Why can't Adobe make a selection tool that are consistent from one tool (PS) to another (ID) or vice versa
By @jeffe24343218
That’s impossible, because they are two totally different kinds of software. Photoshop edits pixels, so it needs a way to select an area of pixels. That led to its selection tools, which are all different ways to select an area of pixels.
InDesign edits vector objects, so it needs a way to select points and segments, not pixels. That led to its Selection and Direct Selection tools, which are different ways to select vector objects and their points and segments.
I really want to understand PS but it is so not intuitive compared to anything else out there.
By @jeffe24343218
It might help to understand the history and context of why there are two sets of selection tools.
Short version: This did not start with Adobe.
The selection tools in Photoshop since its original release in 1990 follow the lead of the selection tools in the original pixel editor on the Mac, Apple MacPaint, released in 1984. For Mac artists going back 41 years, the Rectangular Marquee and Lasso selection tools in Photoshop are absolutely and historically intuitive because they work the same way as the ones in MacPaint. But not just MacPaint. If you look at all other similar pixel editors in the history of digital editing — Corel Photo Paint, Affinity Photo, Pixelmator (recently bought by Apple), the GIMP, etc. — someone who learned any of those pixel editors learned the same pixel selection tools in all of them, and if they switch to Photoshop the same tools are there…those selection tools will be intuitive to them. So the Photoshop selection tools are basically industry standard, familiar and intuitive to anyone trained on any pixel editor.
The selection tools that InDesign has are based on those in Adobe Illustrator, released in 1987. Pixel selection tools like those in MacPaint/Photoshop simply can’t work in a vector graphics tool. The Illustrator selection tools, too, have become industry standard. Again, if you look at countless non-Adobe vector graphics programs going back almost 40 years (FreeHand, CorelDraw, Affinity Designer/Publisher, Inkscape, etc.) they all have the same vector object selection tools as Illustrator: An arrow for selecting a vector object, points that you can select on an object (they define the segments between points), and handles on the point for shaping the segments. And maybe a rectangle around the object with handles for scaling, rotation, etc.
Also, by the way, on the original 1980s Macs, alongside MacPaint was MacDraw. Like Adobe Illustrator, MacDraw was for vector graphics. So Apple themselves decided that MacDraw and MacPaint needed different kinds of selection tools. Unlike the MacPaint selection tools that inspired Photoshop, MacDraw necessarily uses vector segments and points like Illustrator and InDesign.
What will make these tools more intuitive for you is to better understand these two historically distinct sets of selection tools, pixel graphics selection and vector graphics selection. Once you get to that point, not only will selections in Photoshop and InDesign make more sense, but the entire history of pixel editing and vector graphics editing software will also make more sense to you. And obviously, the other big side benefit is that you will also know how to select in almost any other vector graphics or pixel graphics application you use, Adobe or not. Understanding both sets of selection tools gives you a valuable, transferable skill.
So this should clear up your last sentence: Photoshop selection tools are absolutely consistent with other pixel graphics editors out there, going back over four decades, traceable all the way to the Mac’s original pixel editor MacPaint.
One more thing…actually, there are selection tools in Photoshop that do work exactly like the ones in InDesign. If you use the shape or path tools in Photoshop, then you need to be using the Selection and Direct Selection tools instead. Why? Because in Photoshop, shapes and paths are vector graphics. So if you edit those, you select with the vector graphics selection tools in Photoshop that work exactly like the ones in InDesign, Illustrator, and other vector graphics editors.
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