You do make a very good point: CS6 is still on sale, and should be supported properly to work on current hardware. Unless it is specifically stated in the hardware requirements and by the sales reps that CS6 DOES NOT scale up the GUI on retina screens in Windows. So adobe either has to update CS6 to work properly on retina screens, or put a warning in the system requirements. Or just quit selling CS6 Of course, Adobe would probably argue CS6 still "works" on a retina screen - merely that the icons are tiny looking. It's a very annoying situation. ... View more

Playing devil's advocate here Why is that outrageous? At some point older software may no longer function with newer hardware. CS2 no longer works on Intel Macs with later MacOsX versions, for example. Updating old software to run on newer hardware can mean an enormous job for the developers - especially in this case. And why would they do that for free? The point of updating to newer versions means you gain access not only to new features, but also software that has been tested on new hardware. And that costs time, energy, and money. If you wish to continue to work with older versions, then you merely do not update to a retina screen when using Windows. Besides, Adobe is not in the business of updating older software in a way that would cut into its profits with CC 2014. ... View more

I agree, FW always was a great mockup app for web, and still does a far better job than Photoshop in terms of PNG optimization. But nowadays support for responsive designs and mobile GUIs has arguably become more important than plain old static web layouts. In this regard FW is severly lagging behind. The old legacy code is not easy to update for this, and I guess Adobe realized this too. It's just too bad they are attempting to bolt on this type of functionality on top of Photoshop and Illustrator - both not exactly ideal candidates for web work (far from it, in my opinion). ... View more

ganalon wrote: Saving it as Illustrator 3 did the trick. but seriously who tests this stuff. No-one at Adobe, that's right. Because the development of Fireworks was stopped last year May. Fireworks is a dead application. http://blogs.adobe.com/fireworks/2013/05/the-future-of-adobe-fireworks.html ... View more

Generally you would setup a grid/division like that by adding guides. There's an excellent free plugin called "GuideGuide" that will do this automatically for you, both with rows and columns , and based on the document size or a selected area. You merely have to provide the plugin with the number of columns or rows you wish to generate. GuideGuide Really essential for anyone who must deal with grids in Photoshop. ... View more

Downsampling subtle type like in the above example will always result in loss of quality - that is the nature of rasterizing a vector graphic or high resolution version to a low resolution version. The low resolution version merely lacks the physical number of pixels to keep it sharp looking. For this reason it might be a better idea (I am assuming this is for a email newletter?) to design a custom version for the newsletter, and make use of larger fonts or even thicker fonts. When you scale down this much, you lose resolution - fact of life. Which causes the pixelation/blurriness. Having said that, the downsample algorithm used can have a definite impact on the overall quality of the smaller version as well. In the resize dialog in Photoshop you can select various resampling methods - try each one, and compare. ... View more

I just knew this was probably a Mavericks issue. That's why I mentioned it before. So far Mavericks has proven itself to be the buggiest MacOs in a long time. ... View more

Trevor Dennis wrote: JJMack wrote: Hope Adobe does not change this by braking image editing adding new web stuff and continuing its removal of image stuff like picture package, web photo galleries. They tried to remove contact sheet and PDF Presentation what next? I'll add an AOL me too tp that sentiment.  I'm getting too old to learn new applications, and I doubt I'll ever learn the other Adobe apps I have installed here, as well as I know Photoshop. Didn't the developer for Contact Sheet II just say his goodbyes to Adobe and the community because of licensing and installation issues just a week or two ago? Those things are signs on the wall that something is amiss. Maybe. ... View more

@jjmack: True, Photoshop is still the "generalist's" best tool, and arguably for Photographers as well. The trouble is that in the current market(s) there are specialist tools that, frankly, have outrun Photoshop, and are still gaining momentum. The 3d tools in Photoshop are quite weak - against applications like Mari, 3dCoat, Substance Designer, MudBox (all 3d painting tools) Photoshop looks very outdated and sluggish in comparison. For web work a number of specialist tools are currently making strides that (will) surpass Photoshop in many areas - and Adobe is probably going to be a straggler to lag and limp after them. Web workflow has changes quite a lot over the last couple of years. For video work Photoshop is okay, but again specialist tools outpace it. Digital painting: at some point Photoshop was doing really well - and suddenly other tools (even open source ones) offer a more advanced tool set in that area as well. Instead of focusing on the strenghts of Photoshop Adobe management seemst to be bent on fragmenting the app more and more - and in the meantime the core workflow could see so many improvements, and debugging. You yourself are always mentioning the numerous bugs still present after having them pointed out after many years. And then there is the CC subscription only model - many loyal users just will not buy into that model (including myself). There's too much fragmentation, and Photoshop always seems to lag behind what's going on in areas like web and 3d. A generalist applicaiton like Photoshop just cannot compete with more specialist tools. In spite of all the work the dev team has done in regards to the 3d tools, it still cannot compare with dedicated tools at all. Well, perhaps that's not their goal. Just give graphic designers a simple 3d tools to work with. I say, focus on your core, and do not try to be everything to everyone. Ah well, for me it's not that important anymore: I switched to other (better) tools. Well, in one area Photoshop remains the kind for now: pure unadulterated image editing - though even that depends on how far you want to go. We'll see how it pans out. ... View more

