I haven’t tried CS6 but I’ll go on anyway. I'm sure it's great based on what I’ve seen alone. But as a user of adobe products for a number of years, I’ve gotten to notice there still are a lot of stagnant, awkward, stiff, irritating, slowing down elements found in the navigation and user interface on cs3-cs5, that I’m sure could have been eliminated or improved on at least from 2005 or 2007 onwards. I find some of these things inexcusable and unprogressive from bad traits that defined 1980's and 1990's general computer navigation.
CS5.5 has lessened this a little and is more fluid in bits and pieces but for those using cs3-cs5 and in general, I find some things just horrid. As a graphic designer no one is supposed to admit the flaws or irritations of these programs. We must hail them as god, never criticize, and always adjust to new things which I think is a bit fascistic and silly
The way the tools, options are laid out can be improved to be quicker, and easier to find and use. Using your voice as a commanding system would be helpful as well.
A lot of cmds are too complex to remember; they can be simpler or resemble the name of the tool or option. It makes a chore to follow this system.
The way in which you lose floating side boxes, and the amount of tools or names hidden in the bars sometimes seem random and it’s always a constant search to find them in case you forget where they are.
The inability to open cs4 or 5 files in cs3 is just beyond extremely annoying. Why shouldn't you be able to open cs1 or 2 files or Photoshop 9 files as well? Every five years work expires as well?
The layering system gets tricky and seems that a lot of things don't work when you normally move things. It’s about going back, remembering and clicking on this or that, looking it up to make everything work. Sometimes which leaves you in a rut and wastes a good amount of time. You will always find this even after you've been using it for years.
The use of the fill paint/airbrushing, clone tool, lasso tool, pen tool, history being two steps back can be vastly improved to be much better to use
Masking and tools that have more complex features should find a way be automatically done or sampled. They can also have less complex steps and the ability to be previewed, automatic or simpler (in case you can't remember how to do something or aren't getting it)
A lot of the special effects, and blending modes are useless, outdated, super-ugly and don't resemble true darkroom effects (such as polarization, and bas-relief for example) which they could much more vividly done. There also could be more options that are closer to repro cameras/CTP software for half toning and more complex digital effects.
Having to press or get used to pressing multiple keys or clicks for the most basic things simultaneously can be reduced to be easier
Adjusting text, new documents, photos should have a smoother, quicker navigational experience where things a lot of room to be, clicked back, re-done, saved in the wrong place etc...
In design could use more shapes, include more features that illustrator has, and possibly even Photoshop to save time.
There should be a way to remind you of features, complex things you've forgotten, other than history and daily usage/practice of the programs
The help should resemble more of "visual -learners" guide books with voice features.
There are a lot more
Regarding other things:
I think the price encourages more piracy and allows people to not have a concept of what is means to owning software.
The loss of a manual or lessening of them for certain programs is a loss because it's always useful to own physical info you can flip through while looking at your program.
I think adobe should make entirely better products for professionals or people in the industry rather than spoon feeding the same software to all.
They should also make less expensive add-ons like before for graphic software.
I hope they never make solely download only software as well. That would take away from the notion of physically owning the software and cause problems relating to backups and installers.
What do you think? What do you think adobe could have improved on over time that they haven't?
