P: New user interface lacks contrast and many usability cues, lots of other problems

[J Isner]

I just updated to Photoshop CC(2015) version 2015.1. Adobe changed the UI to the flat look you see on phones and tablets. I do not see any way to select the classic interface, which I'm sure many desktop users of PS prefer.

This feels yet another attempt by Adobe to be trendy without caring about what users want or need. Didn't they learn anything from the dumbed-down Lightroom import fiasco?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Just want to add: another trick like this one, and I'll quit using and paying CC. There are alternatives out there, and pretty good ones. One thing holding me now is habit. And patience. This is not forever.

BTW I think they will revert UI back to original, this is obvious. New UI is so ridiculous. It's just fubar. It's like alpha-stage software that's gone to masses by mistake. How this can be happening to a professional tool?

Angry

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Bring back the old look and feel of the user interface, this is to hard to SEE, READ, and FOCUS on when your trying to do actual production work in Photoshop for 8 - 10 hrs a day. I’ve been using photoshop for many years and have seen a few things you have changed along the way that I might not have agreed with but this is COMPLETELY STUPID and UNuser friendly!

NEVER been so DISAPPOINTED in an update as this Photoshop cc2015.1

This is a total DOWN grade not a upgrade!

This issue needs to be fixed!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

New user interface is a TOTAL Fail! 100%

This was unnecessary and UNuser friendly!

This is a total DOWN grade not a upgrade!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The new input interfaces are unbelievably bad. The preferences dialog, character styles, basically anything with a form input is now much harder to use. Dark grey elements on dark grey backgrounds are indistinct, low contrast, hard to find, hard to focus on, and hard to read. I can't move through the UI nearly as fast as I used to; now I have to directly focus on everything I want to interact with rather than using peripheral vision to quickly find high-contrast click targets.

Adobe has made a lot of bad UI decisions over the years, but this one is so fundamentally off-base that it's shocking. Who approved this? I imagine it was quite an internal debate, and the wrong people won.

Please let me change all the buttons, checkboxes, and text inputs back to REAL, STANDARD UI elements. I'm no UI traditionalist, but using contrast to highlight interactable elements is a fundamental aspect of usable visual interfaces.

[David Mohr]

Howdy Emilio,

You can change the color stops of your UI in Photoshop by going to Preferences > Interface and choosing one of the four color stops under Appearance at the top of the dialog.

Hope that helps,
David

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

David, you're not understanding what he's saying. The Color theme doesn't do anything.



All affordance is gone. The background of the dropdown boxes and input fields is the same color as the background of the UI panel itself and there are no borders separating the area distinguishing what can and cannot be clicked on. There is no identifiable target area to click on, it's literal guess work. This is just one specific example but the entire UI revamp is bad across the board. I know you guys track metrics, had a "classic" UI mode been included, you would see that, even among users who have never used Photoshop before, Classic UI would be the preferred option, because at least it isn't broken.

This is objectively bad design. Ignoring that aesthetically it looks bad, it's just plain not functional.

[Guest]

Thank you for demonstrating firsthand the complete and fundamental lack of understanding on Adobe's part that we've all been talking about.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

David, and fellow Adobe employee's

The new user interface cc2015.1, has no shape or dimension, no defining separation between areas, It’s FLAT almost monotone in color.

You need to go back and LOOK how it was in the old version.

Call up both versions of photoshop and put the old user interface on 1 monitor and the new user interface on a 2nd monitor side by side and look at them and ask yourself which one is easier to look at and decipher, and comfortable on the eyes.

[morris.c]

Great job Adobe!
Now I have a tiny User Interface (HiDPI not fully supported yet) with a modern ugly flat design. Great!

[J Isner]

Here's a possible workaround. Go to a dual monitor setup with a hi res monitor for the image and low res monitor for the tools, panels, etc. At low resolution, the flat UI will somewhat more usable.

[andrewbirch]

How about you stop screwing around with the finder integration on the Mac? Keep it up, and programs like Affinity will be easy to replace photoshop with. My latest update to Photoshop was extremely annoying and disorienting. We professionals are tired of your UI experiments. Leave it alone and develop something new and useful for the marketplace.

