In an effort to ensure that everyone is looking at the same colours in RGB documents, Adobe have taken the amazing step of installing a colour management system at installation time that defaults to colours as they might appear on the web. The colour values for all incoming RGB files are changed without the user knowing what is happening! Why didn't they have an installation wizard that chose the default settings for your application (pre-press, web, multimedia, whatever) and then ask you whether it was okay for it to change RGB colours on the fly?
The workaround: Install the program and you're screwed. So, once that has happened, boot up the document "Turning Photoshop 5.0 defaults off" and change your settings accordingly. That should minimise the impact of the new defaults. Version 5.02 of the software removes some of the irritants/defaults of the installation
Adobe have changed the definition of dot gain. Separations created in the new application are going to look much lighter than what you are used to unless you go and dicker with the settings.
The workaround: Once again, the "Turning Photoshop 5.0 defaults off" document has all the scoop on reverting to pre-5.0 settings.
Tucked away in one of the preferences is an option which initially defaults to saving a flattened version of the file inside the floating version. So, if your files double in size, now you know why.
The workaround: To get the file sizes back to normal select File>Preferences>Saving Files. Under "File Compatibility" make sure that "Include Composited..." is turned OFF.
The last place you want to see the wait cursor is while you are painting, but that is exactly what you will see once you start painting every time you let up on the cursor. The program needs time to record everything you do for the history palette. It does this between each stroke. Painting blades of grass in a lawn is now even more difficult...even if you set the history palette to its lowest option of recording just one operation. The smart answer is to switch to Photoshop 4 or do it in Painter. This is a classic case of an upgrade where one new feature destroys the usefulness of another part of the application.
The workaround: I think for now we'll just have to ignore the wait cursor and live with the consequences. One way around it is to zip over to Painter and do your multistroke painting there where you'll only see a wait cursor on the most complicated of brushes. Sorry, its not a very convenient work around, but there are many occasions where I find it more convenient zipping into Painter for something. Even with the hassle of going back to RGB etc.
While drawing a path you accidentally click on an existing path. Photoshop deactivates the current path and places a new point in the other path. You have to depress the shift key to suppress this particular "feature". I guess that means that you are supposed to depress the shift key whenever you think one of these accidents will happen. What were they thinking?
The workaround: Actually, I think that most of Photoshop's path tools "suck the big one" as they say. For paths I generally copy the image into FreeHand and draw all my paths there. In FreeHand I can take advantage of all their wonderful path manipulation controls. When I am happy with the paths I copy them all back into Photoshop. To get this to work you need to set your FreeHand preferences up so they look like this
The New Adobe Gamma control panel doesn't have an on/off button. Not only that but you can never be sure that it is working. On several occasions I have had it working but it will refuse to accept any changes to the settings. Well, it allows the change but nothing happens on the screen. It seems to operate most of the time but there are some times when it appears to just go wonky.
The workaround: Keep checking it. Run through the setup for Adobe Gamma after installation. Thereafter, whenever things don't look the way you expect, in Photoshop, run the program again and see if that approves things.
For some reason, transformation previews in this version are MUCH slower, especially when the region is large.
The workaround: Try to figure out the specs of your transformation on a small version of the image and then go in and do it numerically on the large version. ...or use Photoshop 4.
I hate things that happen without my initiating them. In the save dialogue box make sure that you don't hit the Exclude non-image data for a JPEG file because it will sneak in and change the res for your JPEG back to 72 dpi. Haven't a clue why but it seems to happen only on CMYK files.
The workaround: Don't use this save dialogue box item unless you absolutely have to. You are better off deleting the items that are non image-related all by yourself. Non image related items are essentially paths.
Draw a rule line on your art to get the angle and the angle and direction magically appears in your rotate canvas dialogue. It's brilliant. A wonderful case of Adobe listening to what their users are doing and making it simpler for them. So, take the same feature, draw the rule line but this time invoke the Numeric Transformation Dialogue. The magic number of degrees of rotation has been inserted there too, right? Right, but this time, just to make it a bit more interesting they have chosen to have it rotate by that amount in the OPPOSITE direction. Huh?
The workaround: Take a note of the angle and key it in yourself.
It used to be that the cloning tool always picked up the whatever was under the pickup point at the current time. No more. It picks up from the pickup point as it was before you clicked. Not too sure how this makes sense. Surely, if you are cloning you are probably wanting to expand an area... would not picking up from the current state make that a faster process? It means there will be a lot more clicks in your document... unless you want to remember how the screen looked before you started cloning.
The workaround: Get into the habit of clicking more often so that it refreshes its view of the current state more frequently.
Cloning from one layer to another was always irritating... first you had to option-click on the source layer and then select the layer where you wanted to paint and start painting, all the while trying to eyeball the spot where you wanted the clone point to be. Not a very easy task. Well, now it's a little harder (maybe it was always this way, I can hardly remember). In PS 5.0, once you start painting on that second layer Photoshop will be painting using the other layer as the source. I know that makes sense but, for anyone familiar with cloning it isn't what you expect.
The workaround: Click on the "Use All Layers" checkbox in the Rubber Stamp Options dialogue. Suddenly things start happening the way you expect them to.
The new freehand path drawing tool is next to useless. I've tried all sorts of settings and I get results that are worse than those a complete path drawing newbie would produce.
The workaround: You'll have much better luck using the lasso to select the item and then in the path palette's pop up menu, choose Make work path with .5 pixels as the margin of error.
The control for centering the rotation of your floating selection is great but why does it just centre the rotation? Wouldn't common sense suggest that scale would be centred at that point as well? Oh, sorry, I forgot, there isn't much common sense in this rev. Secondly... I have a sneaking suspicion that the centering of the rotation doesn't always work correctly...I don't have any hard evidence but I have often felt that it didn't produce exactly what I had expected.
The workaround: Don't use it. Or if it is an important feature for you, do the job in Live Picture where the tool not only works but it becomes vital to the work you do in the program after a while.
You can't direct the program to transform a selection if you have a path active. The path has to be totally hidden (deselected) for you to be able to transform the pixel selection... this drives me absolutely nuts!
The workaround: Keep your path list short, and it will be easier to de-select the current path. You can, however, set PS5.0 up so that a path can still be visible while you transform the pixel selection. Here's how... First, ensure that you have a pixel selection active. Then ensure that none of the points on your path are active, you may need to go to the path manipulation tools to do this. Now click on one of the pixel selection tools (the Lasso or the marquee tool) in the toolbox. You should be able to transform the pixels and not the path.
Furthermore, why is it that you can never deselect a path unless you drag the window open to click AFTER the last entry?
The workaround: Same as above. Keep your path list short, or make sure you have your path palette on your tallest monitor.
Don't paint on any layer to which an effect has been applied. Your paint will trail behind your cursor like a laggardly lacklustre snake. Not too sure why they felt they had to continually update the canned effect while you paint but it sure takes out the intuitive feel of painting.
The workaround: If you want to paint on a layer that has effects applied to it go first to the Layer:Effects:Hide All Effects menu option and then start painting. Don't forget to turn them on again later.
It is not possible to change the name of an adjustment layer while editing the mask of that layer. Not too sure why this isn't allowed.
The workaround: Go back to the RGB or CMYK view and edit the name, Then scoot back to what you were doing before you had the urge to change the name.
Photoshop doesn't seem to like saving some files out as FlashPix. I haven't figured out under what conditions it balks at a file yet but I will get it eventually. If the program hangs while saving a FlashPix file then you know you have reached the same impasse.
The workaround: Save the files out as Tiff and then do the conversion in Live Picture 2.6 which does support FlashPix, fully. That is if you have it.