Thank you both. This answers all my questions! So when I make copies of an Adjustment Layer, they're not brand new Adjustment Layers, they really are instances of the same Adjustment Layer (as I expected them to be), and I really can make universal changes to them all - I just need to be sure to keep all my effects in the "master" tab. Perfect! The only thing which seems strange to me is that when you add effects to an Adjustment Layer, they're added to the instance by default, instead of to the master. I'd have thought most people would normally want all the effects to apply to the master, with instance effects being more of an advanced feature, or for fine-tuning. In other words, the way it works seems kind of backwards to me. Surely, everyone starts out with a set of consistent effects applied to the master, then optionally makes adjustments to individual instances? If your starting point is different effects for each instance, you might as well be using different Adjustment Layers? That's how I would imagine it, anyway. But I don't have any experience of actually using Premiere Pro so I could be wrong. ... View more

Thanks for the replies, folks. <quote="Steve Werner">Do you really need the Stoke panel open all the time? Just asking. Most of the time, I'm just choosing a new stroke weight, or stroke style, and I can do that from the Control panel.</quote> That's actually a really good point. I've got so used to using the Stroke panel over the years (since the days before Adobe added the Control Panel) that it hadn't occurred to me that I could just use the Control Panel. If the Control Panel just included the "align stroke" controls then I would say consider this the solution to my problem. In any case, I will probably start collapsing the Stroke panel from now on and relying on the Control Panel controls more. <quote="Steve Werner">Another thing you could try is using the Properties panel introduced in CC 2019.</quote> That's interesting and I wasn't aware of this new feature. I don't tend to upgrade very often because I don't like change (which is why I jumped from CC 2015 to CC 2018). From what I can ascertain, this new Properties panel seems to be a contextual panel which changes based on the tool you're using. In other words, it does exactly what the Control Panel is there to do. So… has the Properties panel now replaced the Control Panel? <quote="BobLevine">UI Scaling is a big issue and there has to be some room for the icons to scale up.</quote> The idea of "leaving room" for the icons to get bigger -  frankly that is just terrible interface design as it forces users to have large areas of unused space on their screen! Any application which allows variable icon sizes should have controls that re-flow to occupy the space, while allowing the panels to be re-sized (basically like a text box, or a card-based website design). Then we have the issue of the default icons size. As you can see from my screenshot, my icons are now notably larger than they were in CC 2015, so I am clearly not using the smallest size. It would be fantastic if I could just drag a slider down to make everything small again, but I can't find any way to do that in my prefs. No matter what I change, the icons stay the same size. (By the way, sorry I can't quote properly, I can never work out how to use this forum's quoting controls. In fact, of all the forums I've ever used, I find this one absolutely abysmal in terms of user interface and controls, which is quite ironic. Half the time when I post a message, it appears with the line breaks missing and I have to go back and edit it, as I'm doing now. I also abhor any comment box that doesn't use plain text. It's just totally confusing. If only this site used phpBB. It's so easy to use!) ... View more

To clarify, I've made a comparison between CC 2015 and CC 2018. You can see that the Stroke panel is now twice as big, leaving my Swatches panel with just 3 visible colors, instead of 13 previously. Sure, people have suggested that I dock or minimize my panels, but I have been using InDesign for 15 years and never needed to dock or minimize my panels (nor in Quark Xpress for the 7 years prior to that). I consider that a frustrating and cumbersome way of working, adding unnecessary mouse clicks to get things done, and hiding away important information. The suggestion was also made to use multiple panels, which I consider a more viable option. But the fact is that I've never needed to do this before. Things worked perfectly well in CC 2015. Right now, I feel that my best option is probably to go back to using an older version, because this new Stroke panel is really making InDesign no fun to use any more. ... View more

