John Nack on Adobe

September 28, 2009

CS4-style Flex skins available for panel dev

Commenters here sometimes slag the use of Flash panels inside Creative Suite apps, saying that Flash leads to poor UI. These comments confuse the technology with how it's been used. Unfortunately it's true that some SWF panels (example) have been poorly done.

Endeavoring to drive more consistency, the Adobe Experience Design & developer support teams have created a set of "Scope Skins" for use in CS4 panels. According to the download page,

Scope Skins (for Flex Builder 3) were created to skin Adobe Flex apps to provide the same UI as a native Creative Suite panel. This was done with little impact to the functionality of the standard Flex 3 components.

If you're creating panels for use in Photoshop and/or other Suite apps, please take a look at these skins and let us know what you think.

MAX session: How to Write a Plug-in for Photoshop

Next Monday from 5:00-6:30pm at Adobe MAX, Mark Niemann-Ross will be hosting an interesting session:

This hands-on session will walk you through the process of creating a Flex plug-in for Photoshop. We'll start with a basic "hello world" shell, add a Pixel Bender filter, and then integrate an online service. You get to take your work home with you and show your mom!

August 31, 2009

Feedback, please: Task-based workspaces in Photoshop

Ever wish that Adobe made a "Photoshop for Photographers?" Or maybe a version with just what you need for Web design, or video?

If so, I'm guessing it's because Photoshop is so packed with features that the ones you need are needles in a stack of needles. The sheer volume of choices can be paralyzing, and people don't feel they're doing things the best way.

Most customers use only a fraction of Photoshop, yet every part of Photoshop is used by a lot of people. Therefore it's difficult and painful to remove any features. How, then, can we make Photoshop fit your needs precisely without disadvantaging others?

Here's an idea. We could revise Photoshop's approach to workspaces with two goals in mind:

• Present a more streamlined interface ("everything you need, nothing you don't"), showing only the tools and commands that are relevant to the task at hand
• Present best-practice guidance on how to accomplish specific tasks ("not just yet another way to do something, but the *right* way")

We plan to use an upgraded version of Configurator to create custom panels that are associated with each workspace. Please see this PDF walk-through (note the explanatory annotations) and let us know what you think.

Let me be clear up front: This feature needs to be valuable to pros, not just beginners. For some reason people see "help" or "guidance" and think "newbie," but there's much more to the story here.

So, what do you think?
Thanks,
J.

August 18, 2009

Vector graphics software... from 1963

JFK was in office, and yet the app Sketchpad (from then-25-year-old Ivan Sutherland) offered multitouch input, auto-correction of vector strokes, and even reusable symbols (a la Flash, Illustrator, etc.). Very cool:

Apparently Dr. Sutherland once employed--you guessed it--John Warnock, seen here introducing Adobe Illustrator in 1987. [Via]

August 17, 2009

Cool interface demos o' the day

• SLAP Widgets are "real live plastic and silicone objects that are used in conjunction with a multi-touch table to allow users to control interface values through physical push buttons, sliders, knobs, keypads and keyboards." Here's a very cool (albeit slow-loading) video of the system in action*. (Can Slap Chop integration be far behind?)
• Fontplore is "an interactive application designed for searching and exploring font databases... It does all that on an interactive table, using tangible objects to navigate and control actions." The site includes a brief video demo.

I keep wanting to see great font exploration & management built into Adobe apps. TypeDNA offers a cool Photoshop-plug-in, using optical character recognition to determine a given font's name, suggesting font harmonies, and more. I'd like to see these concepts taken even farther, offering browsing, comparison, activation, and purchase in all Suite apps via Flash panels.

* Who knew that Frustrated Total Internal Reflection is a multitouch technology & not just the story of my teenage years (okay, most of my years).

June 23, 2009

Tip: Committing a text edit in PS and AI

Reader "ray" brought up a good point:

"On the mac, when editing text in Photoshop, hitting the enter key finishes the edit* and deselects the text. Hitting escape cancels the edit and reverts the changes.

In Illustrator, hitting enter inserts a carriage return (line break), while hitting escape finishes the edit. This inconsistency is very frustrating, as my muscle memory for these actions is constantly wrong."

* Note that on the Mac, Return & Enter are different keys. Return inserts a carriage return (line break), and Enter finishes the edit. Cmd-Return and Cmd-Enter both finish the edit. So, when you want to be done editing text, just remember to add the Cmd/Ctrl key + Return/Enter regardless of app/OS and you should be all set.

June 17, 2009

Brush locking (aka "Huh?")

We'd like to discard an obscure feature in Photoshop & replace it with something better. First, though, I'd like to sanity-check that no one needs the existing feature. (Fair warning: This is some nerdy, slightly esoteric stuff.)

In Photoshop 6 and earlier, it was simple to control the relationship between tablet input & brush size and/or opacity. The app featured two independent checkboxes, one meaning "pressure = size" and the other meaning "pressure = opacity." Easy peasy.

In Photoshop 7, the brush engine became much more powerful, and in the process these options got a bit harder to use. Brushes gained many new parameters (scattering, hue variation, etc.), each of which had the ability to respond to many new inputs (pen tilt, rotation, stylus wheel, etc.). Therefore the two simple checkboxes had to give way, being replaced by a series of popup menus spread throughout the Brushes panel. The placement was less obvious, but the power was much greater.

The real usability snag, however, came from the lack of clarity around brush presets (which include pressure settings & more) and brush tip shapes. People click presets, thinking they're just changing brush tip, and they end up changing other settings as well. (From this screenshot, you can see why it's easy to confuse the two.) The results sound like this:

"Okay, where the heck is the setting for pressure = size? [rummage, rummage] Okay, found it. Now, switch to a different brush... Wait, the pressure setting turned off. WTF? Switch it on again, then switch brushes and... [insert stream of profanity]"

Locking was never a great solution, but it was what time permitted back in the CS cycle. Since then I've heard less complaining, but I don't think that's because people are using locking. (Am I wrong?) I think it's simply a matter of folks eventually figuring out how things work or learning to live with some strangeness.

In any case, we think we can do better in the future. Photoshop could offer a pair of checkboxes on the Options Bar (the thing that runs below your menus) that control "pressure = size" and "pressure = opacity," overriding whatever's set in the Brushes panel. We also have some thoughts about better differentiating brush presets from brush tip shapes.

So, if you use brush locking in Photoshop and see a good reason to keep it around, please speak up. Otherwise it's toast.

Thanks,

J.

June 6, 2009

Instant-turnaround feature requests

a.k.a., Stuff that already works as requested.

Thanks for all the great feedback on our JDI initiative. We've been combing through 300+ individual sets of suggestions (!), plus many hundred additional responses. I hope to get a chance to comment on more suggestions via blog comments, and maybe via a dedicated post discussing notable ones.

In the meantime, I'm seeing quite a few requests for things that Photoshop already does. On one hand I'm always happy to tell people that they can get what they want right now--no waiting, no fee. On the other, it's a bit of a bummer that people don't find features, much less answers, on their own (and we're talking about people savvy enough to find this blog).

I thought you might find it useful to have some of these requests, plus their solutions, listed here.

1. "PLEASE PLEASE stop the open doc window resizing when I zoom in or out, just leave it alone."
   • This has been a preference since the dawn of time: "Zoom Resizes Windows." For some weird historical reason, by default it's enabled on Mac & disabled on Windows.


2. "Allow resizing of the Curves display" [in the CS4 Adjustments panel]
   • It's the little button at the bottom of the Adjustments panel, second from the left.


3. "Curves: Let me Cntrl-click to set a point on the curve again! The on-image editing is fine, but old habits die hard."
   • You're referring to using the Adjustments panel instead of the Curves dialog box. Using either one you can Cmd-click/Ctrl-click with either the Eyedropper tool or the on-image adjustment tool.


4. "Adjustment layers that can limit to groups: right now they affect everything below them. Be cool to drop them in a group and have it only affect that group."
   • That capability has been there since layer sets/layer groups were introduced: put the adjustment layer into the group, then set the group's blending mode to Normal. (By default it's set to "Pass Through.")


5. "Ability to remove tools from Toolbar, like the 3D tools." Also: "Unhide the tools. The pop-out tools is a hold over from when monitors were 640x480."
   • Check out Configurator.


6. "Where is ContactSheet II in PhotoshopCS4? I want it back!"
   • It's right here: Mac, Win.


7. "Merge visible into new layer, instead of having to create a new layer, hold down option key, and then choose merge visible."
   • Hit Shift-Cmd-Opt-E/Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E. (Update: Sorry, made a typo the first time around.)


8. "Change the default layer stroke color to something usable (Black?)"
   • Haven't tried CS4, then, eh? What we really need, though, is either to make the Layer Styles dialog sticky (so that the next drop shadow you create starts with the last one's settings), or to let you set your own default values (your preferred starting point for each adjustment--e.g. global light off).


9. "Close all other tabs" command, similar to browsers"
   • Cmd-Opt-W/Ctrl-Alt-W; also File->Close All.


10. "Add smudge tool (with strength slider) to brush presets."
    • Brush presets don't record the values in the Options Bar, which would include the Strength slider. You can create a tool preset (via that icon at the left of the Options Bar--the one you never click) that does the trick, however. (Think of tool presets as a higher level of brush preset: they capture everything the brush preset would--brush tip shape, dynamics, etc.--plus whatever's in the Options Bar.)


11. "Enable the Save For Web dialog to allow for exporting just selected slices."
    • The feature is there: Inside the S4W window, select the slices you want & hit Save. In the subsequent dialog (save location/options), choose "Selected Slices" from the "Slices" menu at bottom (screenshot).

