Adobe seeking feedback about panels, palettes, workspaces, and other UI elements

I Think adobe's UI is excellent.

The idea of being able to move and drop them about as one pleases is huge.

Only thing I have to add is that the graphics of the GUI, at least compared to FCPx, is somewhat outdated.

When working in an app it is VERY important that the user feels GREAT. First thing to GREET any user when he launches the app is the GUI of the APP.

While adobe's GUIs are good the are old-fashioned (looks only not feature-wise) and not at all state-of-the-art.

I hate FCPx but its GUI is the BEST I have ever seen on ANY computer !

Hands down

In online and file based workflows it is very common to relink offline media with new high resolution graded media. Often in the form of DPX sequences with time code. In that regard I find the "Link media..." menu extremely limited. Search and replace options aren't good enough. There should be options to link files by criteria like time-code, file type, resolution, framerate etc. Media often change names from offline to online so just matching exact file names isn't going to be enough. And no support for image sequences is sad. The manual is suggesting "import new still-image sequences, and place them into timelines manually". That is not a solution and just plain ridiculous. This process needs to be automated. Look at Smoke/Autodesk for how it should be done. Thank you.

Look at Apple's pro software, as much as they're having a bad time at the moment and rightly so, they do nail UI. I've always wanted the greatness of AE with the UI of Motion. AE just feels clunky even compared to Motion 2.

This is obviously only a personal opinion and realise not everyone will agree.

The file import dialog in After Effects and Premiere Pro needs improvements when it comes to importing file sequences.

1.  There should an option to collapse file sequences. Browsing/scrolling  and importing footage from folders with multiple file sequences can be a  real pain.

2. There should be an option to split  sequences with "gaps" in the frame numbering. Often material from  telecine comes delivered as sequences with "time-code file names"  rendered to one single folder. Afx and Premiere will bring in this as  one long clip with missing frames. On import there should be an option  to split these to separate clips.

3. To bring in media  arranged in multiple subfolders can be a slow and painful manual process  (Red and Alexa footage is arranged like this for example). There can be  hundreds of folders to walk through. If there was an option to scan  subfolders for available footage we could save loads of time when  bringing in material.

I wish that After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator shared the same TEXT PALETTE.

I shoot RAW stills and color grade them using the current version of Adobe Lightroom almost daily. Years ago I was trained as a digital colorist on the DaVinci Renaissance video color correction system, and I like that the image "color grading" concept of Lightroom is similar in many ways. It would not surprise me if the convergence of stills and moving images drives Lightroom to one day offer the ability to process both stills and video, but that is not my immediate concern.

A couple vital "colorist" style UI features I would like to see added to Lightroom immediately are:

*Three-Way Color Corrector-style Hue Balance Tool in the Lights, Mids, and Darks of any image. This is really the heart of any pro color grading system, and it is conspicuously lacking in Lightroom. The (overall) White Balance Tool is still necessary, but the Split Toning Tool is woefully inadequate for images with complex color balance problems. I use a Nikon pro-model film scanner, and vintage film scans can reveal color problems which require time-consuming curve manipulation in the scanner software, and often still require further color work in Photoshop. I would rather spend less time with curves by scanning an image which has the color in the ballpark, and then use Lightroom to do the final color grading at full resolution. Additional restoration will still likely require Photoshop, but a 3-Way Hue Balance Color Corrector Tool in Lightroom will eliminate much of the work I am doing in the scanner software and Photoshop now. A 3-Way Color Corrector can of course be used creatively on well-balanced digital images for effect, as well. Add in the ability to convert to or from negative to positive (including correction of color neg orange mask) and Lightroom will be a much more powerful tool in a scanning workflow.

*Integrated Support for Colorist Control Surfaces with simultaneous parameter input. So for example, you can adjust both hue and exposure of an image at the same time. This is the way to really rip through a lot of images.

