Dear Adobe // Blog

We’ve been emailing with Kevin Connor, V.P. Product Management of Professional Digital Imaging at Adobe and he shared with us a glimpse into how Adobe’s developers are working on improving their software.  Kevin writes:

A number of product teams are starting to incorporate “just do it” days into their development cycle. The idea is that the entire engineering team will take a break from their normal feature work and pick off some small product enhancements that can be implemented in a day or less. We’ve always tried to squeeze in these things where we can, but scheduling some formal days to focus on these smaller user requests will hopefully give us some extra momentum in getting them done. Dear Adobe can be one of several sources of inspiration for what things to tackle on these days.

Personally, I think this is really exciting.  Looking at the gripes submitted to Dear Adobe, this is mostly what people want.  They’re not pining for crazy new features, but want a program that works logically, smoothly and consistently.  Here’s hoping to see the benefits of these “just do it” days soon!

UPDATE (11-12-2008):

In a follow up email, Kevin also offers some ideas about what might be fixed in these ‘just do it’ days:

Generally, they’d be things that would never make it into our top-level marketing materials, but things that existing users would notice and appreciate—minor enhancements to how existing features function, rather than entirely new features. Of course, what can really be implemented in a day is also a function of how things are coded in the first place.

He goes on to provide some examples of some things that were changed in CS4 that would probably be well suited to one of their ‘just do it’ days:

Though we didn’t schedule formal “just do it” days for the CS4 development cycle, there are a number of changes in that release that would be typical of what we might tackle this way. Some examples include:

- Changed the default color of the Stroke layer effect to black (formerly red). Ideally we would have liked to make this sticky so that it would remember your last setting, but that actually would have taken more than a day’s work to change all of the logic, and we couldn’t spare that time.

- We made a bunch of shortcut-key changes. These included freeing up the Cmd-~ shortcut so that it would be available on the Mac for application switching, and adding single-key shortcuts for moving among frames in video clips.

- The new “Bird’s Eye View” feature wasn’t exactly a user request, but it falls into the category of something an engineer was able to implement serendipitously based on some other work he was doing. It wasn’t part of our original product plan. Basically, it allows you to hold down a shortcut key to instantly zoom out to see your full image, navigate to the portion you want to see, and then release the shortcut to instantly zoom back in.

- Save for Web now has improved options for exporting metadata (while maintaining copyright info), and also can convert to sRGB directly within the dialog.

All you Illustrator fans might be interested to see an article over on Real World Illustrator where a former product manager for Illustrator took some time and wrote up some responses to the top Illustrator gripes.

via: GraphicStart

Not to be out done by his compatriots, Michael Ninness, Senior Product Manager for InDesign, took some time to respond to the gripes listed here on Dear Adobe.  He’s sent along alot of tips and workarounds for some common problems and even addresses the dreaded Cmd+H / Leopard issue.

In other Dear Adobe/InDesign news, we’ve also earned some fans in the InDesign QA department.  James Roche writes in:

As much as I can vouch for the InDesign team, we follow up on each piece of customer feedback that we see, so this is a great central location for collecting and scoring frustrations in our user ranks. Thanks!

So, InDesign fans, read on to see what the future may hold for your layout program of choice and maybe learn something you didn’t know.

1.) Why is the color picker different in all the CS apps? Why can’t I use an eyedropper in the color picker in InDesign? #146

Adobe: Short answer is because they were all implemented at different times by separate teams. If only we could copy and paste code between the apps! This is the kind of stuff we are trying to change. Good feature request for an eyedropper in the InDesign color picker. Illustrator needs one as well.

2.) Please give us color management for grayscale images in InDesign. It’s a huge pain without. Direct RGB to grayscale conversion without a trip to Photoshop would also be very useful. #984

Adobe: I hear you. We are at least exploring RGB to grayscale when exporting to PDF for CS5.

3.) Please give us an option to “Save all user defined settings” to a USB-memory stick (Preferences, workspaces, actions, presets, profiles, custom brushes, custom patterns, etc.). And a way to load those whenever you want. #1163

Adobe: Great idea. And a way to push those to multiple computers in multi-user environments.