And just on keyboard shortcuts:

1. "Please, enable user to adjust his own hotkeys. I'm using photoshop since 1.0"
   • Yes, but apparently not one who values this capability enough to have chosen Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts at any point in the last four versions. (Sorry, this sort of thing gets a bit depressing. And please let's not say, "Well, it wasn't intuitive or discoverable where you put the command..." Sure it is.)


2. "Cmd-H should hide Photoshop"
   • That's debatable. In any case you can (on Mac) choose Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts, then open the Photoshop menu, choose Hide Photoshop, and hit Cmd-H. (JDI-wise, I've added a request to have Photoshop ask what to do the first time you hit this command.)


3. "Bring back Ctrl+1-4 channel shortcuts for good (new are too stretchy)"
   • Download this plug-in (Mac)/registry entry (Win). (Details.) I've added a JDI request that the Edit Keyboard Shortcuts dialog add a checkbox for toggling this preference, rendering the plug-in/reg entry thing unnecessary.


4. "Give an option for the Adjustment Layers Palette to automatically hide, perhaps by hitting some hot key."
   • A) You can choose "Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels" via preferences.
   • B) You can assign a keyboard shortcut to the Adjustments panel, then use it to hide/show the panel.


5. "Add a shortcut to show/hide current layer."
   • You can assign one to Layer->Hide/Show Layers.


6. "Switch Cmd-Z and Cmd-Opt-Z shortcuts."
   • Bet you know what I'm gonna say! :-)

April 24, 2009

Multitouch coolness o' the day: WiiSpray.com

I don't have a lot of background on the project, but WiiSpray.com--using a Nintendo Wii controller + Flash to enable collaborative graffiti painting--caught my eye:

The site is light on info, but you can see a few photos of the spray can controller. I particularly like the idea of controlling a stencil with one hand while spraying paint with the other.

Previously in a similar vein:

• Dr. Woohoo has combined WiiFlash + Papervision3d + Flash Panels + Photoshop CS4 Extended
• BLITZ Agency built a Flash Interactive Holographic Wall for Adobe MAX (details).

April 22, 2009

Grand Unified clarification

Thanks for all the feedback on the CS interface ideas I posted Monday. I'm still on the road, so I haven't yet been able to reply to most comments. I look forward to reviewing them in more depth.

One key point of clarification: I wasn't suggesting that Adobe try to merge the applications into one behemoth. In fact, I specifically said that's a total non-starter. Why a number of people wrote in to then say, "Oh my God, don't merge the apps into a behemoth" is kind of puzzling.

Some other points:

• I'm also not sure why a few folks said (paraphrasing), "You should only make the individual apps better, and then (when you're done with that) worry about integration." Of course, there's no such thing as "being done" improving the individual tools, and there's no excuse for putting integration improvements on hold.


• Philip Kerman wrote, "Look at what software people really love... it's the awesome fast apps that do one thing and do that one thing very well." Wasn't I just saying that instead of building further redundancy into various Adobe tools, we should focus on making each one great at what it does, and on making them all function as an integrated whole? That to me is is the antidote to bloat.


• Adobe apps are being developed in more modular ways. The Flash panel extensibility that got wide adoption in CS4 hints at a future where modular features can be written once, then dropped into multiple apps.


• The Adobe video applications (After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore DVD, Soundbooth) can already share screen content via Dynamic Link. That is, you can do things like send an AE comp to Premiere (or a Premiere sequence to AE) without rendering, with the data changing live in one app as it's updated in the other. Isn't that better than stuffing lots of each app into the other (adding overhead and inconsistency)?


• As you'd imagine, my ideas around app integration are closely tied to my ideas about Configurator & customizability. I believe that each Adobe app should present solutions via task-oriented workspaces, and I believe that each app should itself be a workspace of the greater Creative Suite. You'd effectively be able to pick the parts of the Suite app you'd want for any given project, and within each app you'd pull up just the components needed for the task at hand. (For example, Photoshop would be the pixel-editing workspace of the Suite, and within PS there'd be workspaces geared towards sub-tasks (e.g. color correction).) I'll try to elaborate on this when time permits.


• Aiming high doesn't mean forgetting the small stuff. When I started on Photoshop, PS7 had just shipped. The two biggest applause grabbers were the Healing Brush (crazy Buck Rogers image science) and being able to rename a layer inline in the Layers palette (a completely humble change, one that saved literally zero clicks, but one that just felt totally right). Apps have to deliver both the sizzle and the steak, and we're working harder than ever on both.

I don't claim to have any magic bullets here, nor do I claim that any of this would be easy. I don't accept, however, that "good enough is good enough." How is developing the Creative Suite going to be interesting for the next 5 years, the next 10? Taking only little steps, going to work while muttering "time to make the donuts" ain't gonna get it done--not for me, anyway. I believe Adobe can--and must--aim for more transformative changes.

April 20, 2009

Feedback, please: A Grand Unified Suite?

The Dear Adobe blog asks, "Why does Adobe have 14,000 different applications?," then makes a modest proposal:

So here it is. The Worst Idea Ever. Combine ‘em all. All of them.... What I want is to open a .adobe file in my Adobe.app, click a “Mode” dropdown, select Photoshop, and get my photoshop windows. Edit all my layers with bitmappy precision. Then, when I need to edit something in vector, I don’t use the pathetic excuse for vector tools in Photoshop mode, I switch to Illustrator mode, and all my bitmappy layers suddenly work as Illustrator objects...

More…

March 23, 2009

Polishing the Adjustments panel [Part 3 of 3]

Bryan has now listed some of the benefits of the Adjustments panel in CS4. That doesn't mean we think things are perfect, however. As Photoshop moves forward--especially as we do more things non-modally/non-destructively--we need to address any lingering legitimate usability beefs. Here are some possible refinements:

• Enable an option (via the panel flyout) to have panel adjustment text fields take focus when an adjustment is created. If you pop the dialog form of Levels, you can tab into/among the various fields. You can’t set focus on the panel using just the keyboard. We should fix that, either by putting focus there automatically, and/or by adding a shortcut for the purpose (e.g. Shift-Return).

• Similarly, add an option to auto-select the eyedropper tool and/or on-canvas adjustment tool when creating/selecting an adjustment layer. This would better fit the modal dialog form, where there’s no need to select a tool.

• Enable a single-key mechanism for activating the on-canvas adjustment tool. (Ah, but what key? they’re all used).

The design of Adjustments in CS4 [Part 2 of 3]

More…

March 19, 2009

Adjustments & the future of the Photoshop UI

The new Adjustments panel in Photoshop CS4 is a polarizing feature. Some people love it; others, not so much. My job is to help improve things as we move forward, so I want to hear your feedback.

Just asking for comments in a vacuum, however, isn't going to produce useful results. Therefore I'm planning to publish three related posts:

1. The bigger picture of where we’re going with the Photoshop interface, and why
2. An overview of the advantages Adjustments provides right now
3. Some ideas on how to improve it in the future

As for feedback on this post, for now please focus on the big picture. The subsequent posts will provide a chance to gather specific, actionable feedback about the current & future versions of the panel. Preamble aside, please read on in this post's extended entry.

More…

March 1, 2009

Drive Photoshop with your iPhone

Oh, now this is cool: PhotoKeys is a $4 app that lets you drive Photoshop (switching tools, nudging layers, running actions, etc.) from an iPhone.  [Via Jesse Zibble]

I've taken it for a spin, and it works as advertised.  Setup proved to be a bit more time-consuming than I'd expected (involving installing a simple free server app, killing off my VPN connection, restarting the iPhone, and assorted trial and error), but all told it wasn't bad.

It's funny: thinking about the dearth of unused keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop, a bunch of us were talking about just such an idea the other day.  Cool to see that someone has already beaten us to the punch.

Of course, what's really in short supply is another modifier key (a la Shift, Cmd/Ctrl, and Opt/Alt) or two.  Having another way to modify commands would open up exponentially more possible combos.  It would be brilliant if an app like PhotoKeys could add such a thing, but I think the bottleneck would be Photoshop.  That is, the app needs to open up a more flexible, general purpose way to accept inputs.  (How about MIDI, so you could hammer saturation with a whammy bar? ;-))

Out of curiosity, if Adobe were to create (or work with a hardware company to create) a simple, inexpensive hardware device, would you be interested in it?  What would it need to do/look like/cost in order to be interesting?  (This is one of those ideas that's come up for years, so I'm just tossing it out there for consideration, not hinting at anything specific.)

February 25, 2009

Optional plug-in disables trackpad rotation

During the CS4 development cycle, the Photoshop and Bridge teams worked closely with Apple* to support the multitouch gestures supported on MacBook Air and newer MacBook Pro systems.  As a result you can zoom and rotate documents using three-finger combinations.

The rub is that especially on the latest systems (with the enormous trackpads), it can be too easy to zoom or rotate accidentally.  Unfortunately Photoshop doesn't ship with a preference that would govern the behavior.  Therefore we've released an optional plug-in that will disable zooming and rotating via the keyboard if you'd like.  Just drop it into your Plug-Ins folder, restart Photoshop, and you'll be set.

* Next time you hear someone start in with a bunch of "Adobe doesn't care about the Mac" crap, I'd like you to think of this.  People here go the extra mile because they do care.  Deeply.

February 19, 2009

Paving the cow paths: Auto-build panels?

People sometimes feel overwhelmed by Photoshop & other large applications: the tools and commands they need seem buried among a bunch of irrelevant stuff.  We want to improve matters.

