Irritating changes in V6 from V4!

[Codebreaker]

At last I succombed and upgraded from V4 to V6 - because of technical issues I was having with 4, (which have not all been addressed in 6).

However, I've already found one irritating change - are there others????

When I use the Move or Transform tool, with v4 I'd got used to holding down the Shift key to maintain aspect ratio but now if I hold it down it frees up the transform since the default is to already maintain the aspect ratio.

Now I can see the logic of this since most of the folks I come across when teaching Elements have problems initially remembering to hold down the Shift key. But since the groups I teach now have a mix of 3,4,5 and 6 it means I have to address both methods at the risk of further confusion. :(

Are there any other 'gotchas' I'm going to come across?

Colin

[kevq]

Colin,
there are others, one is that you can't drag up from the photo bin into the editor area, if in the maximise mode, if you do you image becomes a frame object. There are others but bear with it, six has a lot going for it.
Kev.

[vawitt]

You have to choose Free Transform before you can "nudge" a selected object with the arrow keys now, also.

At last I succombed and upgraded from V4 to V6 - because of technical issues I was having with 4, (which have not all been addressed in 6).

However, I've already found one irritating change - are there others????

When I use the Move or Transform tool, with v4 I'd got used to holding down the Shift key to maintain aspect ratio but now if I hold it down it frees up the transform since the default is to already maintain the aspect ratio.

Now I can see the logic of this since most of the folks I come across when teaching Elements have problems initially remembering to hold down the Shift key. But since the groups I teach now have a mix of 3,4,5 and 6 it means I have to address both methods at the risk of further confusion. :(

Are there any other 'gotchas' I'm going to come across?

Colin

[Wendy]

... the problem with nudge is a bug :(

Wendy

[mrod]

Colin-

That one bugged me, too, when I went from 3 to 5. What you can do, though, is hit Ctrl/Command-T and then up in the Options Bar uncheck Constrain Proportions. Then it will require you to hold Shift, just like v. 4 and earlier, and Ps as well.

Mike

[TonyW]

There are a few minor irritations with PSE6 but generally I prefer it to previous versions especially 4 which I found seriously limiting. The quick selection/Refine Edge is a very welcome addition and I use it all the time and the Photomerge is very clever. I use Photomerge Group Shot for blending a RAW image at two different exposure setting. Works great even if you have no groups - mostly I use it for landscapes when you want to darken up the sky.

But the one thing that does bug me is the Color Replacement Tool. It worked right in PSE3, stopped working right in PSE4, worked right again in PSE5 and now has stopped working right again in PSE6. You would have thought that they could get that one right.

Tony

[JonE]

Bugs? What bugs?

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c063111/29

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b4c39d/14

[Wendy]

Not all of those are bugs ... some are things that people just don't like

Wendy

[johnrellis]

Not all of those are bugs ... some are things that people just don't like

With one exception, the 38 items on my list are either clearly unintended behaviors (e.g. moving map locations fails), severe performance problems introduced in PSE 6 (e.g. a couple hundred keyword tags makes the keyword tags pane unusable), or non-conformance with well-defined, widely followed Windows user-interface standards (e.g. Ctrl-A doesn’t select all text in some fields).

The one exception is the usability of the grey-on-black user interface. That falls into a grey area (pun intended), since it’s certainly appearing as intended by Adobe, but so many users are complaining about its readability, it’s more than an issue of individual “personal taste”.

There's lots of stuff I don't like about PSE that I haven't put on this list :-;

[Wendy]

... and the fact that the menu bars don't display when you use a lower screen size than the one Adobe tell you is what is needed ??

That is a Bug ???

Wendy

[johnrellis]

... and the fact that the menu bars don't display when you use a lower screen size than the one Adobe tell you is what is needed ?? That is a Bug ???

What’s on my list is different:
The menu bars don’t display if you have changed the screen DPI to be larger than 96 (as many people do on today’s ubiquitous high-res displays).
This is one of many bugs in the category of “non-conformance with well-defined, widely followed Windows user-interface standards (e.g. Ctrl-A doesn’t select all text in some fields).”

The Microsoft rules for user interfaces require that applications follow the DPI (dots per inch) setting for the display. This allows users with high-resolution displays to increase the physical size of displayed text and graphics for readability. For example, many modern laptops have high-resolution screens with high actual DPIs, and using the default DPI of 96 results in tiny text that is very difficult for many, if not most, people to read. So many people change their DPI to 120, and most applications handle that gracefully. But PSE only supports 96 and won’t display its menu bars at 120.

