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

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

1)
If I have move tool I can hold ctrl and select layers by mouse draging.
I'm adding layers to selection if I am holding shift. (CTRL + SHIFT + DRAG)

But if you want to deselect layer you can not select an area by the mouse, but you have to click. Which is pretty annoying if you have a lot 1px lines already selected.

2)
Is it necessary that the selection causes disappearing of blue border?

Screen cast here: https://youtu.be/wVBvm-meDrI

[David Mohr]

Howdy Jaroslav,

The click and drag method you're describing isn't meant to work to deselect objects/layers.  It's meant as a quick and easy way to select a lot of things.

As for the blue border disappearing, the border is a visual indication of the edge of the selection.  So when it disappears, that means you're no longer selecting the text box.

Thanks,
David

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks for the reply.

Well, if I use a very similar function Shift + Click. First time it selects the layer and the second time it deselect layer. If I select multiple layers(by draging), I have to deselect one by one(by clicking). Very uncomfortable when you need to hit multiple 1px lines(for deselect).

I know what the blue rectangles is and I use them much. But during the draging they just disappear and I do not know what layers I have or do not have selected. 🙂

[Noah_Crem]

I want to second Jaroslav's issue. Please fix/add drag de-select. Photoshop has click select, click de-select, drag-select, but no drag de-select (which should be an obvious feature).

When selecting a group of objects in a Photoshop file there are often other objects BEHIND, AROUND, BETWEEN or even IN FRONT OF the group of objects you want to select. In this case it's nice to be able to DESELECT a group of unnecessary objects in the background without having to hunt each one down in the layers panel. This feature would speed up this process HUGELY.

Please consider fixing.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thirded. I don't use my layers panel to select layers, there are far too many of them in big projects. I need to be able to drag select and then unselect unwanted layers also by dragging. Why has this feature been removed in the first place? Ten years of doing things a certain way and adobe removes it without investigating user needs. Fail. 

[JD11213]

Yes, please fix this. I used to be able to select a large group and then redrag over portions with cmd+shift+left click drag to deselect unwanted portions of the selection - and all the sudden it's gone.

This is extremely useful in a number of situations. 

[Kukurykus]

Was that ever working? I tried it now in CS6 EXTENDED and in CC 2018 and it's the same. I couldn't deselct any layer by holding CTRL & SHIFT with LMB dragging over them.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I never heard anyone mention this method of deselecting selected layers before. It's always worked just fine in the Finder to deselect selected files, but not in PS that I know of. When did it last work so I can try it out (if I can still install the right version)?

[Kukurykus]

Which vers. let for it. I checked CS6 Extended and CC 19.1.5. In both you can't deselect by dragging.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It wasn't ever working. Anyway, this was one from hundreds of reasons why I am using Sketch for web design instead of Photoshop. So my problem is solved.

[Kukurykus]

It's bad they don't let us to change behaviour of many things we do in Photoshop by scripting. It's other kind of problem though, but so many others were not solved that proably best is to give up and choose some alternative. You did good choice!

[David Mohr]

Thansk for the input, Jaroslav and everyone.

I've gone ahead and logged a feature request for this behavior.

I appreciate the workflow examples.  If you've got more, I'll happily add them to the report.

Thanks,
David

[JD11213]

I've had this behavior for years, I'm not sure what version it started/stopped in, but it may have been a Mac-only thing.

[Kukurykus]

Everyone says it wasn't part of Photoshop. Can you recall which release you used before CC 2018?

[JD11213]

I'm not sure which version it stopped working in, it has been awhile, though.

I've been using Photoshop in the UI industry, etc, for 18 years and usually have the newest version as they roll out.  To be honest, a lot of what I do are shortcuts through muscle memory without thinking about it much, so I am not sure when it stopped, unfortunately.

Are you on Mac or PC? I’m on Mac.

I do believe mine behaved this way. And I don't think it was through a customization. I would often select a list of items and then redrag over 1px horizontal rules while holding cmd+shift to deselect them from the selection. Others have mentioned doing similar. I've also come across others saying that it "no longer" works this way as well. 

Here's another user who experienced the same thing:  https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/shift_mouse_drag_de_selection_not_working

Also, as you can see someone else says that on Mac it works/worked for them. I sometimes switch to PC and vaguely remember it not working on there a long time ago (as if there wasn't application parody), but don't quote me on that because I might be making that part up.

At any rate, I hope to see this back in action soon.

[David Mohr]

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

[Kukurykus]

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.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

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.

[David Mohr]

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

[JD11213]

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?

[David Mohr]

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

[Noah_Crem]

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.

[David Mohr]

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

[JD11213]

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.

[Guest]

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.