Configurator lets you build your own interface panels, grouping your essential tools and commands for easy access.  Configurator is ridiculously easy to use, but actually building a useful panel might take more effort than you'd expect.  You have to give some thought to how you work and to what, exactly, you want to accomplish.

So here's an idea: What if Photoshop could watch how you work, then suggest panel configurations?  In other words, the app would become smarter, adapting itself to your specific workflows.

PS would collect data on your usage patterns & feed it to Configurator in order to auto-build a panel containing your most-used tools and commands.  Thinking aloud, I'm imagining something like this:

• PS would ask whether you want to enable the data-gathering process (invisible, with no impact to performance).
• If you opt in, you'd work for a few days without interruption.
• At some point PS would say, "Okay, I've gathered some data on how you work.  Would you like to assemble a panel containing your most frequently used items?"
• If you say yes, Configurator would appear and present a list of these items, letting you uncheck unwanted ones.  (For example, maybe you don't need a button for New Document if you're always going to hit Cmd-N.)
• The remaining items would be laid out automatically on a new panel.  You could of course tweak things from there, or you could start running the panel as-is in PS.

Unlike Microsoft Office, PS wouldn't try to be clever & modify your work environment on the fly (e.g. hiding menu items you haven't used recently).  Rather, it would just present you with some info & give you the opportunity to take action.  If you're game, great, but in any case it won't be sneaking around, doing stuff "for" you while you're not looking.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

J.

PS--Re: the title of the post: "Paving the cow paths" refers to streamlining existing behavior without trying to change it.  A panel of most-used tools wouldn't change the tools you use; it would just make it easier to group & access them (and by extension to hide the rest).  Going beyond cowpaths--helping people discover "best practice" ways of working--is another can of worms that I'll address in a separate post.

February 14, 2009

PDF containing all Lightroom 2 shortcuts

Rick Miller from Adobe's education field team writes, "I've recently had requests from users who would like a PDF reference guide that covers just the shortcuts in Lightroom 2. So I've created one...enjoy!"

February 12, 2009

Scrubby sliders & more

You may well know about "scrubby sliders" in Photoshop--the little finger-with-arrows icon you get when your cursor hovers over the label next to a numerical field, such as "Opacity" on the Layers panel.  (Here's a screenshot borrowed from Photoshop Essentials.)  With scrubby sliders you can click and drag on the text label, moving left and right to adjust the field's value up and down.  You may not have discovered a couple of nuances, however:

• Holding Opt/Alt while scrubbing makes the values change 10x more slowly.  This is great for fine-tuning a value.  Conversely, holding Shift while scrubbing makes the values change 10x faster.  This is great for making an audience sick while demoing canvas rotation.  (Open a really big image, zoom out, hit R, and then Shift-drag over the Rotation Angle text on the Options Bar. Entreat your viewers to stare at the center. Watch them become your willing thralls...)
• Some fields don't have text label next to them, and it therefore seems that you can't use scrubby sliders with them.  Ah, but that's where holding down Cmd/Ctrl while mousing over the field comes into play.  By holding the modifier while dragging, you can use a scrubby slider on these fields.  (Adding Opt/Alt or Shift works as you'd expect.)

On a related note, when you put focus on a text field in Photoshop, you can nudge its value up and down by using the up/down arrow keys.  Holding Shift while arrowing naturally makes the increment of change 10x larger.

It's all these little custom behaviors that help make moving Photoshop from Carbon to Cocoa a rather involved affair.  The app has developed a lot of little tweaks (e.g. holding down Opt/Alt in dialog boxes to turn Cancel into Reset) that don't just come along for free.  It's also an illustration of why custom widgets are sometimes desirable.  I'd like to see Photoshop and other CS apps make scrubby sliders much more universal/discoverable via something like the Adobe video apps' sliders (screenshot). [Update: See also the ones in Flash CS4.]

There's one other related thing, which I hate to mention as it's a bug, but I can offer a solution.  In CS4 if you click on a text label to highlight a field, then use a mouse wheel to adjust values, you may notice that the field stops changing.  The workaround is to keep your cursor over the text label, or anywhere outside the field itself.  Sorry about that rough edge.

February 9, 2009

Layer-related shortcuts you might want to know

Based on some recent comments (e.g. "Please add a way to navigate through layers via the keyboard"), I get the impression that many people don't know some/all of the following:

• Opt/Alt + left/right bracket keys change layer selection, selecting the layer above/below the current one.
• Those shortcuts plus Shift extend the layer selection.  For example, to select the layer above the current one while keeping the current one selected, hit Shift-Opt-]/Shift-Alt-].
• Shift-Opt-,/Shift-Alt-, (comma) selects the the current layer and all those below it.  Shift-Opt-./Shift-Alt-.  (period) selects the current layer and all those above it.
• Opt-,/Alt-, selects the bottom layer.  Opt-./Alt-. selects the top one.
• Cmd-G/Ctrl-G groups layers into a layer group (aka layer set, aka "little folder thing").  Shift-Cmd-G/Shift-Ctrl-G ungroups layers.
• Cmd-Opt-A/Ctrl-Alt-A selects all layers.
• Shift-Cmd-N/Shift-Ctrl-N makes a new layer. Add Opt/Alt to do so while skipping the layer options dialog box.

And while we're at it, you can also change blending modes via the keyboard:

• Shift-plus (=) selects the next blending mode.  Shift-minus (-) selects the previous one.  Note that the target of these changes depends on what tool is active.  If you've got a painting tool (Brush, Clone Stamp, etc.) selected, the changes apply to the tool's blending mode.  If you've got other tools selected, they'll apply to the blending mode of the selected layer.  (My rule of thumb is to tap V to make the Move tool active before applying blending changes to a layer via the keyboard.)
• Shift-Opt-letter/Shift-Alt-letter will set the selected tool/layer to a specific blending mode.  For example, M is Multiple, N is Normal, and H is Hard Light.  A fairly complete list is here (scroll down).

If you find this kind of thing useful, check out Trevor Morris's list of PS shortcuts, or Michael Ninness's old but useful Photoshop Power Shortcuts book.  (I updated it for PS7.)

[Update: See the comments below for more good suggestions.]

February 7, 2009

Expanding Smart Objects

Thanks for all the great feedback regarding ways to manage complex documents.  I should probably toss in the inevitable disclaimer that we're just gathering feedback, none of this is a promise/hint about future work, void where prohibited, blah blah.

A couple of people have mentioned the idea of expanding Smart Objects back into the layers that formed them initially.  That is, you'd be able to select multiple layers, turn them into an SO, do various things to the SO, and then explode the layers back out into the main layer stack.  It's a great idea, and of course (you knew this was coming) it's really hard to make work, which is why it's not supported today.  In case you're interested, let me explain why.

Smart Objects let you apply a variety of transformations to the selected object.  You can scale, skew, perspective-transform, warp, and filter them.  The trick is, how would you turn the transformed content back into layers while preserving its appearance?

In some cases the job would be easy.  Let's say you put four layers into an SO, then scale it up & want to expand the layers back out.  That seems pretty straightforward: apply the same scale factor to each layer, then move it so that the positions match.  The same might go for skewing & distorting, though I may be overlooking some cases.  But what about warping and filtering?  It gets tough, if not impossible, quickly.  I've made a little illustration (read it left to right) that may help illuminate the challenges.

The upshot is that expanding Smart Objects back to layers could be made to work some times and not others.  Addressing at least the simpler cases would be a worthwhile effort, though that task would have to jockey for position relative to other SO-related enhancements.

For instance, if PS offered an option not to save the composite data of an SO in a file, the SO wouldn't add file size above and beyond the layers it contains. That would in turn open the door to PS creating SOs automatically when transforming layers, which is essential to getting more people using this feature.  The consequence would be more time spent opening files, however, as SO composites would have to be rendered on the fly.  That in turn adds new requirements to other PSD-reading apps--e.g. that they be able to run filters on the fly in order to preserve appearance.  The whole thing becomes a quasi-religious argument about format compatibility and trading one kind of performance for another. There are many cans of worms here.

If you've read this far, my fellow geek, you may be interested in previous entries about The Secret Life of Smart Filters and the closely related Simplicty vs. Power in Photoshop.  Nobody ever said progress was gonna be easy. :-)

February 5, 2009

Feedback, please: Managing complex PSDs

Designers--and Web designers in particular--create some of the most complex, intricately layered Photoshop compositions possible.  How could we make the management & navigation of these files more efficient? I'd love to get your take on the following ideas:

• Layer panel search/filtering:
  • Photoshop could offer a small search field at the top of the Layers panel.  As you'd type in text, PS would narrow down the display of layers (e.g. typing "b-u-r-r.." would hide everything but the layer called "burrito").  Searching would also find custom tags applied to layers.  Hiding layers in the list would have no effect on the appearance of the document.
  
  
  • Separately, PS could offer buttons on Layers that would let you filter the view so that you could, say, show only type layers, or only type layers and bitmap layers, etc.


• Layer sorting: Photoshop would offer the ability to sort the Layers panel by layer type, layer name, etc.


• Symbols (i.e. reusable objects that enable "edit one, update many"): Photoshop already supports this concept to some degree via Smart Objects.  You can convert a layer to be an SO, then duplicate the object, edit one copy, and have both copies update.  The interface could be made clearer, however (e.g. through adding a Symbols panel for managing objects).