JJMack wrote: I would not expect Adobe to change their current vision of Photoshop as a web development tool direction to Photoshop the painters choice. Photoshop a web dev tool? Ha! Then Adobe has a long and hard road before them, because at this point it's kinda rubbish: no multiple page support, svg is severly lacking, the png export is dreadful, no symbols like in Fireworks, no page templates, no real vectors, no option to have realtime updateable smart objects, the save for web dialog has not been updated in forever, no responsive design options, ridiculous obscure method (generator) to control web output for layers, no proper downsampling algorithm for sharp graphics, no proper html/css export for prototyping (the current slicinng is horridly outdated), no webp export, no simple wireframing options, no built-in web preview like Fireworks or something similar, no simple interactivity support, no... The list goes on, and on, and on. End of rant! As for Ezra's performance issues, it still does not make sense, because his(?) machine should be more than up to the task. The file is relatively low resolution, merely 8bpc, and a small brush like the one used in the demo should NOT lag like that. My machine is worse and older than that, and I have no issues whatsoever painting in any application, including Photoshop at much higher resolutions and higher bit depths. What I am trying to say here is that a technical discussion on the finer points of how data is processed in Photoshop and the like is a bit useless at this point in the discussion, and I think Ezra feels the same: he is not an inexperienced Photoshop user (he has been using it since version 2!!!) I feel it might be a Mavericks issue - I have heard nothing but bad news in terms of glitches, bugs , performance problems, and so on. Some people say it's the buggiest release since before the advent of Intel Macs. Ezra, have you tried Photoshop CC on a Mountain Lion machine? ... View more

I'll take your bet, and up the ante I guess Photoline has a "slightly" better layer implementation, then. I made a file with 10000 100px*100px layers (layer groups 10x10x10x10) that took less than 20 seconds to do (slight lag at 10000 layers), and the file size when saved (with one layer I tested a brush - quite slow, but still responsive!): 780kb. A white 100px box in 10000 layers at 16bpc: 670kb. Just for kicks I went up to 50000 layers at 16bpc - at that point Photoline starts to crawl, and it takes up to a minute or so for things to respond. File size: 3.96mb At that point I could not be bothered anymore. I suppose I could have gone up to twice that many, or perhaps even a million layers, but I am not as dedicated as you are in leaving the machine running for hours on end Conclusion: Photoline has no limits in terms of numbers of layers - or at least is only limited by the machines cpu and memory. Who's got bragging rights now, he? To be fair, Photoshop seems to have no real trouble adding up to 8000 layers, as long as you work in group. But I tried painting in one of the 8000 layers, and it would not show up - probably a limitation of opengl. JJMack wrote: I made a test one time to test what the layer limit is. I created a small canvas document 100px by 100px duped the back ground the both then 4 then 5 the 10 nine time the 10 nine  time the a 100 nine times then a 1000 then 2000 then 4000 to reach the 8000 layer limit.  As the number of layers being duped increased Photoshop performance exponentially decreases Photoshop was in a none responsive mode state would not even take window focus. When the 2000 layers were being duped I took my wife out to dinners.  Hours later when I returned Photoshop was still none responsive CPU utilization was  4% only one thread was running on one logical processor.  23 were idle.   Once I had the 8,000 layers the new layer icon did gray out I could not add a layer but I could switch from 8bit mode to 16bit mode and back in less then a minuet and when  I saved the PSD the file size was 16MBytes.  That surprised me since all pixels are pure white I expect the file size to be less the 16MB. ... View more

