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

Thanks Rob, that's exactly what I was trying to say. I still keep wondering why I got an answer that seemed to be written for a beginner. (I do have a retouching company in New York since 7 years, and work with Photoshop 8 hours a day).
Andi

Yes, many are obviously unsatisfied. However, I see no point in using disparaging language to describe the efforts of Adobe's design team. Is it hard to work with? Yes. Will my team of 50 be using it? Not in its current state. But a more calm, reasoned explanation of the issues will get Adobe's ear than a bunch of name calling and foot stomping.

So you tested it and you were not satisfied with it? Right? And as you were unsatisfied, I think also many other pros were unsatisfied as well, so how did this abomination pass?

I was one of 3 retouchers elected to test the latest CC2015 at the retouching studio I work in. We have all rolled back to the previous version.

The UI is simply too hard to work with. Menu items and buttons we use constantly and instinctually, have been changed to look greyed out - the universal language of all things unavailable or broken.

The level of concentration it takes to focus on this conflicting and unintuitive UI is directly in conflict with our worlkflow and speed requirements.

The fact that we can barely tell the difference between a selected layer and a selected layer in quick mask mode is reason enough to roll back. Active selected layers need a MUCH more differentiated appearance from quick mask.

Quick Mask is a mode, not a type of layer. You can still change the opacity of a layer with one click by scrubbing the label (the word "Opacity") or by clicking and holding on the dropdown arrow and scrubbing the slider.

He is a politician, but I have noticed some small things that suggest they _are_ listening for a change in regards to this issue. They screwed up, hopefully they learn from this mistake. I think we'll see some fixes/options soon.

Chris..."We are listening" sounds like a politician who then actually does nothing. I can say that 100% of PS CC users I know truly can't stand the new UI. It is confusing, inconsistent and just plain hard to use...it's just like a bad Beta project. Just provide a 'classic interface' option so we can get back to work.

It seems they tried to do something cool rather than usable. Of course they failed both tasks.

OK, I admit it, that's the second time I break my promise to stay away from this thread. It seems to be a pointless promise, so sorry.

Bob Laughton, in a comment just above, brings a very important point I think. I would perhaps put it in slightly different words, the meaning being the same though:

• What kind of setup does a certain customer use? A laptop? A 21-23 in monitor? One or more 27-30 in monitor? And what's the resolution?
• Perhaps more important: is it a glossy screen or a matte one?

One or two big matt screens will give you a greater challenge than a smaller glossy one as far as reading small text is concerned. I'f I'm not mistaken, the pros will use bigger, often matte monitors, and those will end up like me squinting at small gray text on a palette away from them in a corner of a big screen.

At the end, it's all about not breaking habits uselessly for one, and more important, legibility for two. For comparison purposes, I include here 3 screenshots:
1. A pane from OS X System Preferences
2. Part of the Smart Sharpen pane with its small greyish text
3. An iPad screenshot from Adobe Photoshop Mix, in which text is absolutely, deliriously perfect!







Interestingly, depending on whether the title is for a checkbox, or field text, or drop-down menu, it will be difficult to read, or not. It depends, and I don't see any reason why. All text should be legible and gray is rarely easy to read.

Indeed, I've also rolled back to 16.0.1 from a Time Machine backup. Given that I've now retired from commercial photography and have less of a need for PS, I'm trialling alternatives, especially as the UK magazine MacFormat have just given away a copy of the latest version of Pixelmator. Of course, it isn't Photoshop, but only love of and a familiarity of PS is keeping me around.