• Linked files (place a file, update it externally, and have all placed copies updated in PSDs): Again, Photoshop already supports linked files in a couple of ways.  If you double-click a Smart Object placed from Illustrator, PS will open a copy in AI.  You can also choose Layer->Smart Objects->Replace Contents... to have an SO replace with a file on disk.  Oh, and video layers are always linked to external files.  The raw materials for a traditional linking implementation are there, but PS would need to add things like a Links panel.


• Type styles:  As you can in Illustrator and InDesign, you could assign a style to type layers in Photoshop, and when you changed the style definition, PS would update all layers that have the style attached.


• Other?  Anything I haven't mentioned?  Anything you like in other apps?

To gather feedback I've created a very quick survey, and of course your comments (below) would be most welcome. (And in the interests of sharing ideas freely, you can browse others' responses, too. Note that I can't edit/reply inline to suggestions posted via the survey.)

Thanks

J.

January 13, 2009

Photoshop Subvertising

Artist-vandals in Berlin have rather brilliantly hacked a set of subway posters, overlaying them with stickers showing the Photoshop UI. [Via Mark Stern, Serge Jespers, Jeff Lietz, and others]

I have a soft spot for the trippy impromptu public art projects that subway posters often become--everything from Van Dycks & puke lines to political commentary.  I got an unreasonably big kick out of a Bourne Identity poster in the NY subway that featured three images of Matt Damon on which someone had scrawled, respectively, "Loner... gun owner... stern taskmaster." (Told you it was unreasonable.)

[Update: Kottke links to more photos on Flickr.  Apparently the project is called "Don't Forget..." [Via]]

[Previously: Real-world Photoshop.]

January 7, 2009

The MacBook Wheel

"One button. Endless possibilities."

I look forward to hearing that Adobe is "dragging its feet" for not abandoning keyboard shortcuts and fully embracing The Wheel by noon yesterday. ;->

[Update: Reader Don Tardiff points out that the Simplex typewriter was doing the wheel thing a century ago. ("Notice no screen, hard drive, or battery.") Reached for comment, Jonathan Ive said, "That's. How. We. Roll."]

October 25, 2008

SNL Multitouch

Being kind of hyped about multitouch user interfaces, I loved seeing Saturday Night Live spoof the TV channels' infatuation with flashy but often meaningless info displays. Skip ahead to 5:20 or so to check it out:

If for some reason the embedded video isn't working, you can try it (and see stills) on this Engadget page.

It really is kind of hard to satirize just how dorky people can look when filling live TV time with these things.

October 15, 2008

XD responds to user feedback

A brief note: A number of folks have questioned the XD team's decision to render their new INSPIRE publication through the Flash Player.  I passed the feedback along to the design team, and now XD manager Ty Lettau has replied.

October 14, 2008

New Adobe XD pub, thoughts on CS4 UI

The Adobe XD (Experience Design) team has launched INSPIRE, a new online publication in which team members can share thoughts on how, why, and what they design; gather feedback; and more.  Among the good bits:

• Julie Baher has posted some thoughts and background on the CS4 user interface overhaul (see previous)
• Julie Meridian discusses challenges faced in designing spinning interfaces (canvas rotation, 3D) for Photoshop CS4.

(Apropos of nothing, both designers are among a similarly named group of "me Julies," which seems like it should be British slang if it isn't already.)

August 25, 2008

iPhone GUI bits

• The guys at teehan+lax have created a slick, well organized iPhone GUI PSD file.  Geoff Teehan writes, "We created our own Photoshop file that has a fairly comprehensive library of assets – all fully editable."  Nicely done! [Via Joel Eby]
• Felix Sockwell offers a detailed walk-through of how he developed icons for the NY Times' iPhone app.
• Vaunted info-design expert Edward Tufte critiques iPhone interfaces in terms of their info-to-overhead ratio. [Via]

Marginally related at best, but too good not to share: the highly unique unboxing video for the Samsung Omnia. [Via Russell Williams]

July 30, 2008

Photoshop.next UI hints on CNET

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you've heard me talk ad nauseam about the need to better manage Photoshop's complexity.  We need to give you the power to make the app "everything you want, nothing you don't."  Last week Stephen Shankland from CNET asked what kind of progress we're making, especially in the context of the more task-based interface of Ligthroom.  I disclosed some details that appear in his article:

Adobe is taking a page from the Lightroom specialization playbook for Photoshop by trying to make it more customizable to specific users and tasks. But in contrast with Lightroom, company is trying to do so without sacrificing the software's general-purpose nature, said John Nack, [principal] product manager for Photoshop.

 

"We want to make it possible to be everything you want and nothing you don't," Nack said. "One of the tough things has been dealing with the enormous breadth of Photoshop. We end up presenting same interface to architects as we do to Web designers as radiologists as prepress folks."

 

To achieve that goal, Photoshop's interface will become more open-ended and even programmable, he said.

 

"You'll see some of the things we've learned about Lightroom--making things browsable and less modal--come into Photoshop," Nack said. In other words, it'll be easier to shift Photoshop from one task to another.

 

With a "Configurator" application that should be released by Adobe Labs within a month or two of release the next version of Photoshop, Adobe will let users create and share their own Photoshop control panels written in Adobe's Flash programming language, Nack added. "Our goal is to make it possible for expert users to reconfigure the environment on a task-by-task basis and share those workspaces with other people. You don't have to write code. You can knock together an interface and make it sharable."

As I've written previously, using Flash in the Suite isn't about slathering the UI in a bunch of blinky banner ads; rather, it's about giving people an easy way to connect, tune, & extend their work environments.  The AIR-based Configurator app is just one way to build these UI elements--one that lets you Lego-together functionality without writing code, then easily share the output.  The tool isn't ready to take a bow yet, but it's coming along really nicely & I'm looking forward to showing what it can do.

[Related/previous: Future Photoshop UI changes]

July 6, 2008

Phil Clevenger on the Lightroom UI

Lightroom marketing manager/former Combat Photojournalist Frederick Johnson has posted an informative 12-minute interview with Phil Clevenger, Lightroom interface designer/KPT veteran.  Phil talks about the challenges of starting with a blank slate & establishing an interaction language; the pros and cons of modality; Lightroom's unique model for applying parametric local corrections; and much more.  I fount it well worth a look.

(Tangentially: Both Frederick and Phil show up among Kelly Castro's portraits (aka Project Make Mild-Mannered Software Peeps Look Hardass), now featured on the Adobe Design Center.)

June 2, 2008

Some thoughts about platform consistency

[Note: I'm motivated to write the following as I'm hearing increasing speculation about future Adobe UI changes based on what's appeared in screenshots, the Fireworks beta, etc.  That topic deserves its own post, and I'll work on publishing one in the next couple of days.  Until then I won't be tackling any of those specific issues/questions.]

I had a rather eye-opening experience the other day.  I over heard an Adobe employee using Photoshop exclaim, "No way... they overloaded Cmd-H!"  In other words, he was surprised that pressing Cmd-H didn't hide the application.  He was obviously A) a Mac user, B) relatively unfamiliar with Photoshop, and C) assuming that Photoshop had made a decision to go against Mac OS conventions.

Er, no. :-)

The actual history is that Photoshop has used the Cmd-H shortcut since something close to the dawn of time (at least as far back as 1993, when I started using the app) to hide/show the current selection (the "marching ants" that go around a selection).  This convention (like essentially all PS shortcuts) is consistent between Mac and Windows, and it's worked the same way in Illustrator for a similarly long time.

When Apple introduced OS X, they decided to implement some new conventions for shortcuts.  Notably, Cmd-H hides apps; Cmd-M minimizes docs to the Dock; and Cmd-~ (technically Cmd-`) cycles among open documents.  Over time the OS has appropriated more and more shortcuts that have been used by Photoshop (F9-F12 were for actions, Cmd-Space/Cmd-Opt-Space was for zooming, etc.).

This puts us in a tough position.  On the one hand, I totally appreciate Apple's efforts to drive consistency across the platform.  On the other, we have to tread very carefully around keyboard shortcut changes.  Pros' fingers dance over Adobe apps like musicians' on instruments.  When certain things have worked a certain way for 10 or 15 years across multiple Adobe apps, you don't just toss out those conventions and all the associated muscle memory.

My colleague's comment reminded me, though, that new users don't know or care about the history here.  For them, it just looks like Adobe is blowing off useful, consistent shortcuts, going its own way for no reason.

So, what do we do?  "Let me customize shortcuts," you might say--but of course we do already (and have for years), and that doesn't affect the default experience.  No matter what we do--change or sit tight--someone is going to be P.O.'d.

I think we have to take things case-by-case.  As it happens, I expect we'll change Photoshop to use Cmd-~ to cycle among document windows.  PS already supports the Windows-standard Ctrl-Tab for this function on both platforms, and by honoring both conventions we can offer cross-platform consistency.  This move will undoubtedly frustrate people who rely on Cmd-~ for displaying the composite channel, but we'll do our best to ease the pain.  Remapping Cmd-H and Cmd-M are a progressively tougher sell for me, given the importance of selections & Curves in PS.  Note, however, that on the Mac by default Photoshop assigns Cmd-Ctrl-H to hiding & Cmd-Ctrl-M to minimizing--i.e. the standard conventions + the Ctrl key.

I mention all this in order to shed some light on the tricky issues we face with the Photoshop & other Adobe tools.  No one I know here views OS conventions as unimportant; on the contrary, they're always among the first issues considered.  It's just that we have to weigh them against possible disruptions to user habits and workflows, and against the user benefits of consistency between applications and platforms.

