Participant

Answered

Photoshop is not intuitive for an Illustrator user

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
August 24, 2021
8 replies
7177 views

I use Illustrator a lot and ive come to love it, but today I had to use photoshop so that i can make mock ups and whatnot. I though that it would be similar to Illustrator and dear lord was I devastatingly wrong. I was at the brink of poking my eyes out every 5 minutes, im not even joking. I almost smashed my monitor a couple of times, screamed at the top of my lungs a couple of times, lost my voice, had some spasms.

Why dont object become highlited in some way when i click on them?

Why do i have to click a checkmark manually everytime i do something? And sometimes i dont even notice that i have to click that [cursing removed] checkmark and i accidentaly carry on clicking other things.

WHY CANT I MOVE MY (Profanity removed by moderator) ARTBOARD WHEREVER I WANT???

WHY DO I HAVE TO GO TO EDIT-TRANSFORM EVERY (Profanity removed) TIME TO SCALE SOME [cursing removed]?

WHY DO I HAVE TO MANUALLY SELECT MULTIPLE LAYERS AFTER IVE ALREADY GROUPED THEM IN ORDER TO MOVE THEM???

AND WHY THE (Profanity removed) DO I SELECT MULTIPLE LAYERS WITH "ctrl" RATHER THAN WITH "shift"????

WHY IS IT SO (Profanity removed) HARD TO COLOUR ANYTHING HERE???

This program is UTTER GARBAGE!

Correct answer Conrad_C

I’ve used both Illustrator and Photoshop, for many years, and it looks like you’re running into a basic difference between the two. That is the difference between how a vector graphics editing application (like Illustrator) works, and how a pixel editing application (Photoshop) works.

The reason I say that is because the differences you are complaining about are not specific to Adobe software. You would run into them if you were used to Affinity Designer (vector drawing) and got frustrated with Affinity Photo (pixel graphics), or if you were used to Corel Draw (vector drawing) and tried out Corel PaintShop Pro (pixel graphics). You cannot select, colorize, and edit pixels the same way you edit your Illustrator vector graphics.

You need to dial back the anger and reframe what you are frustrated by so that you can learn both ways, because you are at risk of rejecting a valuable career skill. If you stay angry and reject Photoshop, then you will wall yourself off from gaining work experience with the entire 30+ year history of paint/photo/pixel editing applications, which all work like Photoshop, even before Photoshop was invented.

Another way of saying this: If you used Photoshop all your life and then tried Illustrator for a day, you would be cursing Illustrator for being an unituitive, terribly designed application because it doesn’t work the way you are used to. It’s like saying the French language is terrible because it is not like the German that you know, or that you reject all baking because it works differently than cooking dinner. Those are all wrong conclusions; those differences are there to create more options and more enjoyment for us.

Keep an open mind, try a few tutorials, watch a few videos. You will soon learn that if Photoshop was designed like Illustrator, it would be unable to work the way Photoshop needs to work. If you make the effort to learn how Photoshop and all image editing applications work, you will expand your range of career skills.

It is hard to learn a new discipline. I am still trying to learn 3D, animation, video editing, audio editing, etc. They are all too different from how Illustrator and Photoshop work. But if I curse them for working in stupid crazy ways, I will never learn them. So I do not judge them too soon, I commit the proper amount of time to study them, and eventually I understand why they have to be different and it all becomes clear.

S

shadowtm911

Participant

That's funny, because I think Illustrator is not intuitive for a Photoshop user and I'm literally raging at the opposite things.

What kind of program doesn't let you right click on layers for a context menu?
Why do I have to select a tiny box/circle next to a layer to select the shape when the layer is already selected?
Why does Ctrl+T bring up a text editor rather than Free Transform?
I had to google just to increase the width on a stroke.
Why can't I simply fill a color into negative space of a shape?
I think Illustrator is utter garbage lol.

I think Adobe could definitely add more parity between their programs to make things easier, but they don't. The programs look identical and there should be some functionality that carries over... Like shortcut keys like "CTRL+T for Free Transform", or RIGHT-CLICKING FOR A CONTEXT MENU ON A LAYER!

I'd like to see some actual quality of life improvements to Adobe's suite rather than AI tools.

T

TiredOfSubscriptions

Known Participant

The basic interface for photoshop hasn't changed since its inception. It is now, and always has been, incredibly unintuitive. The tools it offers are great, but the user interface is essentially the same as it was in 1990. That's 34 years ago. Think about how UI/UX has changed in 34 years. The interface for Photoshop is anachronistic, it doesn't belong in this time. I can only guess at why they won't work on a true UI update. I'm sure it would be a massive undertaking. It's why I avoid using it as much as I can. It's generative AI is pretty good, so I use it almost exclusively for that. The bulk of my edits are done in Lightroom and Topaz AI (I'm a photographer). I think that Photoshop becomes less relevant every day, and if they don't overhaul the UI/UX eventually it will be overtaken by more modern tools. Even Adobe's own Lightroom is decades better from a UX perspective.

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

Millions of artists, graphic designers, videographers, and yes photographers, have relied on Photoshop for decades and have created some amazing work. Lightroom's UI blows goats, frankly, Aperture was miles ahead and much easier to use. Don't hold LR up as a model of UI design :shudder:

As for fawning over generative AI, why am I not surprised? A lot of us who actually have talent are not interested whatsoever in letting the computer create artwork while calling it our own, or in promoting the rise of AI.

Maybe its because you are new at this but Photoshop, with all its flaws, it not going away anytime soon. It has the same grip on professional image editing as Word and Excel have in the office market.