Also, when you set the performance to "Basic", you did restart Photoshop? Otherwise these settings are not applied. And try this for good measure: Launch PS in non-retina mode. Quit Photoshop, go to the app in Finder, right-click, get info. Check "Open in non-retina mode". Start Photoshop. Test. And delete the preferences of Photoshop. ... View more

Ezra, did you install the trial of Clip Studio to compare the performance? (So we can completely rule out general issues with the Wacom drivers) You told us that the lagging does not occur in Painter. Painter does not make use of OpenGL (GPU) acceleration, so it might be a OpenGL driver issue - not sure. Did you remove and reinstall the Wacom drivers? The thing is, with your mac setup Photoshop should be doing just great - I mean, my Win7 machine is running a five~six year old i7 920@3.6ghz, and I can work on an A4@600ppi in 16bpc (which is far more data than your file) rather smoothly with a bit of lagging in Photoshop. In Clip Studio understandably it works even smoother. Even Krita, which still has some performance issues, shows a good performance on my (aged) system. However, with a more complex brush in Krita the same issue pops up as you have demonstrated in your video - it can take a couple of seconds for the brush to draw the stroke. The newest version of Photohops CC has an improved brush engine (not really advertized anywhere, I believe) - do you experience the same issues in CS6? And, did you turn off all the eye candy and multiscreen wizardry in MacOs? At this point you want to deactivate anything that might get in the way of Photoshop. ... View more

Also, remove the current Wacom driver, and delete all driver files. - Before updating your driver, you must completely purge the old one. - To do this, use the Wacom Tablet Utility app found in your Applications folder to uninstall the driver. - Sometimes this does not remove ALL the files, and just to be sure go through the following directories and delete all the files as listed in the image below: - Move the listed files (if any are found) manually to the trash bin, delete them then restart your computer. - Install the newest driver. - Restart, just in case. ... View more

Silly thought, but I have read some people experiencing severe lag in Photoshop due to Safari open in the background. Might be useless, but can you close Safari (if it is open) and restart Photoshop, and try again? ... View more

EzraEkman wrote: Alas!  Lazy Nezumi appears to be Windows-only.  I'll have to see if there's another solution. When you test Clip Studio Paint, turn on the "stabilizer" one your left in the tool properties - that's more or less similar to Lazy Nezumi. That's a real shame it is unavailable for mac, btw. ... View more

Trevor Dennis wrote: So it might be that the drawing benefita you spoke also work in Basic mode, or it might not.  Personally I couldn't manage without canvas rotation now, so I would put up with stylus jitter.  Plus I use Lazy Nezumi constantly, which for $20 gives you silky smooth lines and curves, plus all sorts of other tricks. Yes, Lazy Nezumi is nice - seeing that type of functionality is built into most other drawing apps (Krita, Photoline beta, Gimp, Clip Studio/Manga Studio) I would have expected the Photoshop team to come forward with a similar option by now. Drawing on a larger canvas with a small brush when zoomed out gives results in some pretty ugly looking wobbly strokes in Photoshop, which does not happen in the other apps I mentioned. Unless Lazy Nezumi is active. So this type of feature is sort-of essential. ... View more

Your hardware suggests you should be able to draw smoothly at the resolution you posted earlier - does that effect appear in Painter too (applying heavy pressure)? You might want to try Clip Studio's trial to get a "third opinion", merely as a test for comparison purposes. http://www.clipstudio.net/en/ ... View more

Yes, I agree - for me "normal" with opencl seems to give me the best performance, But then again, I work on a windows machine and an AMD7970 3GB with 48GB ram. The solid state drive raid on a pci card also helps ... View more

In Photoshop, in the performance tab. Unfortunately, you will lose the option to rotate the canvas. ... View more

Ezra: have you tried turning off hardware acceleration in the preferences? For me drawing is much smoother when I turn off the graphics processor. ... View more

JJmack: please stop confusing dpi for ppi - there is a very fundamental difference, and it only confuses people when you keep using one for the other. When you talk about the actual print on paper: dpi. For screens and image resolution: ppi. Pixels are not converted to dots in a one-on-one fashion in most cases. The fact that most people treat dpi and ppi as being the same things is bad enough as it is, and we should avoid doing the same thing on these forums, in my opinion. That T221 screen displays images at 204ppi. There are no "dots" with screens, only pixels. And they are not the same. ... View more

boo radley 2013 wrote: So my question is, why can't I deliver it to them at 72dpi, 16 inches X 20 inches if it makes no difference? It DOES make a difference - it depends on the actual resolution of your file in pixels! Again, dpi is only an interpretation parameter that defines how many pixels should fit in the 2.5inch WHEN PRINTED. You could create an image with 10 square pixels at 1ppi which translates to a 25inch sized print at 1dpi (dots per inch). Your printer is requesting 300dpi (he actually means ppi) - which translates to 300 pixels per inch for the dimensions you need, If you DOWNSAMPLE to 72ppi, you lose a lot of pixels. You cannot discuss ppi without knowing the dimensions you require - and this translates in a minimum number of pixels you need for a good print. ... View more