May 16, 2008

Flash-based multitouch coolness

Christian Moore & the folks at the NUI Group have created Lux, an open-source framework for creating multitouch-savvy applications.  Check out the video demo & a short interview with Christian on how they've used Flash to prototype a very cool implementation.  I'd love to see it updated to take advantage of the GPU hardware acceleration in the upcoming Flash Player 10 (just posted in preview form on Adobe Labs).  Oh, and how about this running in a Smart Object on the Photoshop canvas?  (Hey, I'm just thinking aloud, not dropping any near-term.) [Via Jerry Harris]

Interesting related bits:

• Gizmodo features a short recent interview with Jeff Han, the guy whose multitouch work really lit a fire under the whole area two years ago.
• Macworld's Dan Frakes provides a video tour of MultiClutch, a free utility for extending the multitouch features in the latest MacBook Pro & MacBook Air notebooks.  (I was bummed to discover that my wife's brand new MacBook doesn't offer the same support.  She's just happy to have two-finger scrolling, something missing from her deceased PowerBook.)
• I need to pull together a category for multitouch; in the meantime, past interesting bits are here.

April 21, 2008

Wiimote Hacks + Photoshop

Photographer* Mike Hill passed along a link to crafty hacker Johnny Lee's hacks to enable, among other things, whiteboarding on the cheap in Photoshop, thanks to a modified Nintendo Wii controller.  PS is shown only in passing, but it's still fun to see.

This of course makes me think of the Flash-based, Wiimote-powered multi-user painting system created by BLITZ Agency for Adobe MAX last year (details).  It may sound frivolous, but I still like to get my little wheels turning about how to cross-pollinate this kind of Web-flavored coolness with our desktop apps.  I still want creation experiences that can feel more like this, and less like poking sliders and knobs.

February 27, 2008

Leather + multitouch = foxy

Ooh, now that's nice: student Nedzad Mujcinovic has crafted "Livre," a concept for a leather-wrapped, multitouch-aware electronic book.  Check out the photos as well as the overview.  Could a large e-ink screen, organic materials, gesture-based navigation, and a minimum of button clutter change the game and make e-books widespread?  It would be fun to find out. [Via]

In other cool device news:

• Small format:
  • Like sketching ideas on cocktail napkins, but wish they were more expensive and susceptible to water damage?  Then perhaps you'd like the Napkin PC.  Naw, the concept is cooler than that--especially if you could combine multiple Napkin PCs into a single work area. [Via Jana Sedivy]
  • Inchworm brings sketching and painting to the Nintendo DS.  It was created by Bob Sabiston, the developer of the "Rotoshop" software used to create Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. [Via Greg Geisler]
  • Nokia envisions a future full of shape-shifting phones; peep the video for their Morph concept.
• Multitouch:
  • Web developers Cynergy have built a Minority Report-style multitouch interface.
  • Meanwhile Mary Jo Foley discusses some of the latest developments in Microsoft's multitouch Surface project.  (This one's still not setting my hair on fire.)
  • In a related vein, Dell showed off their multitouch laptop design. [Via Jerry Harris]
  • And, as you almost certainly know already, Apple has brought their multitouch trackpad to the full line of new MacBooks.  Wouldn't it be cool if Adobe apps could take advantage of those gestures?
• CNET reports on startup company CeeLite (note: not the singer from Gnarls Barkley) creating flexible sheets of light, useful for wrapping on buses, poles, and other objects.
• Researchers at Stanford have revealed details on their plenoptic camera work.
• Alienware offers a cool, curved display for widescreen gaming.  I wonder how well it would work for design & photo editing.
• Art Lebedev's Photoshop-savvy Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard (mentioned previously) has started shipping.  You can see it being set up, or you can watch the droll Art himself work his geek-fu on a real live girl. :-)  [Via Jesse Zibble]
  

February 1, 2008

Terrible UI o' the day

Ah, Vegas: It's like the whole town just coughs into your mouth.  Everything about this place makes me feel dirty, strung-out, and used.

I mention it because just now I was impressed to find a Coke machine that featured a credit card swipe-strip for payment.  Kind of convenient, I thought--though of course it means that the prices have been jacked out of the range of the small bills you're likely to be carrying.

Speaking of price... It's displayed only intermittently, when the words "Coca-Cola" aren't crawling by.  (I'm sure that text is very helpful to the people confused about the nature of this giant red machine that sells only Coca-Cola.)  Terrible info presentation, but whatever, I'm thirsty.

Swipe, pause... card authorized, press soda button.  Wait several seconds... nothing.  Did it hear me?  I press again.  Wait... [rumble] Coke arrives.  And then another.  And then a third.  Suddenly I've paid nearly eight bucks for 60oz. of sugar water--about 10x more than I actually wanted.

Genius!  I'm serious, actually: by tossing out the most basic interface principle of providing prompt user feedback, these guys just tripled their income.  How many times a day must this happen, and who's going to spend time sweating these guys for $5?  The house wins again.

PS--I know that in posting this little bit of whining I'm really unleashing the power of the blog, so to speak.  Maybe the anti-consumer UI beatings that happen in Vegas should, in fact, stay in Vegas.

January 16, 2008

Video: Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac in depth

Adobe's Terry White has created a 45-minute video podcast offering a "'First Look' At Photoshop Elements 6 for the Macintosh."  Check it out to see the new interface & new tools in action.  And if you happen to be at Macworld this week, drop by the Adobe booth to see it in person.  (I'll be lurking a bit this afternoon.)  [Via]

November 13, 2007

Your interface blows (literally)

While we're waiting for Photoshop to connect with Martian ocular implants, researchers have been busy building crafty new interface tech.  Photoshop engineer John Peterson writes, "Some folks at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found a way to do cursor control/selection by blowing on the screen. The amazing part is it needs no extra hardware, they just use the microphone already built in to your laptop."  Check out the video, as well as the team's research paper (PDF).

Apparently others have had the same idea.  Photoshop UI designer Julie Meridian reports, "The Nintendo DS has a built-in microphone and does something similar for games, like WarioWare Touched! where the goals are things like blowing up balloons, flying a kite, etc."  And we've joked about enabling blowing on natural media simulations in order to do things like moving or drying ink.

Elsewhere on the New UI front, Bryan Hughes points out that all new Volkswagens are due to get touch screens.  If I ever upgrade my Jetta (damn 1.8 mi commute making that unlikely), maybe I can look forward to doing an iPhone style pinch to zoom in on a map--as I zoom into a ravine.

November 9, 2007

Clarification on "Johnny Cash"

Ooh, I've been Slashdotted.  I wondered why the blog had gotten more visitors before 7AM than it usually gets all day.  Thanks for all the comments.

I need to clarify a couple of things.  A commenter on the Slashdot story said, "Well, Adobe just told you themselves that the Photoshop UI sucks."  Er, no.  Two things:

1. "Adobe" didn't say anything; I said something (see disclaimer about these opinions being my own, etc.).  Yes, I sometimes get lazy and conflate myself with the team/product/company, but I'm really just the Simple Unfrozen Caveman Web Designer they happened to hire to work on Photoshop.  But more importantly...
2. I didn't say that the Photoshop UI sucks.  I said that it's not good enough (which is to say, it's never "good enough").  If the UI sucked, I somehow doubt that millions of people would rely on it every day for mission-critical work.  And, incidentally, every time we survey customers, we find that the number reporting themselves "satisfied" or "very satisfied" comes in above 90%.

It's my job to be somewhat hard on the product, pushing like mad to eke out every improvement possible.  Without dissatisfaction, why change?  I hate the idea that "good enough is good enough," that we can and should just putter around the edges.  To remain groundbreaking, Photoshop has to mess with success.

Okay, second part: I don't want people to be disappointed if the next Photoshop interface doesn't look like some Martian voodoo lovechild driven by foot pedals & ocular implants.  Yes, we're working (as we have been) to open the door to some really nice improvements, but change takes time.  I believe we can deliver a better experience without breaking the interface people already know & like.  Just don't be mad if the next version of PS doesn't cook you breakfast.  (That's for CS5. ;-))

November 7, 2007

Leopard: Quicksilver for the rest of us?

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I believe that when you get to a certain number of objects, search trumps categorization, and as I've detailed previously, a number of Adobe apps (InDesign, After Effects, Illustrator) feature built-in methods for searching the interface (applying commands, finding help).  We haven't quite gotten to the point of rolling out a unified, cross-product way to drive the applications via search, however.

To meet the need, many Mac power users dig Quicksilver--a powerful little utility that enables searching, app launching, car-waxing, and more.  Try as I might, though, I've never gotten into QS.  It's not that it doesn't do enough; it's that it can do so much, and I get totally bewildered by setting a 747 cockpit's worth of switches.

That's why I'm intrigued by Leopard's Spotlight-style searching of application menus (a weirdly unheralded feature, I think).  As you type, related terms pop up, and as you arrow through the list of results, Leopard highlights the results.  Here's an animated screenshot of the feature running in Photoshop.

I've found that by assigning a global keyboard shortcut ("Cmd-?") to Help->Search via system preferences, I can now drive any Mac app's menus via the keyboard.  That's pretty powerful: instead of having to memorize (or assign) lots of keyboard shortcuts, or having to hunt and peck through rarely-used apps' menus, it's now possible just to hit Cmd-?, then start typing.

Yes, I know that Quicksilver can do much more, and there's all kinds of room to improve on the Leopard feature.  That said, the latter's simplicity makes it really appealing.  I'll be curious to see how much I (and others) end up using it day-to-day. [Update: Apparently I'm not alone: I see in the notes of this podcast that Leo Laporte has ditched Quicksilver in favor of Leopard menu search.]

