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In the current version 23.5.0 it is not possible to change the color of the already placed guides (PS for Windows). The behavior is totally weird. When changing the guide color in settings only the newly placed guides get the new color, the existing ones dont change the color. This way it's possible to create a multicolor guides grid. This seems to be an intentional change, since multicolor guides are saved with the PS file persistently. There is even a Z-order to the guides since the latest placed guides go to the top and cover before placed guides.
If this is an intentional change, than a way is needed to recolor existing guides.
If such a file is opened in an older versions of PS, all guides are shown with the same default color specified in the settings.
So please Adobe, implement changes of existing features when everything is ready. I am so tired of broken features in each new version of PS.
Hi @Helmut243151150cd5, thank you for the post.
This is not a bug (by design). Coloring guides only work for NEW guides created after the 23.5 update (color guides feature release).
Thank you,
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Hi @Helmut243151150cd5, thank you for the post.
This is not a bug (by design). Coloring guides only work for NEW guides created after the 23.5 update (color guides feature release).
Thank you,
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Hi Cory,
thank you for confirming that it is an intentional change.
So, what was my use case for changing the color of guides? I ran into a situation where the current color of the guides did not work anymore due to conflicting colors in the artwork. I needed to change the color of the guides to clearly see them again. I suppose this was the original use case that the color settings section for guides was designed for. With the NEW guides this is not possible anymore. You just can change guides on the screen one by one now.
I finally found the new “guides context menu” after wondering why the guides changed their color to blue (which is the Artboard guides color!) when clicking on them and accidently right clicking. This way of visualizing the “selected guide” by just a color change of the clicked item is unique within Photoshop, and really confusing in my eyes.
Although the guides context menu says “Edit selected guides” it is not possible to select multiple guides. And it is also not possible to change all guides with the same color to a new one. The bug here is that either the label in the context menu is wrong or that the multi selection of guides is not working (bug #1).
The project where I ran into the problem had a design grid with 20 guides in cyan blue. To change the color for one guide requires a whopping 6 clicks. To change the color of all the 20 guides would require 120 mouse clicks (!!!!).
Please forgive me that I consider a “redesign” and "improvement" which raises the number of clicks from 5 to 120 as a bug (bug #2).
Maybe I missed something, and it is possible to have an easier way, but then it is not obvious and not easy to find.
Here is the next one: If you select and right click a guide outside the artboard, the wrong context menu to “change the background color” instead of “changing the guide” shows up (bug #3).
Funny thing is that double clicking a guide line still brings up the guides setting dialog which does NOT allow to change the clicked guide.
I think there remains some work to be done for a properly working multicolor guides UI.
My criticism of not thoroughly thought through redesigns remains. I would just like to remind you of the disaster when omitting the pixel line function or when Adobe literally swapped gas and brake pedals when redesigning the shift key behavior in the transform function. Both examples caused a veritable shitstorm and caused a later updates to correct the problems.
A properly working product management and an respected UI design team should avoid such serious flaws to happen which cost money to fix and affect the customer relationship.
I am a product manager and UX Designer with more than 25 years professional experience and I know what I am talking about.
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There are scripts to copy/paste guides, So you can copy the guides, clear all guides and then paste them back. Perhaps this would work around the issue.
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Hi @Stephen_A_Marsh,
thank you for pointing me to this. Perhaps somebody takes care of it and brings back the missing functionality.