In general, I think it is a good idea to have such a tool to serve as a 3D viewer and segway to 2D tools, and especially to integrate some 3D processing (not creating) into Photoshop. And initially, that works very well. Dragging a 3D file into the Photoshop canvas, getting a Smart Object layer, which can be opened, viewed and slightly edited in this Substance Viewer. Kudos for that integration !   Viewing and/or (slightly) editing 3D files using the Substance Viewer as a stand-lone tool, is less successful. The file opens in the 3D view, stating I can "Freely move around..." Well, I tried to click and drag anywhere, but nothing happens. Ah, I spot an option in the corner of the canvas, to set my device. Should I pick 2 or 3 buttons, or trackpad" ? I have a Mac with a no-button mouse. What setting do I use now ? And as I tried to switch to trackpad, it couldn't honor my personal settings... So the device settings and gesture clues are quite clueless and useless for most Mac users. This is the umpteenth navigational interface in the 3D area, even within the Adobe set of tools. Neo, anyone ?   BTW: I also spotted some arrows (>>, with tip) in the bottom left corner, which are just silly. Clicking it doesn't do anything. It merely presents a description, which makes no sense. I'll just stick to opening some of the settings panels myself, guessing I'm not missing anything relevant here.   Let's skip the Appearance (paint icon) because I want to enjoy my weekend... Except for the fact that these settings are called "Materials" in Dimension and Stager. Why the confusion ? And why do the unavailable color or image swatches of unavailable options stand out so terribly pink ?   Surprise ! The Composition icon looks like an Environment settings. But it's actually switching to Canvas mode showing a 2D comp. In the actual lighting settings named Environment with a light bulb icon and Light as the only section [sigh] all you can set is indeed the Environment light, with Brightness & Rotation and some other options. But I'm missing the option to set a generic 'sun' light, including a Height, to obtain the correct main lighting direction (and shadows) to match with other parts in my comp.   The Generate icon, whipping up 2 methods to a prompt entry box, should not be in this area. It appears to belong to the other settings but it doesn't. It starts a complete new file, after closing your current one. Please place it in the section below the Home folder icon or somewhere else.   Why does cropping the canvas initially scale the picture, just to jump back to a correct (cropped) rendering when you release the handle ? That's a bit useless, even counterproductive. You can't see what will be cut away. It also differs in how it behaves horizontally vs vertically. With the vertical handles, content is not cropped but scaled. That's a mistake, I hope.   Alerts (like "Lighting Effects are not supported") are prompted at the top, in the middle, and stay in view until I close them. Or rather: at one time, I tried to close it, but it didn't want to go away. First: why not show that alert where it's appropriate, i.e. in the Light or Material panel itself, in stead of showing an irritting Help tip popup about what I can do (or actually can't do now). Or even better: leave unavailable settings greyed out (like in Environment panel), with a gentle popup telling why it doesn't work. And now I know why the alert only went away after 20 close-clicks: I tried the (unavailable) settings for a couple of 20 times...   Finally, coming from Photoshop in Viewer, doing some edits, and after clicking To Photoshop, I'm not being brought back to Photoshop. Would be nice if it did. Or maybe it's the "default" application setting of my system that is messing things up again ?   All in all, the concept is okay, and the technology works reasonably. But I'm afrad the clumsiness of the interface will be a hindrance in testing/using it any further than the back-and-forth integration with Photoshop.   My 2 cents.    [I'm using Build: 0.19.1-20241106.r.9-fa61c87, on a Mac with Sonoma] ... View more

I've been playing, teaching and working with Stager (formerly Dimension) and Aero since their incarnation. The Aero Desktop app interface is still looking messy and behaving like a true beta version indeed. But hey, it works, and with a lot of work-arounds and getting used to its awkwardnes, producing AR content is great fun !   But the mobile (iPhone) app is getting buggier by the month. Finding projects, loading, previewing, recording, and exiting them, is failing more and more often. Especially with location-anchored projects.   • When I try to open them from my Files tab, they won't load due to an error: "Editing location-anchored projects is not supported on iOS. Open with Aero desktop (beta) to edit." But I don't want to edit it, I just want to preview it. Now I have to open it from a Shared link I sent to myself as a message...   • When I afterwards try to re-open the recent location-anchored project from my Recents list in the Home tab, the app probably found out that I'm the owner, so it yields the same error as above. (So we're back to using that message link again.)   • When I try to record a video of a location-anchored project, the iOS rightfully alerts me to allow screen/audio recording (which I grant it), followed by an app alert: "Attempting to place the scene" and a "Reset anchor" button. Whatever I try, the process just hangs, showing no correct overlay or content. At a certain point, ir prompts me to "Pan around" (as if it's restarting) but with no result. Force-quitting the app is the only option, now.   BTW, Aero desktop  beta is often nagging me with a "Unexpectedly Quit" report, when I quit it...   Am I the only one suffering from these quirks ? Or am I the only one complaining about them ? Or maybe I'm the only one trying them out ? I don't hope so...    (I'm using a 4 year old MacBook Pro 16" Intel and iPhone SE 2020, both on their latest OS.) ... View more

FINALLY ! Adobe saw the light and lets (Beta) Photoshop users have a new brush tool which offers a non-destructive approach to replace what they've always wanted to do with the Dodge, Burn, and Saturate tools for decades. Or to simply do what Lightroom and hundreds of photo apps do as well: act on the spot where you point at.   It's going to be crucial to let current users become aware of the fact that a 'drawing' tool actually creates an ordinary Adjustment layer, though starting out with a black mask and a white brush. The forced switching of the color swatches is also a bit unexpected. Why not let it revert to the user's original colors, just like with the current mask behavior. And the plus and minus brush in the Options bar of the Adjustment brush can be misleading, e.g. thinking that in case of Brightness & Contrast the brush with the minus will make things less bright. But it's a good thing, so hopefully users will quickly get used to it and learn about Adjustment layers and their masks in general.   And what does the Adjustment tool in the current web version of Photoshop do ? The old and exact opposite. That's a pity and going to be veeeery confusing... ... View more

Picture this: you drag elements from an artboard into the Symbols. They appear correct, when you reuse them in the same document. But when you save your symbols into a Library and drag symbols from that (reloaded) library into another file, they become 1/10th of their original size !   My guess is that it has something to do with the newer Large Canvas documents and their somewhat sloppily invented 10 X Scaling Factor approach. Perhaps the Library file is still saved as an old sized document, forgetting that the symbol sizes can be intended and expected to be 10 times bigger...   Am I on the track of a nasty bug, or can anyone shine another light on this ? ... View more

Not really a technical bug, but more a localisation flaw. In the Dutch translation of Firefly 2, the "Movements" category of the Effects is translated as "Beweging". Please use "Kunststroming". I'm also very curious to learn what the difference is between those Movements and Themes. How does Film Noir differ from Anime ? And in Illustrator the Generative AI beta feature uses the term "Scène" to translate a "Scene", which is just wrong. Use "Omgeving". ... View more