Thanks for your reply, Mr Tranberry. ... View more

OK, I said I'd get back about this. Been a bit busy over Christmas but here we go... First, here are... Eight specific criticisms of the "New Document" dialog (with corresponding solutions): Problem 1 - Speed Obviously, the speed issue. It takes maybe 10 seconds to open, and you can no longer just hit enter like you used to. Solution: I'm sure these performance problems will be addressed in time, if they haven't already been. Problem 2 - Space allocation The new dialog gives way more prominence (in terms of space and location) to the presets, rather than the actual key document properties that we need to see about the document. The key document properties are now pushed over to the side, almost like they don't matter. Solution: Make the key document properties more central and larger. Problem 3 - Presets seem mandatory By placing all of its emphasis on the presets, the new dialog gives the impression that you must select a preset before you can make a new document. This is confusing and jarring to anyone who has no interest in presets and just wants to open a new document the conventional way. Solution: The interface should make it very clear that presets are an optional alternative, rather than mandatory. Problem 4 - Confusing interface The interface is confusing to use. There are three different panels (top, left and right) with no clear relationship between the three. In fact, the top panel only relates to the left panel, however, it's placed above the right panel, causing confusion. Solution: Lay out the three panels in a way that makes their relationship clear. The top panel should be within the left panel, to indicate the relationship. Problem 5 - Confusion between presets and templates At first I had no idea that "preset" and "template" meant two different things. Then I discovered that Photoshop now lets you download ready-made template documents, which is totally different to classic presets. I find the terms "preset" and "template" confusing and ambiguous, especially in the way they're presented. Also, to me, they seem like two totally different things that have no reason to share a menu. Templates are a creative resource and not something people normally think about when they're opening a new document. Solution: Remove the ambiguity between "presets" and "templates" by having templates their own separate menu. Problem 6 - Confusing tooltip When the program first launched, a tooltip appeared in the New Document dialog, saying: "Let's start something new. Start with your own document settings, pre-formatted document presets, or explore some of our helpful templates and starter files." This is very difficult to understand and doesn't give any indication whatsoever about the difference between templates and presets, nor even that they're two different things. Solution: Tool tips should use short, simple sentences that are easy to understand. If new terminology is used, then the meaning of these terms should be clearly and explicitly defined. Problem 7 - Inappropriate thumbnails The various presets are represented by grids of tiled "thumbnails" (simple gray placeholder graphics). Frankly, this is a terrible way to represent this kind of information. There's nothing graphical about these presets, so the "thumbnails" serve no purpose, other than to fill the 'New Document' interface with a sea of dull gray placeholder images that mean nothing to anyone. Furthermore, arranging them in a grid of square tiles forces the actual key information (the text description) to be both small and short. This isn't the right way to represent this kind of information. Solution: The presets would be much better arranged in a conventional list format Problem 8 - Unclear icons This is a very minor point, but the new portrait and landscape icons aren't distinct enough from each other - they both look quite square. Solution: Make the icons more distinct. Finally, putting all this together, I present you with... My humble suggestion for how the New Document dialog should look: (And, yes, as you may have noticed, I use Windows 7 with the traditional dark-on-light interface. Frankly, I would rather shoot myself than downgrade to Windows 10. And as for Adobe's depressing, sinister light-on-dark interface, I hate it, and I begrudge the fact that Premiere and After Effects force it upon users, with no dark-on-light option any more. But I digress... LOL) ... View more

Sorry, I should clarify that the banding only appears as a result of adjustment layers. In my example, I used two simple curves layers as shown below. This is perhaps an extreme example in order to make the banding very obvious, but I've noticed banding in my regular projects and found it totally confusing. I agree with the poster above who noted that most people who work in 16-bit mode would settle for a performance reduction in order to see the image in full quality. If nothing else, I think there should be an option in the prefs to enable "true 16-bit view mode" or something. To me, the point of using 16-bit mode is that it lets you "go crazy" with adjustment layers without having to worry about banding. Though I will add that the problem of banding wouldn't exist in 8-bit mode if Photoshop didn't round down its calculations to 8-bit for every layer. It would be nice to have that option too: "16-bit calculations in 8-bit mode, to reduce banding" ... View more

I recently began using 16-bit mode and just couldn't work out why the quality of my images was so poor. After a lot of confusion and testing, I finally figured out that Photoshop doesn't display the image properly UNLESS you zoom in close on a photo! I find it simply INCREDIBLE that this is not considered a bug! How can photographers work in 16-bit mode when we can't even see what we're doing? THIS NEEDS FIXING IMMEDIATELY! Please see my screen grab of the problem: ... View more

