P: Ctrl + shift + drag doesn't deselect layers

I believe the oldest photoshop version this could have possibly worked on was photoshop cs2, the first photoshop version where one could actually select multiple layers in the layers palette.

As i'm sure your well aware, in older photoshop versions the layers were linked, not actually selected.

I've also heard from an old-timer (says the guy clocking 20+ years here) that this did used to work, but that could've been literally decades ago.  I'm beginning to wonder if this was removed due to either a technical limitation or simply an oversight.

Hi David!

It wasn't decades ago. I've been using Photoshop for over 18 years and it worked that way relatively recently. I would guestimate it changed somewhere within the last 2 years.

I've created a video showing a great use for having this feature back.

What I used to be able to do is select a large group of elements, and then deselect a small portion of the selection in a quick and easy way.

What I want to do here in this example video is move down the headlines and stars down 3px. So I quickly select everything with a drag (my first mouse action). With my second mouse action, I want to drag-deselect the 1px horizontal rules to keep them in place (which are a pain to click-deselect and I don't want to have to waste time running to the Layers Panel). As you can see, I can't deselect them so the entire UI moves instead. With more UI elements, it becomes even more valuable.

I hope this helps!






PS - I kept getting an "Internal Server Error" while trying to upload a 478 KB Gif of the video.

Thanks for the video, Noah.

I've tagged the bug with this thread, so this should help avoid any confusion.

I've also heard from an old-timer (says the guy clocking 20+ years here) that this did used to work, but that could've been literally decades ago.  I'm beginning to wonder if this was removed due to either a technical limitation or simply an oversight.

Keep in mind, workflow issues faced by many users get priority over problems that impact only one or two users.  So if this is something that really impacts your use of Photoshop, it would be really helpful if you could share your story with me here, including the particular details of why this deselection functionality cramps your workflow.

Thanks,
David

Thanks for looking into this, David! I don't have access to previous versions of PS to experiment/test otherwise I would. What I can do is to demonstrate the Illustrator equivalent behavior for comparison and to clarify how the feature/bug is actually meant to function. Essentially the "selection box" acts as a toggle - selecting or deselecting layer content that is included within the selection frame.

In Illustrator this is a simple "shift + drag-select" to deselect multiple objects. In Photoshop for iOS the function is actually Cmd + drag-select for multi-layer selection (rather than Ctrl) and Cmd + shift + click for single layer deselect. So the drag-deselect feature would have been "Cmd + Shift + drag-deselect".

Hopefully that helps.

I've been using both, actually.  I have some of these versions on my test machines, otherwise, I'm either installing them on a lab machine or borrowing someone else's installation.  I haven't seen it work on either platform and platform-parity is something we focus on (OS-manufacturers allowing!) -- usually if something works on Mac it'll also work on Windows and vice versa.  As of yesterday, I tested back to CS6 (Mac, I believe), but could not repro the deselect behavior.

Thanks,
David

That's why I've been asking about what version this worked in, cuz I've tried going through previous versions all the way back to CS6 with no luck. 

Hi David, was this on Mac or PC?

Howdy Jaroslav,

I hear you and totally understand where you're coming from.  Just so you know, I would love to be able to escalate this issue to a full bug.  That's why I've been asking about what version this worked in, cuz I've tried going through previous versions all the way back to CS6 with no luck.  If I can find a version where this behavior clearly worked, however, I can a) validate that there's been a regression in behavior and b) check to see if this was done for some reason -- a belief that this method wasn't used, ignorance of its existence, or just a technical blockage.  And, from there, I should be able to get the priority of this raised quite a bit.  Otherwise, this issue has to compete with all the other new requests.

Does that make sense?

Thanks,
David

To be fair... I created this topic as a bug instead of feature request because feature requests have much lower priority. On this forum is a lot of FRs older than 3-5 years with no result or even answer.

This topic wasn't created because Jaroslav Bereza wanted this behaviour to be back, but he came with idea to add this functionality, however I understand it could work for some reason for MacOS users in some earlier releases of Photoshop.

I use PC and in CS6 and now in 19.1.5 I can't undrag selected layers. So either that was introduced in some CC and then taken out or worked in specific releases on MacOS only.

Looking at that video of other topic it used to work before first CC so in some CSs. It seems it could work on MacOS only, but then Adobe could unify this behaviour for both PC and MacOS. We don't know it was like it, but if it was, then from CC 2013 on you can use it same way as that was on PC.

Howdy folks,

So, I've heard a lot of people chiming in on this topic.  Thank you for your input.

Since I've worked on layers in Photoshop, this hasn't worked and I've tested all the way back to CS6.  But if someone could give me a version where this definitely DID work, that would be most helpful.  Knowing what version of Photoshop where this clearly did work would also let me make this a bug report rather than feature request.  Meanwhile, I'll be adding these comments to the report that I have.

Thanks,
David