4.) InDesign should be able to make PDF forms directly. #1334

Adobe: I agree. While this isn’t what you are asking for, using the form fields recognition feature in Acrobat 8 and higher does ease the pain somewhat. Here is a link to a useful post over at InDesignSecrets.com about this process: http://indesignsecrets.com/automated-forms-with-acrobat-8-and-indesign.php

5.) Why doesn’t InDesign respond to “Cmd+H”? Why can’t I hide InDesign on Leopard? Why can’t I switch back to InDesign after I’ve hidden it on Leopard? #212, #1258, #1726, #2140

Adobe: These are all valid (and related) gripes, and we continue to work with Apple to try to resolve them. Adobe knows it’s painful. Apple knows it’s painful. Please know that we are not ignoring this issue; we want it fixed as well, as it is both embarrassing and frustrating! For now, if Cmd+H stops working for you, you’ll need to force quit InDesign and relaunch. (If you had any InDesign documents open before having to force quit, your “session” should be restored for you when you relaunch InDesign.) From that point on, Cmd+H should work properly until the next time you restart your Mac.

6.) Can you imagine what we have to go through if we have to reorder rows in an InDesign table?! Can you? I mean it even works in MS Word! #1738

Adobe: Yes, it is painful. We made some progress with improving Table editing in CS4 by finally letting you see the table text content in the Story Editor. That at least makes it possible to edit overset text in table cells. Obviously, we’ve still got some work to do on reordering (and sorting) table rows and columns.

7.) InDesign just deleted (not moved to the Trash, just deleted!) all my links because I tried to replace a packaged file with a new version of itself. I bill by the hour, so thanks! #832

Adobe: There isn’t enough info in this gripe for me to fully understand what was going on, and what to suggest. I can say that we’ve significantly improved the entire Links functionality in CS4 (It was a complete rearchitecture). I’m hoping these improvements help whoever submitted this gripe.

8.) Why doesn’t InDesign recognize sub-layers when placing Illustrator files? Cause, man, it should. #1435

Adobe: It’s a personal pet peeve of mine as well, and it is high on my list to address in CS5. That would let me change the stacking order and visibility of objects, and let me rename and lock/unlock them all from the Layers panel. I’m thinking that would make a lot of people happy.

9.) A scrubber bar for font size in InDesign would be very welcomed! Why is it in Photoshop but not InDesign? Crazy! #1147

Adobe: For now, in pretty much all the CS apps, you can invoke a “virtual” scrubby slider for any text edit field. Either click into the field, or click on the label next to the field to select the entire contents of that field. Then, you can use your up and down arrow keys to change the values; hold down the Shift key as well to increase the jump values. Press the Enter key when you are done.

10.) InDesign needs to work for left-handers too. Let Alt bring up the scroll hand too! #1082

Adobe: Either Alt key should give you the Hand tool when you are editing text. The Spacebar gives you the Hand tool when you are not using the Text tool.

11.) Could you, please, make InDesign work properly with OS X Leopard? #1701

Adobe: I’m guessing this gripe has to do with issues beyond the Cmd+H gripes. The Mac OS X 10.5.4 update has resolved a number of issues when running InDesign on Leopard. Check out Tim Cole’s blog on this topic for more details: http://blogs.adobe.com/indesignchannel/2008/06/indesign_leopard_1054_nav_serv.html

12.) Please reconsider FrameMaker for Mac: meaning write something for Mac that a technical writer of long documents can USE. Not InDesign, it’s shit for long technical documents. #1902

Adobe: No Macintosh version of FrameMaker has been frustrating for some. We’ve gradually been increasing the InDesign long document features and capabilities version over version. In CS4, InDesign has added Cross References and Conditional Text.

13.) InDesign text columns controlled in a paragraph style! Saves me time clipping text and making frames. That’ll be all for now. #373

Adobe: You can change the number of columns in a text frame by choosing Object > Text Frame Options, or pressing (Cmd+B) [Ctrl+B]. For bonus points, you can include the number of columns when defining an Object Style. Also, Object Styles can include Paragraph Styles in them as well.

