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John Stanowski
John Stanowski
Inspiring
May 14, 2012
Question

AI CS6 took away the Opacity sliders

  • May 14, 2012
  • 4 replies
  • 21443 views

I just discovered to my horror that there are no opacity sliders in Illustrator CS6.

Seems like the program is going backwards now. Whatever.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    Temakixai
    Temakixai
    Participant
    April 16, 2014

    Okay i really need to go against every other post i've skimmed in this conversation.
    i LOVE the intervals. I'm a vector artist, and let me tell you, i was so delighted that CS6 changed the old slider to these percentage intervals. it made things so much more efficient.
    Say i make a picture, and i'm doing shading and i need to have a lot of objects with a lowered opacity. but they all need to be the same. I don't want some specific number, with the intervals I can just select 20%, "no, too light", select 30%, "okay that's good".
    i don't want to have to move the slider very carefully down and get it on EXACTLY 30, i don't need 31, i don't need 29, i need a straight simple number.. and i certainly don't want to be selecting the box and then typing in 30. or whatever number i'm going for.
    I don't need things to be precise, I need things to be efficient and time saving.
    And with gradients. why on earth would I, say, want a point in the gradient to be at something like 51.234%? i want it at *50*. with the intervals it saves so much time cus you can jsut go click click, click click, and everything's exactly where it is. and of course if you NEED somethign spicific, you can still type the number in.

    In CC they've taken out the intervals that I thought were so much more efficient and moved it back to the slider. I just got to the point of the shading in a picture i'm doing and i flat out refuse to go around wasting time dragging a slider to a nitpicky position.
    I would like to know if it is possible to change it BACK to the percentage intervals on the creative cloud products

    As some people so obviously prefer the slider, they shouldn't just have one or the other, it should be an option to set it to which you prefer.
    This will save me a few hours of time on my pictures. could anyone help?
    *lost in the vast maze that is the preferences window*

    A
    An Elephant
    Participating Frequently
    January 27, 2013

    I find AE's drag control is the most comfortable way to do it, I don't know why it's not implemented.

    A
    Anonymous
    May 15, 2012

    This was THE first thing I noticed when I started getting into AI6. It baffles me that they did this. Any artist worth their weight will be absolutely appalled at the missing sliders, and for good reason. And using the mouse wheel to scroll is a great addition - for artists that draw un-intuitively with a mouse, but what about the pile of artists that use tablets???

    C'mon, Adobe. Start sending your Beta's to high end artists for feedback and blatant faux pas's like this will never be made.

    I'll stick with 5.5 til they fix this, thanks.

    U
    uni_splet
    Participant
    May 15, 2012

    Well i see that the arrows are better.

    _scott__
    _scott__
    Legend
    May 14, 2012

    Yeah, I didn't like the removal of the sliders either. I think they were much better than the 10% steps.

    John Stanowski
    John StanowskiAuthor
    Inspiring
    May 14, 2012

    It's like Illustrator thinks we're all computers or something. Opacity, rounded corners, etc. all require entering in precise numbers. There's no interactivity allowing us to tweak by sight. All these clicks are driving me nuts.

    W
    wgzn
    Participating Frequently
    May 9, 2013

    Frank and Emil, I'm sorry that this slows down your workflows. While I cannot speculate on why the slider was removed, I hope that this new way will become more convenient and a better experience as you use it more.

    John Stanowski wrote:

    W.O.W.

    Using the mouse wheel to adjust opacity is bloody brilliant! And I think it's WAY better that using a slider. Being able to do this is a lot closer to how we use our hands and watch what we're doing with immediate feedback when we sketch or mold clay in the real world. THIS is what AI should do more of. Holy cow. Fantastic!

    John, yes, this tweak is enabled on all editable/numeric fields that have values that can be increased or decreased. I'm glad that you find the feauture so useful.

    Thanks, Ivan David!  Is there somewhere we can see a detailed list of all the other changes??

    Please let us know if there's a list somewhere of all the other tweaks, I can't wait to see it.

    About a list... interesting that you brought it up - because I am working on a list of all the smaller (but useful) tweaks that have gone into the Illustrator CS6. I promise to have it out and update this thread as soon as possible. Appreciate the feedback.

    Cheers,

    David


    the mouse wheel thing is great. but not as responsive as a slider. and that arrow thing is screaming joke. i can move a slider with my mouse from 100 to 3 in about a quarter of a second. why in the hell would i want to highlight it then use a whole other input device - ludicrous!

    ive been using illustrator since version 1 and it gauls the living daylights out of me that theyd take a feature they had. that made sense and simply remove it. are they going to remove the slider from photoshop as well? it does the exact same thing. why would it be there in photoshop and NOT in illustrator of the same release version.

    from where i sit, if this as well as the new subscription only CC thing are the shape of things to come. im just going to cancel my subscription and sit comfortably with my CS4 master collection discs and get back to being productive.

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