Photoshop and Murphy's Law

Try unchecking "Prefs>Interface>"Open Documents as Tabs." Also check Enable Floating Document Window Docking, so you can have it both ways. Obvious solution: get a larger monitor, or two monitors.  :+)

You can set a precise Marquee selection size using Style>Fixed Size. No more dragging and wondering.

Bottom line to Murphy's Law in Adobe apps is to know the apps very well. We control them; they do not control us.  :+)

You should try it with a second monitor.  It really likes having a whole monitor just for editing the image.

-Noel

I think we mean TWO monitors, one for editing the image, and the other to contain all the tools, which can then remain open at all times.

Aegis Kleais wrote:

 

When drawing selections with the marquee it's always AMAZING how if you want to drag out, say, a 800px wide selection, Photoshop WILL NOT allow this by 1 pixel.  You can get it to 799px, and if you move your mouse EVER SO SOFTLY to the right, it will jump to 801px.

This is a function of the lack of precision of your mouse, not Photoshop. If your mouse has enough precision, you can indeed do per pixel accurate functions in Photoshop. Photoshop is the reason I use a very precise wired optical mouse by Logitech (the current one is an M500). With it, I can drag out a marquee selection and watch as the size changes pixel by pixel. BTW, with a very precise mouse, I see no difference between the tabed UI or floating windws. On one computer (single display) I use the application frame and on the other with 3 displays, I use floating windows. Even on the 3 display computer, I have no problem moving with per pixel accuracy even though I have the velocity turned way high to be able to move the mouse accross three displays with a swipe.

As far as the modal thing, yeah, that's always a problem...but over the years you get used to it and learn to anticipate.

Yes, two monitors.

You'll never want to use a system with just one monitor again.

-Noel

Aegis Kleais wrote:

 

I have a Razer Naga (about 5600DPI)  Not sure I could get more precise than that!   Maybe it's a setting like mouse acceleration that's causing the issue?

I don't know...check the various mouse options. The only other variable is I'm running OS X 10.6.8/10.8.2, not Windows. However, when I plug in my mouse to my laptop running Win 7 via Parrallels, it behaves the same so I don't think it's a Mac/Win thing and it's certainly not a Photoshp issue.

Are you viewing at less than 100% zoom, i.e. zoomed out, when you experience the loss of precision relative to actual image pixels? If so, then that's not surprising.

Here's my Photoshop layout across two monitors, by the way, just to give you some ideas...

-Noel

I see Astronomy need a lot of sharpening options. My setup has the pallets on left screen perhaps because I was born lefty then converted by my farther to righty

Interesting, JJ.  Do you push the mouse around with your left hand?

-Noel

No but I sit centered between the screens I saw your set up has three displays. Like with a wacom tablet you stear with what you see on screen the mouse or pen is easy to use offset to the right or left depending on what hand you use your head will still be centered. My tool palette is on the left of the work screen like the binding in a book I work on the right screen pickup up tools and layers from the center of my setup. The layers,channels,paths, and the Actions and the History pallets are all near center. Other less used palettes way left some info and setting palettes will pop out on the right side of my work display.

I don't have three displays at the moment, just two.  One day I'll add a big new one in the middle, but I'm waiting for a specific design to mature (Dell U3013 seems promising).

It's an interesting subject, this picking one side or the other for Photoshop panels...  It may have to do with what side of the brain is the "technical" hemisphere and what side is "artistic". 

But in my case I think it was more a matter of the left monitor having started out as being the one and only monitor, then adding the new one on the right (seemed logical; pixel coordinates increase to the right, with the upper-left corner of the left monitor being 0,0).  Then I moved all the panels off of Photoshop, which was originally entirely on the left monitor, onto the right one.  In general, if one wants more space, one just imagines making a window wider on the right side, no?

There is, of course, no technical reason the left monitor has to be primary, and pixel coordinates can of course be negative.

I did think about what I would change around when I add a third monitor in the middle...  Would I want to have Photoshop features and functions on all three of them, or just the big middle one for editing and one of the two on the side for panels.  That way the third one could host reference material, browsers, etc.  I do still have a few panels (like Brush and Brush Presets) that I only occasionally show, and like you I have them showing in my left monitor (main display); perhaps those could find a permanent home on the left monitor.

-Noel

Noel Carboni wrote:

 

I don't have three displays at the moment, just two.  One day I'll add a big new one in the middle, but I'm waiting for a specific design to mature (Dell U3013 seems promising).

30" 16:10 100dpi 2560x1600 pixels

I would much prefer if they would produce a higher resolution display something like a

20" 16:10 150dpi 2560x1600 pixels.

I found the old IBM t220 22" 16:10 204dpi 3840x2400 pixels resolition was to high for the font size used in most application user interface and current video adapters do not suppotrs it 3840x2400 pixels you need to drive it with more the one adapter as 4 1920x1200 displays with desktop spread across the four logical displays.