T

TiredOfSubscriptions

Known Participant

I don't think LR is the gold standard, it's interface is mediocre. It's just more intuitive for general workflow than PS. I prefered Aperture as well. If it still existed, I wouldn't be using any Adobe products at all. I'm not new at this at all, and I'm not a proponent of heavy editing through AI or PS, at least from the perspective of photgraphy. Photograpy is all I do, I have not thoughts or comments about the use of photoshop for anything else. As applied to photography, I don't see the value in heavily edited images weather they come from AI or from hours of maniuplation manually in photoshop. I didn't care for heavy manipulation in the darkroom either.

R

renatus1234565

Inspiring

lol

I'm with you buddy, I understand what you're going through. I finally got through the hair pulling of learning illustrator and starting to feel comfortable with it and sometimes have to go into PS to do things with my co-workers' files and wow it's frustrating. I got here from googling something like what you're saying becuase I needed to take a breather trying to mask or clip some things or whatever.

My frustration usually is with both programs, then also After effects and Premiere around 'masking' stuff. I've tried to learn the basics more times than I can count but the language around "masking" something has never made sense to me. So when I "mask" something it's never clear to me whether the "mask" is the thing that is being conformed to a shape or the shape that its being conformed to. the term mask doesn't make sense for defining that at all. Like idk, a gate or a pool, or really even 'crop' makes more sense. All mask says to me is something is covered up, not conformed to a shape. never mind that between PS, AI and CH (Character animator which I use a lot) the order in which a mask needs to be to work isn't always the same. Anyway, that's my gripe.
But I'm aware that this stuff is pretty much my fault; just gotta hit youtube and keep at them tutorials.

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

Why have you not taken two minutes to learn the basics of Photoshop instead of raging? At its heart, its no different than coloring with crayons and three year olds can do that...

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

@SIMEON5C7F , do you at least want to address the nonsensical and/or incorrect claims you made?

RRKing

Inspiring

whats funny is i say the same thing when working in illistrator. I still can't stand it but i'm sure if i gave it a go it would make sense and thats the same with photoshop a pixel editor and illistrator a vector editor. It maes it more confusing is the each have a small section or ability to do the others job inside and thast where it gets confusing 🙂

Conrad_C

Correct answer

Community Expert

I’ve used both Illustrator and Photoshop, for many years, and it looks like you’re running into a basic difference between the two. That is the difference between how a vector graphics editing application (like Illustrator) works, and how a pixel editing application (Photoshop) works.

The reason I say that is because the differences you are complaining about are not specific to Adobe software. You would run into them if you were used to Affinity Designer (vector drawing) and got frustrated with Affinity Photo (pixel graphics), or if you were used to Corel Draw (vector drawing) and tried out Corel PaintShop Pro (pixel graphics). You cannot select, colorize, and edit pixels the same way you edit your Illustrator vector graphics.

You need to dial back the anger and reframe what you are frustrated by so that you can learn both ways, because you are at risk of rejecting a valuable career skill. If you stay angry and reject Photoshop, then you will wall yourself off from gaining work experience with the entire 30+ year history of paint/photo/pixel editing applications, which all work like Photoshop, even before Photoshop was invented.

Another way of saying this: If you used Photoshop all your life and then tried Illustrator for a day, you would be cursing Illustrator for being an unituitive, terribly designed application because it doesn’t work the way you are used to. It’s like saying the French language is terrible because it is not like the German that you know, or that you reject all baking because it works differently than cooking dinner. Those are all wrong conclusions; those differences are there to create more options and more enjoyment for us.

Keep an open mind, try a few tutorials, watch a few videos. You will soon learn that if Photoshop was designed like Illustrator, it would be unable to work the way Photoshop needs to work. If you make the effort to learn how Photoshop and all image editing applications work, you will expand your range of career skills.

It is hard to learn a new discipline. I am still trying to learn 3D, animation, video editing, audio editing, etc. They are all too different from how Illustrator and Photoshop work. But if I curse them for working in stupid crazy ways, I will never learn them. So I do not judge them too soon, I commit the proper amount of time to study them, and eventually I understand why they have to be different and it all becomes clear.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

»Why dont object become highlited in some way when i click on them?«

What do you mean by »object«? Layers?

If so the selected ones can clearly be noted in the Layers Panel and by checking »Show Transform Controls« for the Move Tool in the Options Bar the Transform Controls become visible on the Canvas.

»Why do i have to click a checkmark manually everytime i do something?«

What do you mean by »do something«? Painting, selecting, … need no confirmation so are you talking about Filters, Transformations, …?

»WHY CANT I MOVE MY (OP's Profanity removed) ARTBOARD WHEREVER I WANT???«

What are you talking about? What is hindering you in moving Artboards?

Could you please post screenshots with the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Options Bar, …) visible to clarify?

»WHY DO I HAVE TO GO TO EDIT-TRANSFORM EVERY (OP's Profanity removed) TIME TO SCALE SOME SHITT???«

You don’t; there is the Shortcut (cmd-T) and there is »Show Transform Controls« for the Move Tool.

»WHY DO I HAVE TO MANUALLY SELECT MULTIPLE LAYERS AFTER IVE ALREADY GROUPED THEM IN ORDER TO MOVE THEM???«

You don’t; you can select the Group.

»WHY IS IT SO (OP's Profanity removed) HARD TO COLOUR ANYTHING HERE???«

Coloring stuff in Photohsop does not seem to be hard, so what are you talking about?

Edit: If you are talking about colorizing individual elements in a photograph then the difficulty would naturally depend on that photograph – how well is the element distinguishable, how strong is the color difference to the surroundings, how sharp are the edges … but that eventually gets down to masking.

»This program is UTTER GARBAGE!«

You are apparently not familiar with Photoshop, so the problem does not seem to be the program but the assumption that the program would have to be efficiently usable without familiarizing oneself with it.

I have not reported your post but you should be aware that you have violated the Forum guidelines.

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