*Ditch the Catalog. Okay, don't ditch it completely, I can see it's usefulness to some extent. I suppose it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Colorist-syle UI's.  But it is frustrating and time-consuming to do the whole import rigmarole. Just let me browse images on my hard drive in the left-hand pane in the Library module. Give it a "live" view so that images don't go "missing" when moved or renamed in another app. My free Canon Digital Photo Professional even does this. You can give us a right-click for an "add this here image to catalog" prompt when browsing in the left pane if you want to continue with the whole "Catalog" concept. Or just automatically add any image to the catalog that is opened and viewed. Personally, I dislike the Catalog concept in general, and I would appreciate a non-catalog mode. I do like the non-destructive nature of Lightroom. I save XMP sidecar files. But copying and moving images within Lightroom is not only a slow pain, it is required if I want my catalog to remain organized. I would really appreciate a "copy image" (not just "virtual copies")  included in the dialog when right-clicking an image or it's thumbnail. The Catalog concept as it is now is one of the biggest impediments in the Lightroom UI in my opinion.

*Allow me to drag-and-drop images from Lightroom into my Windows folders or desktop.

Overall I think Lightroom is great. Thanks for the opportunity to offer this input.

I think all the UI's are fantastic and they can't possibly get any better than they are.

If you're looking to something marketable by shaking things up why don't you just add a new level "Use Gradients". Make a third option with some contrast and bevels and stuff to make it look more like FCP X. Then you sell that as something new, but of course, leave the option to have that, use gradients, or just plain flat (which I think most of us will continue to use). You might scare up a storm of uninformed complaints like FCP X did.

Adobe has a monopoly on most of the areas it's programs cover. Why not spend more time fixing things, adding things that are missing instead of considering changing the UI or adding over-hyped features you'd rarely use (like perspective drawing in AI).

Adobe is here, firmly planted, and we all love you... but at the same time we all HATE you.

Why are Wing Menu's so tiny?

Why doesn't AE have color swatches. Does that even make sense that it doesn't?

Why is AE's Curves panel so small and useless compared to Photoshop's?

Why are Opacity Masks so hidden in AI?

Why the HELL is there a big hole (No "application frame") behind the Dreamweaver panels when no doc is opened?

Why are Photoshop panels so sensitive that they undock if you even look at them funny?

Why is it often difficult to get the mouse over just the right spot between panels? Are you trying to hide the hotspots?

Why does snapping in Photoshop suck?

Why does easing in Flash CS5 applied to the entire tween instead of between keyframes (whatever they're called now)?

Why can't type be treated more like Corel Draw in AI? Why have this HUGE, SELECTABLE text box around text? It's a vector program, we're not making books in here, we don't need the boxes around Point Type. We want to make word art and text in AI just gets in the way.

How about fixing those (boring in your book, I guess) issues instead of making fancy new welcome screens?

And how about new features like being able to add some kind of "folder" structure to AE's timeline? (No, Shying layers is NOT the answer). What about being able to expand PreComps in the main timeline? This can't be hard. The only issue is making it clear what's going on with the UI.

Anyway, I hope you don't make any major changes to the UI. It's 90% PERFECT.

In AE I'd like the font samples in the Character tab...like we get in Premiere & Photoshop.

So many fonts...so little time.

First, thanks for asking.  I believe you guys might see a huge increase in users after the FCPX nightmare.

I have been a long time user of AE and would really like to get into PP

AE:

     great if you could some how expand a pre comp to edit its contents.  A lot of the time in will be in a precomp make an adjustment, then I have to go the main comp and see if that was correct given all the other layers in the master comp.  It would be great, if you could hit a button and open up the pre comp, edit the layers and see how it will effect your project.

Premiere Pro.

     I think most of it has been covered, however, I would like to see a better color correction workflow.  My biggest grip is that you have to select the clip you want to edit everytime you want to alter an adjustment.  It would be great if you could some how create a mode that where ever the playhead is the effects of that clip are in the editor.  COLOR works in that fashion and it is great way to do color correction.  Also if you could group clips to have the same CC.  I love the built CC effects.  The curves are great and I think you guys are almost there.  That would be my biggest problem.  No real CC workflow.  Especially when dealing with a huge timeline.

I'm still stuck in AE CS3 so maybe this has been addressed, but it sure would be nice if, while rendering, you could reorder and check, uncheck the items in the Render Queue. Obviousely, this would run the risk of breaking comps if a later comp required the output of an earlier comp, but in most cases it wouldn't be a problem. I was hoping I'd be able to uncheck some comps in the Render Queue by pausing the render, but that wasn't the case.

I understand the prefered workflow now is to use Media Encoder to render in the background, but I don't have that yet.