* Side note: I love that it's now possible to browse Safari's history via the search feature.  I've been using search in Safari 2, but the new UI exposes the capability much more readily.  On a further side note, apparently the extension Safari Stand will bring Cover Flow viewing to your history.

November 5, 2007

Photoshop, as seen through Johnny Cash

In One Piece At a Time*, Johnny Cash tells the story of building a Cadillac from 20 years' worth of evolving, mismatched parts.  I've gotta say, I know the feeling.

Photoshop has been accreting power & users for the better part of two decades.  The once-little app has proven almost endlessly adaptable to new needs and workflows, but all that morphing has a price.  In many cases we've traded simplicity for power, and not all the pieces look like part of a cohesive whole.  In fact, I sometimes joke that looking at some parts of the app is like counting the rings in a tree: you can gauge when certain features arrived by the dimensions & style of the dialog.  (Cue old-timey prospector voice: "Oh, Lighting Effects--you can see the scorch marks from the great fire of '43...")

This isn't exactly a news flash--far from it.  So, the question is, What exactly are we gonna do about it?  No one wants to work with--or work on--some shambling, bloated monster of a program.

The good news is that we've been plotting the solutions for a number of years, chipping away at the problem.  Good stuff comes to the surface in bits and pieces, but we haven't quite turned the corner--yet.  A few thoughts:

• We must make Photoshop "everything you need, nothing you don't."   Presenting the same user experience to a photographer as we do to a radiologist, as to a Web designer, as to a prepress guy, is kind of absurd.  The new ability for users to choose between Photoshop & Photoshop Extended helps somewhat, but it's just one step.
• With this goal in mind, we must make Photoshop dramatically more configurable.  We've been chipping away for several cycles, enabling first workspaces, then customizable menus & shortcuts.  We need to be much bolder, though, and I've been dropping totally unsubtle hints about this for ages.
• I don't expect most users to customize the app--nor should they have to do so.  Rather, I expect the power users--authors and experts, you and I--to tune the app to taste, then share our knowledge.  Let people solve their own problems, then share the solutions.
• With the power of customizability, we can present solutions via task-oriented workspaces.  Today if a user walks up to Photoshop and says, "What do I do?," the app kind of shrugs, stubs out a cigarette, and says, "I dunno--you tell me."  That's not real cool, and we can do better.
• By leading people to best practices, we can start deprecating (and later removing) outmoded functionality. ("A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away," said Antoine de Saint-Exupery.)  
• Meanwhile we'll put energy into simply polishing what's already present.  (Refine Edge is a good example from CS3.)

So, why am I telling you all this, and why do I think it's worth reading?  I'm saying it because although we can't (and probably shouldn't) turn the whole battleship (or Caddy, if you like) on a dime, we get the need, and we're on the case.  We've been toiling away beneath the surface, setting the groundwork for change.  There are no magic bullets, but I feel that for the first time in my 5+ years working on this team, we're within striking distance of some big things--and everyone reading this will play a role in making things better. Just thought you should know. :-)

In the meantime, as we fight for each little gain, I'm reminded of a quote from Edmund Burke: "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."

[Update: I've posted some clarifications & responses here.]

*Lyrics, plus Johnny in a kind of Benny Hill-esque video for the song.  Thanks to our friend George Reis for drawing the comparison.

October 19, 2007

Wicked-cool Wii+Flash-powered hologram-thing

The crew at BLITZ Agency created an amazing interactive video installation for Adobe MAX, using non-traditional input devices to let people paint collaboratively.  As they describe it on their blog:

"Adobe Creativity Conducted" Interactive Wall Experience features a holographic-like projection system on which you can paint images and designs using a Nintendo Wii remote control. This full screen Flash application runs in HD resolution, and was premiered during the primary Adobe party of the MAX 07 Conference in Chicago. The experience ran uninterrupted for the duration of the party (4 hours), and received nonstop foot traffic resulting in 68 artistic creations submitted as images to a Flickr account.

Chek out the video of the system in action, and see some of the creations on Flickr.

I can't tell you how much stuff like this trips my trigger.  I love the way the project makes drawing and painting a full-body 3D experience, and I love the way the SWF interface synthesizes great-looking art playfully.  One question, though: Why can't I do anything like this in Photoshop or Illustrator?  What if we could crack open these apps and let people leverage the power of the Flash?  Hmm...  Erik Natzke has an idea of what that might look like (totally fake, unfortunately, at least for now).

Trying, as ever, to cross the streams,
J.

October 13, 2007

Multitouch, holograms, & other next-gen I/O

• A team at USC has built a holographic "360° Light Field Display" using a spinning mirror, and the resulting video is pretty amazing.  Note: Do not attempt to make out with images depicted this way.  (I do wonder if you can sing "Iron Man" into it, as you would an oscillating fan.)
• Italian design firm V12 Design+Engineering has come up with an interesting proposal: the Canova dual-display touch-screen notebook computer.  Here are additional images, including a mockup of the device running Photoshop. [Via Rob Corell]
• The Ecko LCD bus shelter is designed to let passersby scribble graffiti via Bluetooth-enabled cell phones; here's a slightly larger image.  I'm having trouble finding more on the topic, making me wonder whether it ever got out of the concept phase.
• Helsinki's CityWall collaborative social space "is a large mutli-touch display installed in a central location in Helsinki which acts as a collaborative and playful interface," enabling navigation of specially tags media from Flickr & YouTube. [Via]
• The crew at Minimaforms has brought SMS-driven laser writing on smoke to Bristol's OFFLOAD festival. [Via]
• CNET has posted additional images & details on the Microsoft Surface touch-sensitive screen.
• My old colleague Noah Mittman offers a useful clarification regarding "haptic interfaces": "For an interface to be haptic, touch must be its output"--not just the input.  He points out a crazy haptic glove shown this year at SIGGRAPH.  See also this CAD interface that simulates sculpting.
• For more info on how these things have evolved & where they might be going, see Robert Cravotta's history of gesture interfaces. [Via]
  

October 8, 2007

TiltViewer: 3D Flash interface to Flickr

July 24, 2007

KYPSKBSC: Know Your Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

Let your fingers do the rocking:

• Photographer/designer Trevor Morris has posted a highly detailed yet compact list of Photoshop CS3 shortcuts, in PDF form to facilitate printing as a quick reference.  See also Camera Raw & Bridge shortcuts from Ian Lyons, as well as Trevor's 50 interface tips for Photoshop.
• The Digital Photography school has posted a list of 18 Exceptionally Useful Photoshop Shortcuts. [Via]
• It's a bit dated now, but Michael Ninness's Photoshop Power Shortcuts book is a terrifically thorough (and--having updated the text for PS7--may I say, enormously accurate) printed reference on the topic. Bonus fact: It is (presumably) the only Photoshop shortcuts book to be illustrated using gratuitous images of my old car.
  

July 13, 2007

Interactive Adobe video wall comes to NYC

According to an article in today's NYT,

Adobe will unveil an interactive wall of projected animation [see video] this morning in Union Square, along the 14th Street side of the Virgin Megastore. As pedestrians walk past the wall, infrared sensors will lock on to the person closest to the wall, who will then be able to control a projected slider button at the bottom of the wall. As the selected pedestrian continues walking and moves the slider along, the wall will start displaying colorful animation and playing music, effects that will grow or recede at the pace that the person advances or retreats.

Measuring 95 square feet, and created by Goodby Silverstein working with animators at Brand New School and video peeps Obscura Digital, the wall is meant to offer "a single and multiuser experience simultaneously."  Gizmodo wants to see multitouch interactivity added to the project, saying "Sure, you'd probably wind up with more than a few obscene renderings, but it's New York, people can handle it."  (Yes, but could Adobe Corporate*? ;-))

I hope to get photos and videos from the unveiling to share.  If you know of any, please pass 'em along. [Update: Gothamist has posted a bit more info.]

*Then again, Bruce is from Brooklyn, so I imagine him remaining unfazed.

July 3, 2007

Multitouch, real & imagined

• MIT's Technology Review features multi-touch UI pioneer Jeff Han in a new video.  He talks about ways these screens can get around the "thin straw" of keyboard mouse input; the potential for better storyboarding applications; and more.
• Mark Coleran has carved out what seems to be a pretty cool gig, designing computer interfaces shown in movies.  His design for a table in The Island resembles the Microsoft Surface concept. [Via]  Mark's work reminds me of the time we visited the set of one of the CSI shows and met the folks responsible for those Director-powered graphics--you know, the ones that convince average viewers that computers can read The Iliad reflected off the head of a pin.  Thanks a lot for that, guys. ;-)
• Meanwhile the interface of the iPhone I picked up on Saturday remains a completely imaginary one: thanks to AT&T, I can't activate the damn thing with my corporate cell number, which means I can't get past the welcome screen.  Note to self: the whole sequence of
  1. Get all excited, buy lovely, seductive gizmo
  2. Figure out whether said gizmo can actually be used with phone number, work email, etc.
  should actually be reversed.  Gah. This would be that bleeding edge I've heard so much about. (It does feel great in one's hand, however. ;-P)
  

June 23, 2007

A great quote on software

As I've been thinking about the future of user interfaces, I stopped by the Web site of noted UI designer Bill Buxton.  There I saw this remark:

A Personal Mantra: Ultimately, we are deluding ourselves if we think that the products that we design are the "things" that we sell, rather than the individual, social and cultural experience that they engender, and the value and impact that they have. Design that ignores this is not worthy of the name.

Right on, sir.  I tell anyone who'll listen (and many who won't) about the "Photoshop Nation," the power of connecting people, and the importance of giving a damn and getting things right.