14.) I would like to copy from InDesign and paste into Illustrator, instead of saving out an EPS, placing and embedding it, then deleting the EPS I had to make. #2124

Adobe: You can copy and paste from Illustrator into InDesign, or from InDesign to Illustrator; no need to save an EPS from AI or ID first. In version CS3 and higher, the clipboard preferences for each application need to be set to “prefer PDF”. To check your prefs in each app, press (Cmd+K) [Ctrl+K], then choose the respective “clipboard” section. For Illustrator, turn on “Copy as PDF” and for InDesign, turn on “Prefer PDF When Pasting” and “Copy PDF to Clipboard”.

15.) If you want to relink an image, could it please be possible to get straight to the folder in which the original image sits? It was possible in other versions, but not anymore. #4025

Adobe: Fixed in CS4, and you now have a choice. Press (Cmd+K) [Ctrl+K], to open up Preferences, and click on the File Handling section. At the bottom of the dialog, you can choose an option for the “Default Relink Folder” option. Your choices are “Original Relink Folder” or  “Most Recent Relink Folder”.

16.) Embedding an AI file in InDesign and then changing the layer order or layer naming in Illustrator will ruin the linkage of all the embedded Illustrator data in InDesign. Thus the Object Layer Options Dialog becomes unusable! Please fix this!!!! #1074

Adobe: You can get the behavior you want by changing the Object Layer Options for the AI file you’ve placed in InDesign. By default, InDesign honors any local layer overrides you’ve made within InDesign via the Object Layer Options dialog. To honor the changes you make to the file in Illustrator instead, selected the placed AI file, right-click on it and choose “Object Layer Options…” Then change the “When Updating Link” pop-up menu from “Keep Layer Visibility Overrides” to “Use PDF’s Layer Visibility”.

17.) InDesign Character/Paragraph styles are a mess. Allow me to apply more than one style to a bit of text. Also, external (linked, centralized) style sheets with directly editable code. Ideally, move everything to an extended/customized CSS based system. #1344

Adobe: Linking to an external style sheet sounds like an interesting feature request. I could see how that would be powerful, but could also potentially cause unintended results for some when updating the external style sheet. This isn’t exactly what you are asking for, but you can synchronize style sheets across multiple InDesign documents when using the Book feature.

18.) Please let me choose CMYK or RGB mode in when creating a new document (New Document window) and choose or change it in the Document Setup window. And when I’m in CMYK mode, for the love of god, let black be true black! Rich black is not as popular as your InDesign and Illustrator teams seem to think it is! #2710

Adobe: Amen! If you choose RGB, have the Color panel switch to RGB sliders automatically, have the Proof Set up change to an sRGB profile, and change the Transparency Blend Space to Document RGB. How about we throw in pixels as a measurement system while we are at it? Hmm… this would really make it easier to set up a document that is going to be published to a digital format rather than be printed. Crossing my fingers for CS5.

Now that the CS4 cat is out of the bag, the good people on the After Effects team have graciously taken the time to respond to most of the top 25 After Effects gripes here on Dear Adobe (a couple were left out as they were misfiled at the time they pulled the report).  In their response Michael Coleman, Product Manager for After Effects, also writes:

I know folks wonder where web form suggestions go, but I can assure you that the feedback received here goes directly to a real person on the After Effects team. Here’s the URL: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

There seems to be a good mix of responses; some have already been addressed in CS4 and others have jsut been deemed ‘good suggestions’.  In closing, we’d like to thank Michael Coleman and Ellen Wixted (Product Marketing Manager for After Effects) for taking the time to get these responses together and that we hope that other product teams might consider taking a peek at their own Top 25.  Without further adue, After Effects gripes and their responses:

1.) I want to buy After Effects. JUST After Effects. Help me out, willya? #1332

Adobe: After Effects has always been available to be purchased separately.

2.) Multiprocessing that doesn’t slow down After Effects renders as often as it speeds them up would sure be handy. Barring that, AE should be smart enough to detect when the MP overhead is exceeding its benefit. #1339

Adobe: After Effects CS4 has a brand new preference panel to match the number of CPU cores used for rendering with the available RAM. This will help optimize multi-core rendering. In addition, CS4 will also allow you to limit the number of cores being used for rendering in order to leave some processing power for other applications you are using at the same time. There are also numerous small improvements to multi-core rendering under the hood of CS4.

