P: New user interface lacks contrast and many usability cues, lots of other problems

I am trying to adjust to this new lack of contrast interface but it is not going well. I honestly am considering a move away from the product which I really don't want to do. I've loved photoshop for so many years. I'll see how the next months go. So sad.

Now I am paying a monthly fee that beginning version 2015.1.1 means any upgrade to Photoshop is unusable for me. I am reverting back the earlier version that gives me user friendly dialog boxes. I can't do anything (read impossible) with this current version sans a very long leaning curve. I really never thought Adobe would do this, and as far I I can see the changes are not even intended to be an improvement. Oh I forgot active layers are no longer easily recognizable.

As my post (about 3 or 4 up) says, why is Adobe forcing this crappy flat look on desktop users? For piddling touch screens well ok, but none of us real desktop users are going to be poking our fingers at our monitors.

I'll bet that desktop setups will be around for a long time yet as we need to be able to see what we're doing and we need large monitors. I doubt I'll ever be doing serious work on a tablet, let alone a phone and this is where the latest PS CC interface is a massive failure.

If the navigation gets worse in any future PS version (I won't say update as that infers something positive) then Adobe could be left with a severely shrinking customer base.

This is a general comment on user interface design. Everyone, not just Adobe, is rushing to redesign for mobile, and the flat look is showing up everywhere. Like it or not, we will get used to the flat look. But there is a more insidious problem: mobile navigation.

Old-school navigation is usually based on hierarchical menus. It was intuitive. You could easily figure out where to find what you were looking for. But mobile navigation is ad hoc. Where do I find X? In the toggle menu? Under a dropdown? Hiding behind the tiny flat icon lurking in the corner of the screen? We are having to relearn how to navigate sites that we have used for years.

Mobile designers decide which features are the most important and make them easiest to find. They make less important or less frequently used features harder to find. But judgment of relative importance or frequency of use can only be made by experienced users, not by novice UI designers!

Is mobile-friendly navigation coming to Photoshop?

Exactly.

The impression I am getting from Adobe Marketing is that all CC users are now supposed to be renegade young street artists working on tablets and "creating".
All the splash page art I'm seeing looks student editorial.
Not based in professional reality.

I'm going to revert back to a previous version of Photoshop. The latest version of CC 2015 is fundamentally defective.

Here in my graphics shop (we do everything from prepress to web graphics to advertising and billboards) we use Photoshop throughout the day, all day long, every day.

I think the people at Adobe don't really use Photoshop the way people "out in the field" use it, and are likely tasked with sitting at a desk, trying to come up with new features or functions, without being really grounded in purposeful production work. They seem to be looking for "solutions" and "features" for problems that don't exist and are piling on tweaks just to justify their business model (subscription updates and constant revisions).

With CC they have started to push out too much new features before they are actually done and properly tested. 😕😕

Oh man, that is bothering me to no end. I constantly think I've accidentally entered quick mask mode.

And here I was, hoping that some news on a usable PS CC interface would be forthcoming in early 2016. Oh well, the designers of the last UI 'downdate' (opposite of update) are probably still partying and patting themselves on the back for producing the atrocious trendy look.

Please Adobe...bring back an interface with contrast, hover states on buttons and the user friendly touches (as opposed to touch screens which pro customers don't use) that were an integral part of Photoshop. Send the current design team off to work on apps for phones/tablets and get a real design team that uses your products on real desktops. That would help the new year become a great year.