Hey. I have been using Photoshop for nearly 17 years now (I was a teenager back then). I worked on Photoshop 5.5, CS4, CS5, CS6 and now CC.
And I feel like filters (especially the Filters Gallery) really need an update. The filters do work but:
• Some filters don't really suit today's needs. I mean, I'm sure other users might find these filters great for their use but I really feel like they're outdated. I wish we could have some of these filters updated (thinking of Mosaic for instance. The tiles are recognizable at first glance and they feel like it's been made in Photoshop 5)
• Some filters (for instance Charcoal and other Sketch Filters) use the foreground and background colors. But whenever we open the Filters Gallery, we can't change them. We have to close the window, change the colors and retry. Sometimes my colors are inverted but it's impossible to switch. Of course, there are easy turnarounds. Usually, I make my colors black and white and just apply a Gradient Map afterwards but we should be able to change our colors within the filter gallery especially when stacking several filters.
• Some other outdated filters include the Lens Flare. There are only 4 type of lens flares and I wish we could have a powerful tool creating lenses instead of using the same lens flare stock photos or drawing them. I'm thinking of a tool that would simulate lenses with various settings (Anamorphic or Spherical; add "dust", number of flares). Basically, a Photoshop version of Video Copilot's Optical Flares (which is at least 10 years old)
And if we don't know we can Alt Click on the thumbnail, it's quite hard to place properly as we're not even able to zoom in the preview (and there is not even live preview!)
Best,
Alex