3.) The option to import text layers from PSDs into After Effects as a text layer and not rasterized pixels. #1573

Adobe: Use the “Convert to Editable Text” menu commmand. Available in After Effects 6.0 or later.
http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/8.0/help.html?content=WSB0C11C4A-7F82-4fdf-81DD-3E39B052541A.html

4.) Support OpenFX plug-ins in AfterEffects (and Photoshop), it’s an open standard accepted by almost the entire visual effects industry. #1630

Adobe: We are generally supportive of open efforts, but there are currently far more native After Effects plug-ins available than OpenFX. In addition, virtually all OpenFX effects are already available in a native After Effects version. Looking toward the future, Adobe is developing technology to allow you to use the same effects across multiple hosts and platforms, which offers several distinct advantages to developers and customers. This technology is called ‘Adobe Pixel Bender’. For more info, see http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Pixel_Bender_Toolkit on the Adobe labs web site.

5.) Why do I still have to do RAM previews in After Effects? And why does AE still do pixel aspect ratio correction by dropping or adding columns of pixels? It’s 2008, not 1995, folks. I know you know how to properly scale images without making them look like crap, so why don’t you do it in your viewports? #1310

Adobe: We’re always working on increasing performance. Given today’s computing platforms, though, RAM previews are a fact of life with complex, deep compositions in real-world projects. Better Pixel Aspect Ratio scaling is a good feature request.

6.) more 3D in after effects. #1881

Adobe: Good feature request.

7.) Let us copy text from another app and paste it in After Effects’ text tool. #1568

Adobe: You can currently copy and paste text into After Effects.

8.) Why can Photoshop import 3D models but After Effects can’t? How does that even make sense??? #1979

Adobe: Good request. In the mean time, After Effects CS4 is compatible with 3D layers from Photoshop CS4 PSD files. 3D PSD layers can be animated as real 3D objects in After Effects CS4. 3D objects, therefore, can be brought to After Effects via Photoshop.

9.)  why is Actions feature available in Photoshop but not in After Effects? #1280

Adobe: Good feature request.

10.)  After Effects is a FANTASTIC application and THE BEST Adobe product. Please let the other teams learn form the After Effects team.

Adobe: Thank you! We work closely with the other teams and we’re always working together to make the best products possible. It’s a little known fact that many great things in After Effects are contributed from all over Adobe, and we’re collaborating more and more with each release.

11.) Make After Effects graph editor more intuitive/usable.

Adobe: The graph editor has recently been redesigned with customer input. Please provide specific suggestions for improvement and we’ll take a look at incorporating more feedback into future versions..

12.) Would it kill you to update the filters in After Effects so that they can all work in all color resolutions? 8 bit is not enough.

Adobe: Most effects have been already updated to work in 32-bit color space. In After Effects CS4 we have also upgraded the 3D Channel effects to 32-bit. Help us prioritize your top plug-ins for conversion by providing a list of the ones you use most frequently that are not already 32-bit.

13.) Can we get inverse kinetics in After Effects already?? #3403

Adobe: Good feature request. (Check out Flash CS4, by the way — it has IK!)

14.)  I Love After Effects! #2561

Adobe: Thanks! So do we!

15.) After Effects automatically comes forward after renders are completed. (disrupting work in other applications) #1293

Adobe: Most people are not experiencing this issue, but it is not the intended behavior. Will investigate.

16.) Make the text tools the same for After Effects as in Photoshop… I keep hitting ‘T’ and opening opacity! #1603

Adobe: We’ve given the ‘t’ shortcut to opacity since it’s more frequently used in After Effects. We’d like to have customizable keyboard shortcuts someday, but in the meantime in After Effects, use cmd+T on the mac and ctrl+T on windows.

