Opacity slider not real time

[Stan Filip]

Hello!

I recently switched from Affinity Photo to Photoshop v25, so I'm not very familiar with everything in Photoshop. When I try to modify the opacity of a layer or a mask with the slider in the properties window, the opacity only updates when I stop moving the slider; it doesn't update in real time. Out of curiosity, I tried to do the same in other Adobe software like Illustrator and InDesign to see if it's any different, and yes, in Illustrator and InDesign, the slider updates in real time. Is this an issue, or is this how the software is set up? I'm using Windows 10 and macOS 14 (same results on both).

I looked through the forum and found others saying the same thing more or less, but this was back in 2019/2020.

Thank you for the help in advance!

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Hi @Stan Filip - what happens if you slow the pace of the slider down? Mine reacts the same way on Mac OS/PS 25.1 but if I slow my sliding pace back and forth it does catch up and somewhat go live.

[Stan Filip]

Nothing different happens. No matter how slowly I move it, as long as I'm moving it, it's not changing. But, if while moving it, I have little hiccups where the cursor stops for a split second and then catches up. If I somehow managed to move the slider in such a way that it would take me an hour from 0 to 100, it wouldn't update until I stopped.

[Stan Filip]

I tested it a bit more to see if nothing works, but I found that the opacity slider in the "Blending options" window is real-time. Is this a bug? It makes it pretty hard to use Photoshop since the opacity slider is something that I need to use a lot.

[Jeff Arola]

As far as i can remember, the Opacity slider in the Layers panel has never been "real time"

Highlighting the Opacity field and then using the up/down arrow keys is about as close to real time you can get with the Opacity slider in the layers panel. Add the Shift key to move the opacity values faster.

[Trevor.Dennis]

That's the way I use it, adding Shift to move the slider in tens.  It seems to me that having to pause to evaluate is a good thing.  I wonder if Stan might find adjusting the opacity to be more fluid using the mouse?  Hover the cursor over the word Opacity left click and drag sideways.  If you do this slowly then it maybe has a more analogue feel?  

Personally, when I get close, I like to live with a change for at least a few seconds.  I have totally lost count of the times I have uploaded a composite, and then decided that a shadow is too dense or too thin.