Nice part about the 100 ppi 30 inch display is that my current 20 inchers are 100ppi, so turning them up sideways along both sides of the big one would yield "ears" that would match up darned near perfectly.

I think HDMI 1.4 and certainly the newest HDMI standard handle sufficient resolutions for high ppi displays.

-Noel

Well...I like using 3 displays, two are 30" NEC (center and right with Lightroom) and a 24" left (for Photoshop panels). Depending on what I'm doing, I can have Bridge full screen on the right with Photoshop or InDesign or Illustrator in the center and application panels on the left, smaller display. Or, if I'm working in Word, center and Bridge (right) and Safari (left), it's pretty handy to have each display have a task and purpose. Yeah, it would be "better" to have 3, 30" but I don't have the space :~( The 24" is fine for panels and "other" use...

See:

Jeff, do you feel any neck strain with that much display space?  It's something I've been wondering about.

-Noel

New machine will be set up today have not purchased ram yet I see Dell has 8GB ECC ram for $108 and I see other have 8GB registered dimms for $79 would same me  $116 for 32GB.  Also Wacom has a new 13" 1920x1080  169DPI LED LCD tablet display for $1000 that looking good to me http://www.wacom.com/creative/products/pen-displays/cintiq/cintiq-13hd I'm a little colorblind so 75% aRGB is fine with me.

Noel Carboni wrote:

 

Jeff, do you feel any neck strain with that much display space?  It's something I've been wondering about.

Nope...most of the work is done on the center display...I only look to the right (right 30" either Lightroom or Bridge for image selection) or left (24" Photoshop panels) when I need to. I use command keys where I can remember them...

I've been using multiple displays since–well maybe 1994-1995 and Photoshop 4-5. I like setting up a multiple display so that I can use muscle memory to use/see what I need to use and work.

I can easily adapt to a single display workspace like a laptop on the road...there I use PS, Bridge & LR full screen and use the Apple Command/Tab function to move between active apps.

So, I can work single display or multiple display, but the single display is considerably less efficient. Course, I'm not really trying to do much on the laptop when on the road other that confirm imports (into LR) and selection edits.

Noel Carboni wrote:

 

I think HDMI 1.4 and certainly the newest HDMI standard handle sufficient resolutions for high ppi displays.

 

-Noel

There is no problem handling the high resolution there are two problems though.  One is font size and the other the huge number of pixels involved when you deal with higher resolution.  A font the characters are 1/4" 1/4" on a 100dpi display. That font on the IBM 200DPI display character size would be 1/16" x 1/16"  on and apple retina 300 DPI display would be 1/36" x 1/36"  and on a Samson galaxy 4 400DPI display would be 1/64" x 1/64" . A 30" 16:10 display with a 400DPI resolution would display  10176x6360 = 64,719,360 Display adapters can not handle 64MP  if they could you can display any camera image using actual pixels on a 30" 400dpi display.

Likewise, I've been using multiple displays a long time, but not that big.  Good to hear it's not taxing.  I hadn't thought it would be, and maybe it would even be helpful (on the theory that more exercise is better).  Thanks for confirming.

-Noel

JJMack wrote:

 

A font the characters are 1/4" 1/4" on a 100dpi display. That font on the IBM 200DPI display character size would be 1/16" x 1/16"  on and apple retina 300 DPI display would be 1/36" x 1/36"  and on a Samson galaxy 4 400DPI display would be 1/64" x 1/64"

A character which measures 1/4" x 1/4" at 100 ppi would measure:

1/8" x 1/8" at 200 ppi

1/12" x 1/12" at 300 ppi

1/16" x 1/16" at 400 ppi

JJ's point is that without complete UI adherence to the scaling settings (not that any application we know of fails at that ), a high ppi display could make things virtually unusable.

The task of being flexible enough to adapt to the user's display needs AND flexible enough to work on multiple platforms must be pretty difficult.  That said, it's been a LONG TIME since people have been asking Adobe for bigger UI elements.  I wonder whether the Retina display work is flexible enough to expand or contract to other sizes.

-Noel

I know what JJ's point was! I only corrected the calculations.

Sorry, I figured you knew, but I was just segwaying back to discussing his point that the world isn't ready for high ppi.  But without high ppi the world won't make itself ready.  But the monitor makers won't make high ppi displays until the world is ready...  Ad nauseum.

Unfortunately, OS makers now all seem to think we'd all prefer a 9 inch tablet to a big monitor anyway.

-Noel

Noel Carboni wrote:

 

Sorry, I figured you knew

No problem

Unfortunately, OS makers now all seem to think we'd all prefer a 9 inch tablet to a big monitor anyway.

Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass

Yes I made a mistake I was thinking more about pixel count and not size  while the objjct size is cut in half when an area pixel density is changed from 100dpi to 200dpi the number of pixels increases four fold. I used the pixel  factors not the size factors.  I used 4,  9 and 16 when the size factors were 2,3 and 4.  Sorry...