[Antonio_Starace]

I went back to the previous version and now I have my classic and right interface back. Just disappointed that now I have Camera Raw 8.
I'd have preferred not to revert to one version back but just get rid of the last crappy update.

[Guest]

I was fortunate to have a Time Machine backup. You could try to source the 2015.0.1 files elsewhere such as torrent and have a shot at activating it with your Adobe CC account somehow?

[andrewbirch]

nah. Adobe is on a path that alot of us simply dont want to walk. Its lack of real innovation that will choke them eventually.

[Guest]

Great job Adobe, if you don't fix this absolute disaster and show signs of taking notice of your Professional user base then I'll have no option but to move away from Adobe products entirely.

Sincerely,
A Creative Cloud COMPLETE (All-Apps) Subscriber

[Roger the Photographer]

David, what you guys at Adobe have to understand is this: a UI is there for the user, not for the designer. Your idea of choosing a darker background isn't bad per se. It simply shows that the darker background is somewhat more usable right now. Still a bad idea, but more usable somewhat.

Never forget: black text against white background is easiest and by far. A dark background is not a good idea. Pale gray text on white is awful. Even companies that know much more about UI, like Apple, have made mistakes resembling this one somewhat, but have come back to more useable interfaces. You're going to treat pains to avoid the Mac interface and the result is a pity.

Most of us love to use Photoshop CC. Please don't make it downright impossible for us. Remember Quark, they didn't bother about users and they went down the drain.

Better brace yourself: our complaints will never go away. It's not a matter of getter used to change, it's a matter of refusing a bad UI. Quite stubborn we are.

I am looking for an alternative to Photoshop. If I find one, I will certainly make the jump. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you are irreplaceable.

[andrewbirch]

I am experimenting with Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. They both seem to have most of what we need from Photoshop and Illustrator. The problem for me is I have 25 years of using Photoshop and those 'crunch time' reflexes take a long time to retrain in a new piece of software. Adobe knows this. They also know that by controlling .pdf.psd and .ai, they can keep us locked into their never-ending game. What I wish they would recognize is that even young, new designers and creatives dont have time to constantly change how they interact with a software system. This is about their business of controlling and owning the document and imaging universe, first. Their products are relied on by governments and major organizations, but like all revolutions, at some point the game will change. As creatives, we just need to stay open and keep learning new things, even if the UI is counter-intuitive and maddenly dumbed-down.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have never felt the need to complain about Adobe products before but agree that this new UI is absolutely awful. It is 10 steps backwards!
Icons that were identifiable now all blend together and any drop down box or slider is so hard to identify. It needs to either be darker or lighter in the window and not all the same colour across the board with a tiny underline.
Also, why are the swatches suddenly huge? The smallest setting is twice the size of the old swatch.
Can we have an option for a legacy interface or a redesign of this one please?
Heck, if you are willing to employ me, I'll do it.

I am also a CC (full bundle) subscriber.

[morris.c]

Maybe something like this, @Nathan

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

What a difference! Thanks for doing that Morris, it really illustrates how much easier it is to identify the boxes.
Now can you make the icons work too 🙂

[TrimMark]

Adobe: Please revert to the old interface (or design one complete new.)

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

To be clear, it's not just the dropdown boxes, it's interface as a whole that is bad. There are no redeemable changes I've found. I looked through thinking, "what can be salavaged. If we went back to the last interface what good things can we keep from this new one". I couldn't find anything. There's nothing worth keeping here.

[Antonio_Starace]

You are perfectly right. The classic interface worked just fine and is in common with others apps in the suite. So, why change it?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

UPDATE:

If you have any kind of backup or a backup from your time machine prior to your upgrade you can grab the old cc2015 app and overwrite the new one, and you’ll be up and running back to normal before this whole cluster mess.

I’m disappointed that this has been going on for a week now and only 1 Adobe person has said anything on this topic. I think it’s going to take alot more people rallying in on this before it’s going to noticed by adobe. This topic is in the (? section) and probably should have been started in the (problem section) to get there attention.

Now that I have my old version of photoshop back, I will NEVER updated my photoshop again until it stops running!

THANKS for NOTHING Adobe!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I think what we are all trying to say is that Adobe have slowed us down and therefore lowered our productivity (at least that's how my employer would put it).