’m talking about a way to browse what you don’t have loaded – that way I can know whether or not I should even bother letting that brush dog PS.
2. Styles: Again, some sort of browser. I like the preview once they are loaded, but knowing which ones to load is like Russian roulette.
3. Auto-Select: I never check the box to have the pointer auto-select. I always use the keyboard shortcut for that. What would be nice though is to be able to click and drill down through layers or groups. So, if layers is selected, the more I shortcut/click the deeper it would drill down to layers beneath the one that is on top. This would come in handy for groups too. You currently cant click a group within a group – which is rather annoying.
4. Remember me when saving: I love the “Save for Web & Device…” feature. What I don’t like is loosing my place in the workflow when I alt-tab out of Photoshop to check on a naming convention or a piece of markup. See, when you alt-tab out while saving a file (I often leave PS to check a naming convention) it doesn’t leave your cursor in the filename field. I have to click back into it – which means leaving the keyboard. Drives me bonkers! Maybe thats an OS issue though?
5. Remember my rules: This gets me in trouble. When you open a PSD you have to be sure to lock the guides – because PS doesn’t remember if you’ve locked them in your prior session. When I’m working on a file, I set up my guides and once I’m ready to design. I don’t want to mess up my guides, so I lock them. I just wish PS would remember that the next time I opened the file, so I don’t have to relock them when I accidently grab one.
5 Ways to Make Photoshop Better
I’ve been an avid Photoshop user since 5.0, and have used it nearly every day of my professional life for the last 10 + years. After all of these years, there are a few things that bug me every time I come across them. This isn’t mean to be a slap in the face to the fine folks at Adobe, I’m just offering up my 2 cents.
1. Brushes: Can we get a brush browser? I am constantly downloading new brushes and there is no real way to tell them apart or know what you’re getting before you load them up. Yes, there is a brush browser for the ones you have loaded, but I’m talking about a way to browse what you don’t have loaded – that way I can know whether or not I should even bother letting that brush dog PS.
2. Styles: Again, some sort of browser. I like the preview once they are loaded, but knowing which ones to load is like Russian roulette.
3. Auto-Select: I never check the box to have the pointer auto-select. I always use the keyboard shortcut for that. What would be nice though is to be able to click and drill down through layers or groups. So, if layers is selected, the more I shortcut/click the deeper it would drill down to layers beneath the one that is on top. This would come in handy for groups too. You currently cant click a group within a group – which is rather annoying.
4. Remember me when saving: I love the “Save for Web & Device…” feature. What I don’t like is loosing my place in the workflow when I alt-tab out of Photoshop to check on a naming convention or a piece of markup. See, when you alt-tab out while saving a file (I often leave PS to check a naming convention) it doesn’t leave your cursor in the filename field. I have to click back into it – which means leaving the keyboard. Drives me bonkers! Maybe thats an OS issue though?
5. Remember my rules: This gets me in trouble. When you open a PSD you have to be sure to lock the guides – because PS doesn’t remember if you’ve locked them in your prior session. When I’m working on a file, I set up my guides and once I’m ready to design. I don’t want to mess up my guides, so I lock them. I just wish PS would remember that the next time I opened the file, so I don’t have to relock them when I accidently grab one.
Photoshop, I love you.