Remember, your document has no dpi - it's ppi. The distinction is important. You work with pixels when setting the resolution, and dpi is merely the interpretation of the ppi into printed dots. Anyway, the resolution of you file counts. You are correct in that. You are also correct that by increasing the ppi (but NOT resampling the actual pixels) your work will print bigger on paper. So a 5 by 5 inch colour image at 300ppi, when changed to 600ppi will print twice the original size - at the expense of halving the resolution. You will start to see grains and blurry pixels/artefacts. Even if you do upsample: there is just no real information to base the higher rez version on, so it will become blurry. Same result when printed. Bad quality. So, in a nutshell: work at the optimal ppi at the paper size you require. No, large banners the size of buildings are NOT printed at huge pixel dimensions of thousands of ppi - what counts is the distance between the viewer and the print: this is why 300dpi printed matter for colour work in books and magazines works at 300dpi: we can no longer see the dots, and it the colours look homogeneous, i.e.smooth. As for your question about the 72dpi printed version versus the 300dpi printed version: the first one will print much larger, but from a close distance the pixels will be quite obvious. Looking from a greater distance (like a banner/billboard) it looks the same as the 300dpi version. Next time you are waiting for the bus or public transit, walk up to one of those billboards, and examine the print - you will notice that the coloured artwork looks dreadful up close. Like a blown-up 300dpi print And although many people have theories about dpi/ppi, printing, and the lot: in truth it is quite simple, and most people I encounter have no idea about the real theory behind printing and prepress - they invent their own theories. Read up on this in the book I linked in the previous post - it explains everything quite well. ... View more

