Rebuild Adobe Photoshop from the ground up

Report · Feb 29, 2020

Question, why hasn’t Adobe Photoshop programmers just throw in the towel. Let’s just redo, or rebuild Adobe Photoshop from the ground up. Since Adobe keeps adding and adding. And their so many bugs. Why hasn’t anybody asked.... the software has meant its quota! Let’s rebuild it. Your actions, filters, and functions are so outdated. Your not giving the users what they really want, or listening to the customers on how to improve the software. We all (customers) just post bugs, crashes, but never saying. “Photoshop is a really stable and awesome software to use! Thank you Adobe,” I haven’t seen that posted yet...

Adobe Photoshop that was at its best...sadly to say this was Photoshop CS6. Software engineers worked all the bugs out, and mostly everyone was happy, until the roller over to rent to use software. It hasn’t been the same.
You guys at Adobe need to overhaul Photoshop. Next MAX meeting.... just tell the customers that your working on the new updated Photoshop. Change the outdated Ui look.... overhaul the filter library, which is Stuck in the 90’s. Improve adjustment layers... let’s add in Hue/Saturation “ORANGE”, which I have no clue why you guys haven’t added that. As a finisher/Retoucher I waste time by going to Camera Raw to adjust tones. Guess what... I use the orange Hue/Saturating all the time to adjust things.... your not making it streamline... I do not know why... but I’m sure Adobe will never review this posting.

Report · Feb 29, 2020

Joe Creative, thank goodness, and thank you. When this journey began, it was with Aldus, and it was good. Over the years it became better as Photoshop. And improvements proliferated. I remember with great joy when the Photo Merge function appeared after its sky-blending feature was perfected. Nowadays Photoshop CC has deteriorated both rapidly and drastically. It is awful, and has become almost useless. Spot Healing Brush was great; now it is erratic. But what bothers me the most is that QuarkXPress has tripped and fallen with disastrous results, and I do not want to watch our beloved Photoshop follow Quark's lead. QXP used to cost $795, and I paid for it... happily... because it worked. When it began its fall from grace, I wrote to the company and begged for a well-planned and executed redesign. It has not happened, and now the price is one-fourth of what it was, and today—TODAY—I received FOUR emails asking (begging?) me to buy the upgrade. Everyone will suffer if Adobe's Photoshop rescue mission is not begun immediately. Joe Creative is right. Begin Monday. Do whatever it takes. Fix it. Please. Now. —Stan Coutant

Report · Feb 29, 2020

I think this is kind of case for PS on iPad. But I am not sure how many codebase is shared between these two.

Report · Mar 01, 2020

but I’m sure Adobe will never review this posting.

Whatever your opinion about Photoshop and frustration with its bugs (and their number) are ... this is the official channel for Photoshop Bug Reports and Feature Requests so your post has been noted.

Report · Mar 01, 2020

Photoshop is driven by subscriptions and marketing now. Adobe needs to keep adding new marketable features annually justify the subscription fee. We will keep getting garbage new features and additional bloat every year thrown on top of the already creaking code base. At this point, Photoshop is a franchise - it's the equivalent of Activision releasing a new Call Of Duty or EA pushing out a FIFA every year. People will keep buying it and the shareholders are happy. Rinse, repeat.

I've used Photoshop since version 3.0 and am utterly dismayed at how this once beautiful application has deteriorated to the point of being unusable for even the most basic tasks. I've bought brand new computers (iMac, iMac Pro, the new Mac Pro) with zero third party applications installed solely to see if Photoshop was better suited to more modern hardware. It performs like an absolute dog on any brand new top of the line vanilla hardware config that I've tried it on. OS version doesn't matter. Photoshop is rotten at its core.

My advice - spend an hour a day learning Affinity Photo. Adobe are blatantly not listening to us and do not care.

#MAGA - Make Adobe Great Again

Report · Mar 01, 2020

Do any of you have any idea what it takes to do software development? For years I did software development (not anything like Photoshop). These vague complaints are not useful in making modifications. I will say that Photoshop is an awesome software product. I read so many of these complaints and wonder why I am not seeing the same errors. Photoshop almost never crashes for me and I use it a lot. What specifically does "performs like an absolute dog" mean. Redoing Photoshop from the ground up is nutty. It would break all of the 3rd party filters, extensions, and panels. Actions people have spent years developing would no longer work. I would like to know what specifically is wrong with the UI.