17.) After Effects: Syncing animation to audio is important. Why must you make so, so hard? #2344

Adobe: You can play audio in realtime while creating timeline markers for animation synchronizing. See this page for more info:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/8.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7e62.html

18.) Make After Effects save a shadow copy of the project automatically before rendering starts, OR make After Effects not crash while rendering. Up to you #6617

Adobe: Good suggestion. While crashing is rare, you can also enable Auto-Save in the preferences for additional project backups.

19.) After Effects: Variable feathering on masks. Why I must make sooooo many masks!? In Full HD!? 60 freakin’ i!? #2332

Adobe: Good suggestion.

20.) I love to scroll through hundreds of layers in After Effects. Layer groups or folders I could collapse or turn off would be more 21st century than a frikkin’ nose-over-wall icon!!!! IT’S THE 21st CENTURY!!! #2433

Adobe: After Effects CS4 has a very handy new search field in the timeline and project panels that is a great way to quickly get to the layer or property you’re looking for. This dramatically reduces or eliminates timeline scrolling.

21.) Could you please consider adding Private Use Area access to ligature glyphs and to alternate glyphs in fonts such as Garamond and Arno so that people using non-OpenType applications could use them to produce graphics? Maybe special PUA-access versions of the fonts? #954

Adobe: Good suggestion.

22.) Please let me open “legacy” files—I paid for both versions, why can’t I open old files with new programs without having my paths be all fricked up. #4147

Adobe: All version of After Effects will open and render old project versions. Note that if you have moved the source files, you may have to re-link the source files to the project.

23.) After Effects: I’d like use of vast amounts of RAM I’ve purchased. Why can’t you see it? Love- OSX #2320

Adobe: After Effects can currently use 3-4 GB per core for RAM previews and renders. More RAM per core is a good suggestion.

Continuing our series of waxing about Photoshop, presented below are our favorite Photoshop features. Erik and I have concentrated on features that tend to be newer (like Smart Objects, introduced in CS2) and more subtle (like keystrokes). Sure, we could talk all day about our love for layers, but anyone who uses Photoshop tends to be aware of the wonders of layers (If not, let me recommend NYU’s SCPS Photoshop:Fundamentals course, taught by yours truly ). Also, in addition to being fanboys to these features, we’ll mention where we feel they could be better, because hey, there’s always room for improvement.

1. Layer Styles
2. Smart Objects
3. Selecting Multiple Layers
4. Alt+Right Click to select a layer
5. F Key to toggle screen modes
6. Alt+Shift+Mouse wheel to zoom
7. History Brush
8. Keyboard Shortcuts for Opacity

1. Layer Styles

Layer Styles is one of those things, like Filters, or Spider-like superpowers, that with great power comes great responsibility. You could use layer styles to make all your page elements have big dark drop shadows and bevels and glows, but the power of layer styles is more subtle, both aesthetically and technically. I’ll often use a layer style to apply a color to a square. Yes, I could use the paint bucket tool (or alt+delete), but by applying a color overlay, I can a) change the color easily, and b) apply the exact same thing to another layer with just a ‘copy layer style’ / ‘paste layer style’. Layer styles are also non-destructive, so nothing is permanent, they can always be changed. I’ve almost never used the gradient tool since being able to apply a gradient with a style, because now I can always go back and change it, instead of having to recreate one from scratch.

How could it be better?

As noted in the comments of our previous post, The ability to rearrange the order of layer styles would be right smart.

2. Smart Objects

We love smart objects for a couple reasons. One, in the Pre Smart Object days, I’d bring in a large image, and immediately make a copy to shrink, knowing that if I later needed it bigger, even a little, I’d have to make a new copy off the original, because upscaling the small one would make it all blurry. Smart Objects allow you to treat an image as vector, so you can resize to your heart’s content. Additionally, I find in the rare occasion I need to put text on an angle, When it’s still a text layer, the baseline tends to get kind of funky. Turning it into a smart object first keeps it nice and straight. Lastly, something I really should do more of - Smart Objects allow you to make a change to something once, and effect every instance of it. So if you have an icon that isn’t finalized but appears 15 times on a page, by having them all reference the same smart object you only need to change one to change them all.  One smart object to rule them all (sorry).