It is very simple: dpi is merely an interpretation of how large your file will print on paper. You could create a file with 1 pixel, and print it at a 2.5 by 2.5 inch size by setting the ppi (we talk about ppi when working on screens, not dpi) in Photoshop to 1. So guys, please: STOP abusing dpi when you talk about image resolution relative to the actual physical pixel. It's PPI, not DPI! When you print an image, it depends on the paper quality, the inks, (yes, even the atmospheric conditions in a place), and the print method what resolution you will need for the best quality (there's more factors, but let's keep it simple). "300dpi" is often coined as a standard for most press work - but you must understand that it also depends on the TYPE of artwork you intend to print. Prepress persons often grow tired after a while explaining things to the layman, so it's a "gentleman's agreement" to tell any client "just deliver your artwork at 300dpi". What they are actually saying is that a good acceptable quality print will be possible with an image delivered to them at the required minimum size at 300ppi. The truth of the matter is that if you worked at the optimal resolution and ink settings, there is a good chance you could arrive at a great or beautiful quality print. A lot of printers have no time for this, (regularly lacking knowledge/interest as well), and leave it to automated processing. Besides, clients (like you) lack the knowledge anyway, so the less time spent on these matters, the better. Just deliver "300dpi" work. No questions asked. But not all artwork should be delivered at 300ppi. For example, text and black and white sharp artwork will/can be printed at 1200dpi or more, depending on the press tech. This is because colour work must be rasterized, meaning: any hue of colour consisting of a mix of cyan, magenta, yellow, and a shade of black (for shadows and darks) will be simulated with dot patterns (we call these halftones): This means you LOSE a lot of the true resolution possible when you print colour work, as opposed to if you just printed with one full ink like black. Actually, high quality press work can have a physical print resolution of 300 lines per inch (LPI) (some cases even more) - and this is used to print those halftone patterns at a dot resolution of 300dpi. (Read up on LPI) Black body text does not need to be turned into a halftone, and is therefore printed at a much higher effective resolution. Pure black, that is - so the print raster can be fully utilized (up to the point of what the paper type can process in terms of ink). However, it also depends on the paper used: newspapers work with an lpi of 85 or so. So images are also not required (nor wanted) to be delivered at 300ppi in that case. Due to the high absorption rate of that type of low-quality paper a 300dpi halftone would just blur anyway - and smear due to too much ink. So they are rasterized at a much bigger dot pattern half tone. Most people do not realize that printing an image with a far too high ppi will probably print at a lesser quality than an image that has been prepared with the optimal ppi. (Which has to do with several things, but let's not get into that for now) Still with me? Now, suppose you have some comic artwork. If you inked the lines with pure black (very probable) for high quality glossy paper you best work at the very least at 700ppi for your required dimensions. Here are some guidelines**: B&W art printed art on interior (vellum) paper stock: no higher than 600-700ppi B&W art printed on cover (glossy) stock: 700-800ppi Four colour line art printed on interior (vellum) paper stock: no lower than 300ppi; recommend between 400-500ppi. Four colour line art printed on cover (glossy) stock: no lower than 400ppi; recommend between 400-600ppi. Keep in mind that you can also separate the black and white art from the colours - in that case the black and white art must again be at the higher ppi. (This process yields by far the nicest prints - but takes the most effort, because you must treat the pure B&W inking and colour work separately in two different layers, ideally having the ink work as vectors). So... what does it all mean for you? For full colour artwork (digital paintings, comics) you best work at 600ppi. This will allow you to scale down if required, and still have enough rez for glossy work. Better a bit too much, than not enough is my motto. If you are unsure whether your artwork might be printed at greater physical dimensions on glossy paper (perhaps you are a famous digital (comic) artist who will have his work collected at some time in a big luxurious art book) you may want to work at those dimensions at 600ppi. This is also a reason why digital painting/drawing software like Krita and Clip Studio offer 600ppi as a standard for new documents) For B&W work (inks for example) 800ppi is a good resolution, but even better would be to work with vectors or the "printers' standard" of 1200ppi. This why I prefer Clip Studio (Manga Studio) for inks - because the ink tools feel like bitmap drawing, but have the incredible advantage that you can output your work at any resolution you would ever need. At the best quality. Unfortunately Photoshop doesn't do true vectors, so if you intend to stay with Photoshop for inking and b&w work you best work at a minimum of 800ppi (for more flexibility I would set it to 1200ppi). (Clip studio knows that B&W work is often advised to be set to a ppi of 1200, and also offers this as a standard - I use this ppi setting myself for B&W bitmap inking) So here is the math: paper size (final printed size) @ 600ppi (full colour work). paper size (final printed size) @ 800ppi (B&W work) | or work with/convert to vectors if you can/want. Lettering should be done in a vector/dtp app anyway. Let's suppose you want to prepare your full colour artwork for a deluxe graphic novel format, glossy paper: 9" x 12¼" @ 600ppi results in: 5400px x 7350px Next, the question about bit depth. I work at 16bpc whenever I can, because it allows for subtler control over colours, and I do a lot of artwork meant to be viewed on screens (like games, and stuff). However, generally for print 8bpc is enough. But again, it depends a bit on the type of artwork. 16bpc can make a visual difference, so if you have memory and cpu power to spare: by all means work in 16bpc. Finally, one or two things about Photoshop: for inking and drawing I find Clip Studio a far better proposal, because it allows you to draw directly in true vectors. So I do all my inking and B&W work in Clip Studio. Also, the draw/inking feeling in Clip Studio is unsurpassed, and blows Photoshop out of the water. (I am not alone in this, btw: I know quite a few comic book artists who decided to make the switch from Photoshop for this type of work). The fact that you can scale your line work up and down without any loss in quality is something that is hard to beat. Also, Clip Studio has a built-in stabilizer, which can be a great help achieving those smooth curves (incidentally, Krita also offers this option, as does Gimp, as does the latest beta of Photoline). For photoshop there is the Lazy Nezumi plugin (which costs extra $$). Clip Studio I always say: the right tool for the right job. Photoshop is not that great for inking and B&W work - an artist has to be realistic about these things 😉 Last, but certainly not least: discuss these concerns with your printer. An expert printer will generally be pleasantly surprised (well, not always...) when you ask him/her how to achieve the best quality print, and work with you in achieving this. Remember, the "300dpi" is merely a standardized requirement to prevent most problems. But depending on the paper, the inks, and so on, a higher resolution (ppi) may yield much better looking prints. Anyway, I hope this cleared up some things. And stop using dpi when talking artwork resolution settings in Photoshop - it's PPI --------------- ** see Digital Prepress for Comic Books ... View more