Mr Tranberry, thank you very much for your replies. I hope I don't come across as grumbly and ungrateful - I love Photoshop and I just want it to be right. (I guess we all do.) Anyway, instead of moaning about the new 'New Document' dialog, I've decided to try to offer something more constructive. I'm going to break down all the specific problems I have with it, offer specific solutions, and come up with my own re-design of the interface. I'll post back here in a couple of days... ... View more

Thank you for your reply, Mr Tranberry, and I take your advice on board. What I will say, with great respect, is that a lot of the additional processes seem to relate to online operations, which for me is totally redundant as I don't allow my computer to connect to the internet. I don't like the idea of my computer going online without express permission, and I find it very creepy when applications call home. The only program my firewall allows online is my web browser. Plus, I travel a lot and don't always have access to the internet. Last year I didn't have any internet for about 9 months. I still vehemently oppose the introduction of CC, and, if given no other choice, I can happily go back to my copy of CS6. I like installing software manually from a CD in a box. I feel like I truly own it and no one can take it away from me. I rarely install new updates, being of the view that "If it ain't broke...". But I am probably not a typical user so take these comments for what they're worth. ... View more

I hate, hate, HATE the new dialog for "New Document". It is one of the worst examples of bad user interface I have ever seen, and it stifles the creative process. The old dialog was absolutely fine as it was. It was fast, elegant, and simple. And you could create a new document almost instantly by hitting Enter. Adobe: GET RID OF THIS MONSTROSITY! I should note that I got rid of the new dialog WITHOUT even changing the Prefs! What happened is I noticed there were a bunch of strange Adobe processes running in my system tray (probably things to do with Creative Cloud, which I don't use). I deleted all these junk programs, and the new "New Document" dialog disappeared along with them! 🙂 ... View more

Thanks to everyone for the answers, especially Conrad! I think I get it now: Basically no one edits photos in 14-bit mode, you just open it in 16-bit and then you have an extra couple of bits to play with if you need them. This does make your Photoshop files bigger than they need to be (as 14-bit files would obviously be a little smaller). But I guess it's not that much bigger. https://forums.adobe.com/people/Conrad+C   wrote It's like telling 14 people to board a 16-seat bus: Everyone gets a seat, nobody is left behind. Surely it's more like telling 14 people to board a 56-seat bus, since 16-bit has four times the number of colors. But, continuing that analogy, you would simply have one person sitting every 4 seats along, with 3 empty seats between them. Those empty seats feel kind of wasted, but they're not hurting anyone, and may prove useful in some cases. ... View more

Thank you, that is definitely helpful, however, it's not a solution to the problem. I don't want to have to re-render my entire video every single time I simply update the audio. I might make dozens of changes to the audio. Re-rendering the video each time would take forever and be totally pointless. Once the video is done, it's done. Finished. I don't want to have to think about going back into After Effects, or Premiere and re-rendering it. For example, I've just made a 1-minute long video in After Effects. It's taken about 30 minutes to render the video. If I use MKV Merge to combine the audio and video files, I can change the audio as many times as I like and it takes literally less than 1 second to update the video file with new audio. However, if I was going to use the method here to combine the audio and video files, it would take me half an hour each time, just to make a small change to the audio! Surely Adobe doesn't expect people to work that way? It seems bizarre. I just want a simple way to merge video and audio together! Surely there must be one? ... View more

A moderately helpful solution was provided, but it's not a true solution. I don't want to have to re-render my entire video every single time I update the audio. That would take forever. Once the video is done, I don't want to have to think about re-rendering it. It's done. Finished. I just want a good way to merge video and audio together! For example, I've just made a video that took 30 minutes to render in AME. I use MKV Merge to combine the audio and video files, I can change the audio as many times as I like and it takes a fraction of a second to change the video. However, if I use the method here to combine the audio and video files, it would take me half an hour each time, for every small change I make to the audio! Surely that cannot be the way Adobe expect people to work? ... View more