Report · Mar 01, 2020

Sounds to me that as programmers are lazy. This idea could give the frustrated programmers at Adobe the opportunity to do it right. Start from the ground up. As for the Ui... it’s old brother! 90s come on! Open your eyes! Adobe can be the frontiers and show the rest of the software engineers how things should look and operate. We are a creative world... not a number pushing operator.

Report · Mar 01, 2020

James Gray has a point. ADOBE, MAKE YOUR FLAGSHIP APP WORK CORRECTLY. There.

Stan Coutant

Report · Mar 01, 2020

Sounds to me that as programmers are lazy.

Whatever your opinion of Adobe is impugning the programmers’ work ethics seems ridiculous.
Do you really think the programmers on the Photoshop team can do whatever they feel like?

Report · Mar 02, 2020

Don't forget that Adobe is a publicly-traded company with shares. :))

Report · Mar 02, 2020

If, I was a share holder. I would think, I would want a product that has few problems, bugs that is, and have a model that is so, cutting edge that every company looks up too.

Report · Mar 02, 2020

If I was a shareholder I would be interested in my return on investment. Looks like Adobe is doing pretty well in that department.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

Report · Mar 02, 2020

While you are redoing Photoshop; please also consider an older product, an ancient mariner that has "spaghetti code" from what I hear. Adobe Illustrator. I can feel it wobble when working on it, and am constantly stopped in my workflow by the message "Adobe Illustrator is not responding". For the Photoshop folks, and I do use it too, I think Lightroom IS rebuilding Photoshop from the ground up in a sleeker style. Mobile apps are rebuilding the look and feel of their "royal" ancestor products. There is a lot of years of experience in the bedrock Photoshop and Illustrator products that you don't want just thrown away. Takes a bit to turn an ocean liner this way or that., and writing "bulletproof" code out of the chute is not likely. New products are emerging. Procreate has taken some of the best of Photoshop and put it on my iPad. I must say I am slow adopter of it, but from what I've tinkered with, it is quite capable and close to Photoshop . Still think Adobe deserves a lot of respect for the products they have created and are still creating.

Report · Mar 02, 2020

Adobe engineers do deserve the recognition for new products but they’re forgetting about what got in there. It’s time for a change... they just need to refocus on Photoshop and rebuilt from the ground up. With less problems... that’s all the Community wants a streamline software that doesn’t break down on both platforms PC and Apple computers.

Report · Mar 02, 2020

Lee makes good points. Writing bulletproof code "out of the chute" is not going to happen. I fail to comprehend the rationale for Joe's repeated assertion that Photoshop needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. It would take years with a large team to have any possibility. If it was feasible at all, some other company would have done it soon after Adobe went to the monthly license fee model. There has been so much annoyance and frustration with that model and the many complaints about Photoshop's stability that there would be a huge market if anyone could produce a package that was two thirds as awesome as Photoshop. I would like to know if Joe has any background or knowledge of large scale software development. I wish I understood why so many users have so many problems with crashes and things freezing requiring a force quit. I use Photoshop a lot and it rarely crashes or freezes requiring a force quit. Yes, I have difficulty with the save as. Since we do not know why some of us rarely have crashes and other have lots, there is no way to rewrite Photoshop so it will be sure to be bulletproof. Every package has to work nicely with the operating system and that is no easy task. Yes, Photoshop has problems that do not seem to be addressed adequately. So, I understand the frustrations to some extent. However, realistic recommendations will be more helpful.

Report · Mar 02, 2020

That is a good point. I think the subscription model is working for management and investors.

Report · Mar 03, 2020

let’s add in Hue/Saturation “ORANGE”, which I have no clue why you guys haven’t added that. As a finisher/Retoucher I waste time by going to Camera Raw to adjust tones. Guess what... I use the orange Hue/Saturating all the time to adjust things.... your not making it streamline...