So many people have experienced this problem that Adobe has had to add a knowledge-base article:

http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402728 (http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402728)

Here are some relevant excerpts from “Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines”:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511331.aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511331.aspx)

Top Guidelines Violations

Respect the user's settings by always obtaining font typefaces, sizes, and colors, Windows display element sizes, and system configuration settings from the Theme and GetSystemMetrics APIs.
…
Be sure to test your windows in both 96 and 120 DPI modes. Check for layout problems, control and window clipping, and icon and bitmap stretching.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511281.aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511281.aspx)

High DPI support

Support 96 and 120 dots per inch (DPI) video modes. Detect the DPI mode at startup and handle DPI change events. Windows Vista is optimized for 96 and 120 DPI, and uses 96 DPI by default.

[JonE]

Call it 36 then . . . let's not argue but push for improvements. Some are quite serious,e.g.
* missing help files; search the help on some key functions and nothing is there
* move command can delete a file having the same name in the target folder without reporting it
*chronic issues with missing thumbnails and broken image icons
Some are just odd and/or annoying. These lists aren't even complete, e.g. you used to be able to add or remove tags and albums by right clicking a photo; now you can only remove, not add, UNLESS you are in full screen (F11) where both options are available (??). That's not a planned software change, it's just a mistake.

[johnrellis]

The DPI issue is quite serious for those with high-DPI displays, e.g. newer laptops. To run PSE 6, they have to reduce the DPI to 96, which makes text in all applications very hard to read.

[Wendy]

Hi ...

Have you sent your list to Adobe and registered them as Bugs ... hopefully they will then take them onboard and deal with the issues :)

Wendy

[Bayla]

Are there any other 'gotchas' I'm going to come across?


Having to double click on an image in the photobin to get it into the workspace.

Bayla

[JonE]

Hi ...

Have you sent your list to Adobe and registered them as Bugs ... hopefully they will then take them onboard and deal with the issues :)

Wendy

Good point, here is the link to report both bugs and suggestions:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

Some people say though that Adobe doesn't release bug fixes and just saves them up for the next retail version. I can't comment on that myself, other than to say I had 3.0 for a long time and there was never a 3.1, that I knew of anyway. Anyway it's good to report them so at least the input is received.

[johnrellis]

Have you sent your list to Adobe and registered them as Bugs ... hopefully they will then take them onboard and deal with the issues

They're all filed via the bug reporting form, and over 20 of them have also been opened as cases with customer support.

[johnrellis]

Some people say though that Adobe doesn't release bug fixes and just saves them up for the next retail version.

That does seem to be their practice -- for Windows PSE, they released three updates with a very small number of changes that they presumably thought were high priority:

1.0.1 1/4/2002 - updates to plugins for the Pentium 4 processor family
3.0.1 2/2/2005 - European date formats; easier downloads of creation templates
5.0.2 1/25/2007 - provided Vista compatibilityhttp://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=40&platform=Windows

[msbrad]

Well, I'm glad to know it is just not me with things in elements 6.
I'm able to find my own workarounds thus far...but it is tough going sometimes when helping someone brand new.

I realize though, every program is unique.
m

[Dooley S]

The single most irritating change is the very dark screen with the dark writing that can't be changed by the user.

[Wendy]

Hi ..

... and welcome to the Village :)

Quite a few people are unhappy with the interface ./

Wendy

[bschrag]

Tony, could you explain how to use photomerge to use different exposures with a raw photo?
Thanks, bschrag

[TonyW]

Tony, could you explain how to use photomerge to use different exposures with a raw photo?
Thanks, bschrag

This thread is getting a bit off topic because this is a feature I like and it's not irritating at all :). The way I do it is open a RAW image in ACR and set it for one exposure. Open in the Editor and do a File>Duplicate. Then close the original image and reopen (it will open again in ACR). Make the changes for the second exposure and open again in the Editor. You now have two images at different exposures in the Photo Bin. I usually use Photomerge Group Shot. Start one and use the two images. Draw with the pencil what you want merged from one to the other - check that it's got it right and erase/pencil if necessary. When it looks right press Done and PSE6 works its magic.

Hmm - maybe I should write a tutorial as I use it a lot ;)

Tony

[Wendy]

Tony ..

That is a great idea :)

Wendy