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kyleb86181533
Participant
January 1, 2025
Answered

Removing 3D Tools Without Offering Any Alternatives Inside Photoshop?

  • January 1, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 1283 views

I've been a lifelong user of the creative suite as a hobbyist, using it since Photoshop 7.0, and have had to teach myself everything I know through trial and error. I'm sure many of us are in this exact situation. We are all aware of Adobe's brand reputation at this point, but the overwhelming dominance Adobe's products have make transitioning to anything else nearly impossible - not to mention the hurdle of having to re-learn everything just to navigate a different program. So low and behold my surprise when so far as 2022 (if my memory serves), Adobe began the process of removing 3D tools from Photoshop altogether.

Now, I understand the reasoning behind this, it's well-documented at this point. The tools were based on an old OpenGL platform that is beginning to cause issues with newer operating systems. Adobe's transition to different APIs requires changes to several programs in its product lineup. I'm not insane, this is an important change to make. However, my outrage came into play when Adobe offered no alternative inside Photoshop after removing these 3D tools, which I found integral to various projects I worked on in my spare time.

 

So not only does Adobe's business practices price gouge their customers due to the company's overwhelming near-monopoly in the space, but now when they are forced to update from old outdated APIs they decide to do so in a way that outright removes features? AND they expect us to deal with AI functionality baked into the program without our consent?

I'd love an explanation as to how any of these business practices support Adobe's massive customer base, or do we just get to suck eggs and deal with it? I'm betting on the latter.

Correct answer Trevor.Dennis

Do you know that you can still install 22.2 which was the last version with the 3d tools?

 

You can keep 22.2 installed along with the most recent release version, plus the beta version, and use what works best on the day.  If you want to stay up to date with Adobe's current 3D apps then that means subscribing to Substance, which is expensive, although at least Blender is still free.

 

Are there really no alternatives?

2 replies

RRKing
RRKing
Inspiring
January 2, 2025

I agree!  Whats crazy is they instead of fixing it, they removed it.  Then released a 3 application suite that just happens to be outside of the "All Applications" subscription so you have to pay more.  Then, ontop of that they have added updated 3D tools inside illustrator.  Why not include a watered down version or tools within Photoshop replacing the broken ones which also could be an upsale for their 3D package.  Just blows my mind they market the 3D Substance tools to the same people that use Creative Cloud  yet niot include it in the Al Apps package.  I understand they have elearning and other tools but they don't seem to target a different market and are more specialized unlike the very tools that used to exist in photoshop but were removed.

 

With that said, i do see the Beta has some new 3D features coming to Photoshop but not sure if you have to be a subscriber to Substance for them to work. Becuase then that wouldn't be a feature but a paid for add-on.  When i have time i'm going to check it out. 

    Trevor.Dennis
    Community Expert
    Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 2, 2025

    You are not being realistic here.  You seem to expect world class apps to be provided to you essentually for free.  The Substance tools are a world appart from the old Photoshop 3D tools, and on a par with other professional 3D applications.  Have you any idea what you's need to pay for the alternatives?

     

    An Autodesk 3D MAX subscription will cost you:

     

    Zbrush, Rhino 8 and Maya are cheaper, but the Substance tools are still competively priced for what they can do.  You could ask our @davescm for advice.  He is our 3D expert.  Or try searching for 'free 3D alternatives'.

      RRKing
      RRKing
      Inspiring
      February 11, 2025

      I absalutly do not.  Who even said that.? In the past they provided simple 3d functionality then removed it isntead of fixing it.  then added their suite which optically looked bad but i fully understand the difference.  Thats why i said watered down just like they were before.  They did it with illustrator.  they do with AE.  They should do it with PS using the substance engine but if you need more then there is your upsale.

       

      And to be clear i'm talking about full 3d tooling as i use Cinema 4D and blender depending on the project.  I'm talking about simple lighting affects, some extrusion and panorama editing.  I don't do much of the later but for simple tasks having to exit and find another program for such simple tasks made me leave the Adobe CC ecosystem becuase for what i needed i wasn't going to pay the extra for.  I understand this is not an adobe forum and i understand what you are saying but wish they actually just fixed the issue.  I'm sure the tribal knowledge within then PS Dev department is massive and the patches are great in size.  Reading why they wanted to remove it seemed like a no brainer to include some of the basic functionaility we all had prior and for some of us even got our start in 3d becuase of it, would have been to included the new substance tools engine but just like they did with Cinema 4D in AE, make it bare bones and if need more control, it would be a perfect gateway to their more rebust and full featured toolset.  

       

      I have a question.  I see in the beta (haven't worked with it yet since i'm on a big project) they are adding some Substance features or something like that?  Like for ways to work with 3d objects within PS?  Is this what i was hoping for or is this just if you use Substance and have their plan you can work within PS using Substance toolset or something?  

      Trevor.Dennis
      Community Expert
      Trevor.DennisCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      January 1, 2025

      Do you know that you can still install 22.2 which was the last version with the 3d tools?

       

      You can keep 22.2 installed along with the most recent release version, plus the beta version, and use what works best on the day.  If you want to stay up to date with Adobe's current 3D apps then that means subscribing to Substance, which is expensive, although at least Blender is still free.

       

      Are there really no alternatives?

      K
      kyleb86181533Author
      Participant
      January 14, 2025

      I don't think the point is that there are no alternatives. There are of course lots of 3D apps that have the ability to do 3D text editing. My point is I'm just some guy who trained himself how to use this specific tool in Adobe Photoshop, have used it for ages, and now that the tech behind said tool is outdated instead of working to update the feature set to modern times I have to go elsewhere to find what I need (or revert to using older versions, which has its own problems, since online tutorials will often reference the newest and current releases of any program).

      I think it's sorta insane Adobe has such a market monopoly while acting this way, and defending them on this is even crazier.

      D Fosse
      Community Expert
      D FosseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 14, 2025

      @kyleb86181533 

       

      Photoshop 3D was built on the old OpenGL framework. OpenGL support has since been dropped by both Microsoft and Apple, replaced by the OS-native APIs - DirectX on Windows, Metal on Mac.

       

      As a result, the entire graphics code in Photoshop had to be rewritten. That has been a huge undertaking that has taken many years and many versions. At the moment, there are only very small remnants of Open GL code left.

       

      Rewriting and developing the 3D code in addition to everything else, was not considered worth the resources, especially not since better dedicated 3D tools had been developed in the meantime.

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