I'm a retoucher and I've no idea what Hue/Saturation ORANGE means, can you clarify?

In my view Adobe should focus is to make Photoshop fast and stable, rather than changing UI. It's generally going in good direction over time, maybe bar the recent 21.1 update which has some annoying bugs. It's a tricky thing to catch all bugs as people use Photoshop for different purposes, on different machines.

Report · Feb 04, 2023

I was here thinking the same thing.

I use a mega of a computer, absurd settings and everything is confused. Nothing is fluid anymore, working with artboards is not worth it, the rendering of each layer when applying effects to folders is slow.

I use an i9 11900k, 32gb, RTX 2080 Super and 512gb NVME, it's not fair that nobody looks at this.

Report · Feb 04, 2023

I wanted to share my updated thoughts on the current state of Adobe Photoshop and suggest potential solutions for improvement in response to a message from 2020. Since then, I have observed that many users have similar opinions about the software, but may not feel comfortable speaking up. While I am not a software engineer, I do have some knowledge in programming.

With technology continuing to advance, including the integration of AI, I believe that the COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity for Adobe to consider a comprehensive overhaul of Photoshop. With many people having more time on their hands, Adobe could have used this time to gather feedback from users on what they would like to see in a new version of the software.

By conducting a survey or questionnaire, Adobe could have gathered information on which effects are still valid and relevant, and which should be removed or replaced. This information, combined with the input from AI, could have helped guide the design of a new, rebuilt version of Adobe Photoshop. In addition, incorporating AI in the process of designing a high-end user interface could have greatly improved the overall look and feel of the software.

I also recommend that software engineers utilize AI to review and fix coding issues, including bugs. This is a common practice in the software engineering industry and would ensure a more stable and efficient version of Adobe Photoshop on both Mac and PC platforms.

It is important for Adobe Photoshop to stay ahead of the competition and continually improve to maintain its success. I hope that the Adobe team will consider these suggestions and work towards a better, more innovative version of the software.

Report · Feb 04, 2023

I understand that a complete overhaul of the software may seem daunting, but I also believe that with the advancements in technology, including AI, it is worth considering. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided us with an opportunity to gather feedback from users and improve upon the current version of Adobe Photoshop.

In regards to the complaints about stability, I believe that utilizing AI in the development process could help address these issues. Additionally, I believe that by taking the time to review outdated effects and technology, the new version of Photoshop could provide a better user experience.

I understand the challenges that come with a large-scale software development project. However, I believe that with the right approach and resources, it is possible to create a better, more innovative version of Adobe Photoshop.

As Richard Branson once said, "Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again." I believe that this approach can be applied to Adobe Photoshop, and I hope that the Adobe team will consider this option moving forward. Showcasing a rebuilt version of Photoshop at Adobe MAX 2023 could be a great way to demonstrate the company's commitment to constant improvement and staying ahead of the competition.

Thank you again for your feedback on this topic.

Report · Dec 19, 2023

Interesting take from a positive side.

I absolutely understand how you don't want to lose your setup. Everyone's nightmare. 🙂

I do think updating from the ground up is just necessary and way overdue. One of the very reasons to actually prevent something like what you are saying, is rewriting the basecode (more) (often).

In other creative industries rebuilding from the ground up is more common. At least what I see in 3D/VFX. Maybe because it's more specialized idk. For Cinema 4D (3D app) it's normal to update 3rd party plugins after the yearly major release because code changed. They make it easy by making plugins literally plug & play. In Preferences you point to a folder with your plugins. That's it. They can be complete fluid/particle simulation solutions. Big stuff. And IF you have to put it in the library on your system, the Preferences have a button to open that location for you.

And there are many other things that make an application feel like it's there for you, that's it's purpose. It's really feels like a professional application. Adobe I think more corporate, conservative, rigid, low effort and it's weird to say this about a professional suite: mainstream.

Fun fact: Adobe hasn't - in decades - aligned the simplest things, like for example keyboard shortcuts and list menu item placing for basic UI features like Preferences, between their apps, which are part of a Suite, and all communicate together, and have to be bought together.