A small number multiplied by a big number is still a big number, and some little improvement* may help only a small percentage of users, but that works out to a large number of people.  The social impact of doing so can be significant.  (It all reminds me of Steve Jobs equating boot time improvements to lives saved.)  It's about not blocking the light.

Bonus quote, apropos of stirring things up on occasion: "Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking." --John Maynard Keynes

* I was pleased to hear a photographer named Brian Price comment this week on the ProDIG list that "[F]or me the clone 'Ignore Adjustment Layers' option in CS3 is worth the upgrade price in itself"--a comment echoed by others.  It's one of those tweaks that shows up rarely, if ever, in marketing materials, reviews, etc., but that can have a real impact.

June 20, 2007

Multitouch: $2 or $10,000?

The folks at Medallia claim to have devised a multitouch user input device using two dollars' worth of dye and Ziploc bags.  Hmm--interesting clip, but doesn't it seem they've pretty much mashed up a couple seconds of new footage (producing colored blobs) with chunks of other people's demos (the chess demo from Tactiva, etc.)?  Beyond the technology, I'm struck by the number of comments below the video that boil down to "hah hah u pwned those fat-cats lolz!!"  Man are there some credulous people in the world. [Via Tom Attix]

Speaking of pwning Microsoft, however, this parody of the recently-announced, $10,000-a-pop Surface project is pretty damn funny.  I can't wait to get tanked with my friends, using a device the size of a small car. [Via]

June 19, 2007

Slick search-driven Flash UI

Given that discovering the graphical UI (specifically, MacPaint) was a life-changing event for me, it's a little funny that I find myself so interested in search as a UI tool.  But as we've said many times now, categorization goes only so far.  Once you get beyond a certain number of things (pictures, emails, menu items, etc.), you need some form of type-to-find.

Photoshop UI designer Andrew Lin points out the site for design firm S-W-H, which features a slick, easy-to-use search function (including auto-complete).  Coupled with the blazing fast transition animations*, it gives you a sense of flying through a large body of work.  Bonus: Typing "foo" (and lots of other things) treats you to the sounds of people excitedly going off in Dutch.

For a counterpoint, check out the frankly terrible interface for HBO's John From Cincinnati site (too bad, as I'm digging the new show's tripped-out profane-cowboy-meets-longboard lingo).  The site loads by promising a carousel of content, but it then immediately hides said content, making you guess about search terms (kind of hard if you're new to the show, eh?).

Tangentially related bits:

• Inquisitor beautifully integrates predictive searching into Safari.  Trust me, you want this (just like PicLens... and Saft).
• Apropos of time lapses (see recent), Andrew made quite a number during his tenure with a certain fruit company.  Hypnotic, but burning cars & tail lights make me remember why I traded commutes on 280 for a 10-minute bike ride.

* With animation effects in general I'm reminded of a quote  from Alan Cooper: "No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it." A little goes a very long way.

PS--If you know of other cool, powerful search UIs (Flash or otherwise), please share 'em.

April 6, 2007

Command lines: Back to the future?

With the mouse turning 40, and with the number of photos, emails, and other documents ever growing, do we need a new kind of user interface?  Do we need, maybe--dun dun duunnh--a return to the command line?

That's part of what usability expert Don Norman thinks.  He notes that search engines, both on the Web and on the desktop, now support commands (e.g. "define:photography" in Google), and that computer interfaces are now enhanced by, rather than dependent upon, typing in specific commands. If a command isn't valid, modern search implementations fall back gracefully to basic searching.

This is something we've been discussing for quite a while at Adobe. What if, instead of hunting through menus ("Hmm, is commenting under Edit, or Format, or...?"), or having to memorize the keyboard shortcut for each command, you could simply start typing & getting a list of matching commands? The CS3 generation of tools makes some moves in this direction:

• After Effects has offered searching for filters (as it has for a while);
• Illustrator CS3 includes a new, Flash-based "knowhow" panel that can search the Web for info related to the current tool;
• InDesign CS2 introduced a "Quick Apply" capability.  In CS2 it could apply styles (here's a demo), and in CS3 it can invoke menu items as well.  InDesign PM Chad Siegel explains:
  
  

  "In CS3 we expanded Quick Apply to optionally include all menu items and commands within the application as well as scripts. Once the item is displayed, it can be either applied or invoked simply by selecting it from the list. [See a quick demo, under "Productivity Enhancements"]

  "That’s a lot of information that could be displayed so we also provide the ability to limit your search to certain classes of items (e.g. Paragraph Styles and/or Character Styles only). We also added shortcut codes which display within the UI that can be added as a prefix to limit the scope of individual searches. For example, p: is used to limit the search to paragraph styles and m: to limit to menu commands, etc. So users can type m:print and see any command in the list that included those characters. It also searches the characters that customers enter from both left to right and right to left, giving preference to exact matches at the top of the list.

  "Finally, it also displays the location of the commands so that folks can find it more easily within the UI. For example m:print shows File>Print in the list.

So, what about Photoshop?  The app doesn't presently feature built-in support for something like Quick Apply, but it's an intriguing possibility for the future.  I'm hoping we see some developments here soon (not from Adobe, so I'm not sure how much I can say just yet).  On the Mac there's also Quicksilver, the darling of power users.  I've found a beginner's guide; some tips for searching menus; and Merlin Mann's podcast on the subject... but damn if I've yet had the patience to configure my copy (it's death by options).  I may get there yet.

In any case, I think we'll see plenty of interesting app-searching developments in the future.

March 15, 2007

Multi-touch photo editing demo

I don't have much context for this video, but I'm passing it along as it's an interesting demo of image editing using a multi-touch screen.  The pie menus look useful (is that a Healing Brush icon I see?), though to compete against a keyboard and mouse, I think it would need to be much faster and more fluid.

Sidenote: I like imagining that the choice of bloopy, electro-spacey music may not just be a video editing choice, and that it's actually emitted by the multi-touch monitors themselves (see also the Jeff Han origin of the genre).  "Hey man, cool screen, but why does it keep playing the pseudo-Moby?"

March 12, 2007

Sound in AE + Flash; rethinking UI; more on Design Center

The Adobe Design Center unfurls a swath of new content:

New Dialog Box:

• Interface surgery: Converting an implementation-model design into a mental-model design by Robert Hoekman, Jr.

New Gallery:

• Words at Play by Devicq.com and Mucca.com

New Tutorials:

• Anchor objects to text in InDesign by John Cruise, Kelly Kordes Anton
• Create a web gallery in minutes using Photoshop Lightroom by Matt Kloskowski
• Creating dynamic sound controls in Flash by Russell Chun, Paul Robertson
• Discover the difference between live and traditional filters in Fireworks by Abigail Rudner
• Using the Three Way Color Corrector in Premiere Pro by Jeff Schell
• The fundamentals of working with sound in After Effects and Flash by Tom Green, Tiago Dias

And don't forget to check out the Adobe links on del.icio.us. Info on how to contribute links is here.  [Via]

February 20, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #28: Phil Clevenger, Grace Kim and Mark Hamburg

"I think pretty much any software has a personality," says Mark Hamburg, "but a lot of times it's something that one sort of stumbles into, and people don't think about that as part of the design process. When I started the project, I wanted to do something that was more visually interesting, for example, than Photoshop, and tried some directions in that regard. And I did bad KPT imitations."

Mark sat down with Lightroom UI designer Phil Clevenger, user researcher Grace Kim, and photography evangelist George Jardine on Dec. 11th.  George writes,

In this podcast, we take a retrospective look at the entire design process of Shadowland, and how personality played a role in the final look and feel of the software. Phil discusses the efforts that went into designing Shadowland to help keep your photography the focus of attention, and visually more important on the screen than the user interface.

"I think the exercise really brought to light people's implicit assumptions about what they thought the Shadowland personality was, or should be. Things that were kind of hard to articulate, but people just had them as working assumptions." - Grace Kim

"While people in different parts of the country may have different notions of what sleek or stylish may mean, I think everybody knows what butter is." - Phil "Butter" Clevenger

January 26, 2007

Interviews with Photoshop founders

• The blog since1968.com features an interesting interview with Mark Hamburg (photo), founder and engineering manager of the new Photoshop Lightroom product (not to mention a driving force behind Photoshop itself for more than a decade).  In it Mark discusses the gestation of the product, some of the concepts behind its user interface, reasons they abandoned things like a free-form light table, and more.  I'm looking forward to part 2 of the interview, due to be posted soon on the site.  [For more on the history of Lightroom development, check out Jeff Schewe's behind-the-scenes overview.  For more interviews with Mark, check out some of the Lightroom podcasts.]
• CNET has been featuring some of the creative forces at ILM this week, highlighting the work of John Knoll (who co-wrote Photoshop with his older brother Thomas).   Now they've posted a 4-minute video in which John discusses those early days.  [For more info, photos, and clips from ILM's Pirates work, see the mini-site they created. For more on the Knoll brothers & the creation of Photoshop, check out this piece on PhotoshopNews.]

Side note: I love that Hal Hickel, now an effects whiz at ILM, saved the rejection letter he received when, at age 12 in 1978, he proposed a sequel to Star Wars.  It reminds me of the note I got from LEGO 20 years ago, when I proposed camouflage bricks--a notion they rejected as being too war-like.  Yeah, and now they make a Lego Death Star... ;-)

January 18, 2007

Multi-touch UI: New video & interview

January 5, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #25: Mark Hamburg & Phil Clevenger

Phil and Mark sit down with George to talk about Phil's role on the team and the user interface that he's designed for Lightroom. The conversation quickly begins to wander and turn (as these conversations frequently do take on a life of their own...) to some of the broader questions surrounding Lightroom, and ends up touching on the core story and original vision for the project. This podcast also includes a description by Mark of some of his original thinking behind Lightroom's modular design.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "1127 Podcast - Phil Clevenger and Mark Hamburg"). It's also be available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

December 3, 2006

Photoshop & Macs: The new shuffleboard?