How could it be better?

1) More transform controls, not just rotate and scale. 2) Ability to link a layer mask. I like that they aren’t linked by default, but the option would be nice.

3. Selecting Multiple Layers

For you kids who don’t remember the dark ages, let me learn ya something. Back in the day (Read, before CS2.. i think) In order to move more than one layer at a time, you had to link em or group em. Now, with a quick click of shift or command, you can select multiple layers to your heart’s content. For those who remember not being able to do this, man, you know how good it feels to be able to now.

4. Alt+Right Click to select a layer

This goes hand ‘n hand with numero three. But I still remember the day someone showed me this trick. It was mind-expanding, in the Timothy Leary sense. For those who don’t know, let me enlighten: With your cursor active, you can hold alt and right click on anything on your canvas. That object’s layer becomes selected in the layers palette. Additionally, you can hold Alt+Shift to select multiple layers. AMAZING! I know. Some people will say, why not click ‘Auto-select’ in the cursor options, but to them I say Nay, good sir! Sorry, I just find Auto-select as annoying as the Adobe Updater (o snap!).

How could it be better?

It doesn’t get any better than this, hombre.

5. F to toggle screen modes

I so often finding myself needing to go outside the canvas area for whatever reason that working in in Standard Screen Mode just doesn’t do it. Conversely, my mode of choice, Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar, doesn’t work too well for managing multiple documents. ENTER THE F KEY! Just like other keystrokes, being able to toggle super quick between screen modes makes the way I work that much faster. And about Full Screen with Menu Bar mode  - it’s great if you use the space key to get the handle to move around your page all quick like, especially when zoomed way in.

How could it be better?

In CS3 they added ‘Maximized Screen Mode’ which I just don’t seem to have a use for. Not a big deal, maybe someone in the comments can ’splain me.

6. Alt+Shift+Mouse wheel to zoom

For those too lazy to use cmd+plus/minus (Erik), you can use Alt+ your mouse’s scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Unfortunately, doing so this way will zoom to weird percentages like 105.36% - not noticing this will play tricks on your brain. Enter the mighty Shift key, which will keep this shortcut in line by making it only zoom in at nice, whole number intervals; hooray!

7. History Brush

Erik: History Brush is one of those tools I never quite understood until someone sat me down and said ‘Behold!’. It’s most useful when cutting images out using the eraser tool. For those not in the know, here’s a quick run down on how this beauty works:
1.) Open a photo and erase a big portion of it with your eraser. Do this a couple of times so you build up a few steps in your History palette.
2.) Go grab that History Brush and start painting like you wanted to undo some of that erasing.
3.) Behold.
Now, the history brush doesn’t always have to refer to when you opened the photo. Those empty boxes next to the steps in your History palette allow you to set an arbitrary point your history for your History Brush to refer to just by clicking on them.

How could it be better?

As awesome as this tool is for photochopping people’s heads on to various animals, let’s say you decide to crop your document at some point. Your history brush might complain that the current document size doesn’t match the point in the history it’s trying to refer back to if you haven’t been keeping your History Brush point properly updated in your History palette. Lifting this restriction would make History Brush near perfect.

8. Keyboard Shortcuts for Opacity

Erik and I use these religiously. Use the numpad to switch between opacity levels in intervals of 10 (unless you hit em real fast, then you can control more precisely).

How could it be better?

You need to have the cursor active to use this feature, otherwise you’ll effect the opacity of the tool you’re in. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I just personally find myself rarely changing the opacity of a tool instead of the layer itself.  Also, you can only use this shortcut on one layer at a time.  This can be gotten around by throwing all the layers into a group but if your layers are in different groups then you’re in for some tedium.

Summary

So yes, there are plenty of things to complain about in Photoshop, but despite all our grievances, we loves it so, and it’s worth telling our corporate overlords such… atleast before we get back to bitchin’.

- A & E

Director, FrameMaker and GoLive have been added to the list of applications you can gripe about.  Not that that stopped you from griping about them anyways but now you can properly categorize your angst;  hooray!

Also, please note that ‘Reader’ was renamed to ‘Acrobat Reader’ and moved next to ‘Acrobat’ in the list as someone suggested in the comments.

