Why I hate Adobe

Here, in a nutshell, is why I hate Adobe:

Photoshop: Window→Workspace→Keyboard Shortcuts & Menus…

Illustrator: Edit→Keyboard Shortcuts…

Do the Photoshop and Illustrator teams not have one another’s phone numbers or email addresses? Do they work on opposite sides of the country? Why the hell would you have an inconsistency like this? Small things like this needlessly increases the learning curve for two similar and interdependent programs (published by the same company!). This is just one minor inconsistency, too. Illustrator and Photoshop have some features that seem at first glance to be identical, but with just enough inconsistency (particularly in keyboard shortcuts) to make switching from one program to the other ridiculously frustrating for a new user.

And by the way, the reason I dug these menu items out was because Photoshop and Illustrator both by default use command-H for something other than hiding the program. Classy, Adobe. Real classy.

Of course there’d be a giant outcry if Adobe did go through Photoshop and Illustrator to tighten them up and make transitioning between the two easier since the professional design community has long since learned to use the two programs despite their different quirks. I just have to wonder why Adobe didn’t keep these programs in sync all along; they’ve controlled both programs from their earliest roots, so it’s not like they didn’t have a chance to keep them congruent.

6 responses to “Why I hate Adobe”

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  1. chezfugu says:

    I’ve found similarly odd incongruencies between PShop and InDesign. And they won’t fix the Dvorak-Qwerty shortcut issue, either…

  2. Matt says:

    Word.

    Speaking of which, this idea seriously reminds me of the MSFT monolith. And Autodesk (formerly Discreet) too. Heck, Apple is the only company I can think of that comes halfway close to pulling off a unified UI across a decent spread of apps.

  3. Ian Beck says:

    It’s a little baffling to me. And a bit ironic that a company whose apps are primarily used for design isn’t all that hot at design…

  4. Eric says:

    I have been trying to learn Photoshop for about two years now, and I’m amazed at how difficult it is to perform even the simplist tasks. A little user friendliness would be nice for $700. Adobe sucks.

  5. IHATETHEREGISTRATIONPROCESS says:

    OMG I HATE the process. I want to work on PHOTOS. Not WASTE MY TIME on NEEDLESS signing up for Adobe sites and all that goes ALONG with it!!!!!

    If I WANT to do that LATER I MIGHT but OMG this is the WORST process I have EVER come across!!!

    I think I’ll take it back just to PROTEST and let THEM eat the cost!

    There are so many OTHER programs out there that are FREE. It makes NO SENSE to WASTE MY TIME with using THESE!

  6. Dan says:

    After spending thousands of $$$ on overpriced, hard-to- use software, Adobe wants me to jump to the Creative Cloud.

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