This week C|NET published findings from MetaFacts indicating that "nearly half of Mac owners are 55 and older--almost double the share for average home PC users."  Apple disputes this claim, though I'd take it as a compliment that my tools can be used by a generation not raised by Grand Theft Auto. 

As it happens, the registered base* of Photoshop customers has skewed older in recent years, due to the exploding popularity of digital photography.  The same folks who in previous generations might've sprung for a home darkroom now tend to buy a really nice digital SLR, computer, and the best software to go with it.  These trends prompted my colleague Ashley to quip, "Photoshop & Macs: The new shuffleboard?"

This demographic trend has some practical implications. Most obviously, we need to make a user interface that's easy to navigate with older eyes.  Given the 20- and 30-something demographics of many visual designers, this isn't always easy to remember, but we're working on it.  The emergence of scalable, resolution-independent will be essential here, and in the meantime Photoshop CS2 added the ability to adjust the font size of the interface (a small thing, literally, but a step in the right direction).

*Note: This of course way undercounts all the five-finger-discounting little l33t-speak haxxor-kiddies. ("im in ur base, stealin ur 'Shop...")

October 19, 2006

Photoshop shortcut o' the day

Heh--you know you're working on a mature application when you start running out of keyboard shortcut combos.  Earlier today we were discussing shortcuts that would work for something that's in development.  We settled on a four-key combo (one of those Shift-Opt-Cmd-Letter deals), which let to this exchange:

• Bryan O'Neil Hughes: "Ugh, it beats no shortcut at all...but it isn't too far removed from just banging one's head against the keyboard."
• Joe Ault: "BangHeadAgainstKeyboard is already taken, but I think Ctrl-Shift-BangHeadAgainstKeyboard is available..."

We will henceforth work on a forehead-USB interface. ;-)

August 4, 2006

Next-gen, multi-touch interfaces

NYU researcher Jefferson Han, creator of a much-blogged large format, multi-touch flat screen interface (see original demo), spoke at this year's TED Conference in Monterey. In this brief but inspiring video, he talks about the technology's potential to enable next-generation interfaces that disappear, doing "the right thing" with a minimum of effort. (It's at times like this that I wish Adobe made hardware!) [Via Mattias Jonsson]

Incidentally, it appears they're using this morphing technology, or something close to it--well worth a look in its own right. (The server MIME types seem wrong, so to view the very cool video, you may have to download it and change the extension to .MP4.)

[Update: For a non-traditional interface that truly sucks (literally), check out this video from the Yahoo! Design Expo.]

June 26, 2006

Bumpin' 3D desktop interface

BumpTop brings some fresh thinking to the 20+ year old metaphor of desktop organization. Check out this video to see how it combines 3D, physics, pie menus, and pen savvy to improve file handling.

Cool as it is, however, I was struck by what Merlin Mann has already written up: namely, that the future belongs to file management based on searching. It just isn't possible for a traditional file system metaphor, no matter how slick, to keep pace with an explosion of data. We see this again and again:

• Google cruised past Yahoo (i.e. Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle) when categorization couldn't scale.
• Smart folders (i.e. saved searches) in email take over when you can't keep switching among your zillion mailboxes.
• Desktop-level searching like Spotlight, Google Desktop Search, and Vista's built-in engine become essential when your number of files overwhelms your ability to categorize them meaningfully.

Maybe, then, the future belongs to slick, forward-thinking UIs that rest atop great search plumbing. This, I think, is where Adobe could make a difference. Why not enable developers to create powerful, lightweight interfaces as they do in Flash (e.g. Felix Turner's Flickr Related Tag Browser) and use those on the desktop in tools like Bridge? Flickr has thrived by becoming skinnable in interesting ways. There's no reason that local file management should be less innovative.

For more info on BumpTop, see also the personal site of researcher Bill Buxton. [Thanks to Joel Bryant of Wacom for the link.]

May 14, 2006

Get lean. Stay hungry.

Ouch:

"The old Jetta was trim and compact, with chunky good proportions. The new one — 5.7 inches longer — is so big and amorphous they should have called it Jetta the Hutt. Every manufacturer engages in this incremental generation-to-generation size creep, and if it keeps up, eventually Shriners will drive 1996 Buick Roadmasters and we'll laugh at their comical little cars from the observation decks of our Subaru Imprezas. Somebody, stop the madness."
-- The NY Times auto section^*

The same could be said about a lot of modern software, of course, and a decent backlash is underway. Throw a dead cat & you'll hit some manifesto or other talking about how features don't matter, shouldn't be added, etc.^**

Why is that? A few things come to mind:

• Packing in tons of features makes software take forever to load, and/or makes it run slowly and consume tons of resources. Therefore everyone is penalized by stuff they'll never use.
• The existence of unused features makes it harder to get at the small percentage you actually care about. Locating the right command is like finding a needle in a stack of needles.
• Being presented with a wall of options (especially if the previous set wasn't well understood) makes people feel inadequate. The percentage anyone comprehends grows smaller as the app grows more vast.
• New features give the impression of a neverending, ever longer learning curve. Rather than make things simpler, they risk adding confusion and redundancy, fatiguing the people they're supposed to help.

If this is all true, then aren't the critics right? Yes--if it's true. But what if it weren't? What if:

• New software booted up faster than its predecessor on the same machine?
• It ran faster, felt smoother, and produced better results, without requiring any additional learning from users?
• The interface could grow simpler, more focused, more relevant to your needs (and your needs only)?

In short, if you could take away the pain that comes with a large and growing feature set, yet keep its benefits, would it cool the critics out? Would we then have permission (or blessings, even) to add whole new levels of power and capability?

As you might guess, we're thinking about these issues all the time. In my view we need to define a fairly rigorous "Contract with the Customer" to ensure that before we move on to adding new layers of richness, we do the hard work of addressing the problems mentioned above.

We need your permission to take Photoshop in new directions, to add features that will blow people's heads clean off. And to earn that permission, we need to show that we're nailing the fundamentals. It's not going to be an overnight thing, but I think we're on the right track.

J.

------
^* VW can always take solace in having possibly the coolest parking structure ever. Oh, and once again, a fistful of great ads.

^** To me, though, these critiques ring a little hollow--not unlike the great Onion article, "Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others." That is, to some extent the critics are saying, Don't add anything for anyone except me, that I personally don't need right now.

April 4, 2006

Marching Ants, Hamm's Beer, & Photoshop

MacPaint changed my life, period. I'd fooled with the primitive tools on Apple ]['s and a PCjr., but MacPaint was a whole new animal. At a friend's birthday party in 1984, I laid eyes on their new Mac & dumped my usual "plays well with others" schtick like a hot rock. This machine was the stuff, and the other kids weren't gonna get close until I'd rocked out with MacPaint's cool features (drawing a prison just so I could paintbucket the walls with the brick pattern). I've been hooked ever since.

But who knew that the "marching ants" animation that denotes a selection in Photoshop and other applications comes from the Land of Sky-Blue Waters? According to Folklore.org, MacPaint author & Mac UI pioneer Bill Atkinson was inspired by a Hamm's Beer sign. Groovy. [Via the PhotoshopNews history of the Photoshop toolbar]

On a related note, in covering Apple's 30th anniversary, c|net shows an early ancestor to MacPaint. (Seems like rounded rectangles--always popular, overused in every era--have always been with us). And if you just can't get enough of people waxing Apple's car, check out frog design's shout-out [update: link now MIA], as well as Engadget's review of good, bad, and ugly Apple products from the last 30 years. (Hey, I kind of liked the Network Server! It had a certain ED-209 charm to it...) [Via]

February 10, 2006

Two-hand touch

While working as a designer, I found that the bigger my monitor, the more greasy-fingered art directors inevitably wanted to touch it, to show that they wanted something put *right there*. Soon, however, touching a monitor may be less a party foul & far more useful. Check out this video demonstrating research into two-handed touch screen interfaces. Pretty ridiculously cool, eh?

It reminds me a bit of the Tactiva device shown last year. Plenty of hurdles (size, cost, hands blocking artwork, parallax interfering with small adjustments, greasy fingers, etc.) would need to be jumped to make these approaches mainstream, but it's gotta happen, right? Just yesterday a 3D artist was talking to us about wanting to paint with one hand while using the other to dial exposure & intensity up and down in high-dynamic range images. It's just too natural not to happen. And the sooner these devices move towards ubiquity, the sooner we can start taking advantage of them in Photoshop and other tools (requiring plenty of UI re-thinking & engineering, but potentially very worthwhile).

[Thanks to Colin Smith for the link.]

[Update: Similar approaches are being taken to fields as diverse as jazz and warfare. Thanks to Tom Attix for the links.]

October 12, 2005

Burrowing through large sets of images

The Mini USA site features a clever, immersive Roof Studio that enables you to browse various roof designs and upload your own [link via Kaliber10000]. The zooming interface and ability to see items with matching metadata remind me of Airtight Interactive's related tag browser for Flickr. Working on Adobe Bridge, I find these interfaces motivating. As image collections grow larger, we need to find more powerful ways to cruise through them (ways to form queries & visualize the results). As always, we'd like to hear your thoughts.