Erik and I started Dear Adobe to give people a place to vent about the software they use every day. Adobe software is so varied and so robust that you find people using it for so many different purposes. Even a single program, like Photoshop, has so many different areas of expertise that no single person can claim to be expert at all facets of it.
That being said, Erik and I are web designers first and foremost, and use Photoshop as our program of choice for comping out site designs. We do love it, but as the title suggests, we have our own gripes. Below is our top five list, High Fidelity style.

1. Type Styles
2. Type Rendering
3. Pixel Perfection (Updated! September 5th)
4. Marquee on multiple layers / Measuring Tool
5. Save for Web

1. Type Styles

It’s been said that the web is 95% typography, and I’m one to agree. That being said, Photoshop could do alot better in helping us layout type. Being able to switch the leading or point size of every heading is alot easier than doing so one by one. This is one of those things that’s soooo much easier to do in CSS and kills me to handle in Photoshop, but is a necessary evil. Unlike other things that are easier to handle with CSS though, this one can be remedied.

2. Type Rendering

Sensing a theme yet? I used to layout my “HTML” text with an aliasing option of None, but that’s so 20th century. Unfortunately, Photoshop renders text at small sizes kind of, how do I put this…horribly? Ok, that’s a bit harsh, but if nothing else, it renders it inconsistently from operating systems and browsers. I know this is a political issue for Adobe and Apple and Microsoft, but c’mon, let us preview text how it’s going to eventually look.

3. Pixel Perfection

Let me know if I’m wrong on this one, but is there no way to get my guides to lie perfectly on a pixel? Is there no way to create a vector object where it’s straight edges end in a pixel that is at 100% opacity? Without these, using guides and vector objects become more of a hassle than they’re worth.

Someone did let me know I am wrong! It turns out if you have Snap turned on, you can hold shift to get your guides to sit perfectly on a pixel. Additionally, Vector Rectangles and Rounded Rectangles have a ‘Snap to Pixel’ option. Thanks again Dennis!

4. Marquee on multiple layers / Measuring Tool

This is a nitpick but my god if it isn’t annoying. When I have multiple layers selected (did I mention how much I LOVE selecting multiple layers?) and move my marquee to measure something, it throws an error. I know this is to prevent me from using the marquee to try to edit multiple layers - but that’s not what I’m doing, and that’s not when to throw that error.
Using the marquee tool to measure things of course is a personal workflow habit, but it’s a habit I’ve developed in response to finding the measuring tool utterly useless. So please, let me move my marquee all willy nilly, or make the measuring tool something I can use.

5. Save for Web

This one’s simple, but touches on alot of complaints I’m seeing. Save for Web sometimes, but not all the time, is slow as balls. Sometimes it takes minutes to load, and this is on a brand new Mac Pro with plenty of RAM. The seemingly random beach ball of death is a similar issue, but atleast Save for Web is a place to start thinking about how to speed up a feature.

So that’s the rap, folks. Do you have specific Photoshop for Web Design gripes? Or better yet, any ways to deal with the problems listed about? Share ‘em in the comments. Thanks for all the Dear Adobe love, and stay tuned for our Top Photoshop features article.

- A & E.

We just want to take a minute here and say ‘Hello’ to all the visitors here at dearadobe.com and clear the air about a few things.

So:

1. Hello
2. Does Adobe run this site?
   No, this site is not run by Adobe. It started from a conversation between Adam and myself complaining about Photoshop. Both of us being web design nerds, we figured ‘Why not create a forum for people to vent? Who knows, maybe Adobe will listen.’
3. Well, is Adobe listening then?
   Yes, they most certainly are. The site hadn’t been up for 48 hours when staff from Adobe first contacted us and the response has been very positive. We’re currently in touch with a couple of people at Adobe and working with them to craft all the gripes here into something they can use and hopefully take to heart.

That being said, we have a few features in the works that will make this site more useable and fun for everyone in the near future. This page will also become a blog and we’ll be posting and communicating and doing other ‘blog-type things’ here as well.

Till next time,
Erik