Adobe Photoshop : Enough is Enough
January 12th, 2007 . by polyGeekNote: much that follows is sarcasm. I can’t wait to play with all the shinny new toys in CS3/Flex/Apollo….
Adobe, I’m really pissed at you. I just read a review of some of the features that Photoshop CS3 has coming, a few of which aren’t in the beta. They sound amazing. So amazing that I’d really like to get back into photography just for the joy of photo editing. But you know what? I don’t have the fraking time!
Why don’t I have the time? Well, let’s go down the list:
First and foremost as a professional Flash developer I have to stay on top of all the features. I have a pretty good handle on that. AS3 is a challenging switch but it’s coming along. If that were it I’d be golden but noooooo.
Because there’s Flex to learn. I already have an idea for a project to build in Flex so I have to get that going. Flex is awesome and I’ll be a better developer for learning it. And oh yeah, I also have to learn the ins-and-outs of Eclipse. Nice, lets just add another IDE to master while we’re at it.
And gee, I better not take too long getting up to speed on Flex because, wait for it, Apollo is coming out soon. The good news is that it sounds like Apollo development will be very similar to Flex. Hopefully it will just be adding onto the feature set. So that helps but it’s still a lot to get a handle on.
I almost forgot, the Flash 9 authoring tool is going to have a new interface and lots of new features, along with all the other CS3 apps. From what I’ve seen I really like it. It won’t take much to get comfortable with it but you know there will be those times when you try to do something you used to do and can’t find the control or something. That will put a small dent in development time until it becomes second nature.
So my dance card is full. I have to keep up with the new features in Flash plus learn Flex and Apollo. That’s doable.
But wait, there’s more. You just added those really cool new features to Photoshop. Now I’ve been around Photoshop for a long time so it’s pretty easy to pick up the new features. That’s not the problem. It’s that I don’t have time for photography any more. Really, photography is very time consuming and I’d love to get back to it if there were time but it just isn’t going to happen. But it’s very tempting with PS CS3.
Adobe, you’ve created some amazing applications that in turn allow your users to create amazing things. Think back to the Stamp tool, how cool was that when it came out. And then someone made a deal with the devil and created the Healing Brush. Plus Flash/Flex/Apollo are the foundation for RIA and it’s possible that Apollo is going to put a huge dent in Microsoft.
So kudos to you Adobe. But before you relax too much I want to be the first person to make a feature request for CS4. Just add this one feature to CS4 and the universe will officially be yours. You ready? Here it is: a Freeze Time button. Just one little button that we can press that will freeze time so that we can learn and play with your products at a nice leisurely pace. You know what. If that’s too much to ask for then just come out with Slow Time for CS4 and then when it’s perfected you can come out with Freeze Time in CS5.
I totally agree with you. I feel the same but also see this as a “luxury problem”. Here we sit and have too many cool things to do and learn. Just think about all those that really don’t know what to do with their lives. At least we have plans for what to do with our professional career :)
(I wrote about this some time ago at Flashmag: http://flashmagazine.com/1319.htm)
J
I have the feeling too that this is too much. I was wondering lately if no one ever posted about this subject.
A few years ago it was no problem, I did it all: PHP, MySQL, ActionScript, JavaScript, CSS and all kinds of interactions between those.
2006 was overwhelming for me. I found frameworks for each language. Like Symphony, Prado, CakePHP. There is Ruby, on Rails, lots of ActionScript frameworks, AS2, AS3, Mtasc, FlashDevelop, Eclipse, FLEX, jQuery, Prototype, scriptaculous, Ajax, million CSS tricks because something goes always wrong in some browser, SQLite, PostreSQL, and millions of open source programs / prototypes / functions you might use instead of developing your own, but it just take so much time to find and test what’s out there…
One option is to forget about all new things and do things the you are used to. But then it’s shocking to discover things that allow your work to be done in half the time. But they still require much learning. And one of those time saving solutions must be chosen. Choosing takes time…
Anyone out there feels like this?
But things will be different in the year 007.
Less work, more photos, more music… I decided so :)
Good on you Pazos. There certainly is a fine line to be drawn between spreading yourself too thin by trying to learn everything in your field or just focusing on a narrow portion and becoming an expert at that. It doesn’t help that every job posting asks for people who are adept at everything from graphic design to database admin.
I hope 007 is all you expect.
@Jensa, Nice article. I remember reading it a while back. You speak much truth. :-)
I’m not sure if the sarcasm in my post really came through. Yes, I feel a little overwhelmed with all the changes but I also feel like a kid on Christmas morning. What’s a devGeek to do?
I can see where you are coming from, but I don’t agree. I do not believe that a application should freeze and allow everyone to “catch up.” If you are not going to try out new tools and speed up your work flow when the app first comes out (and theres plenty of news and examples of new tools) I don’t think you will 6 months down the road. The internet is a fast moving place and us who are involved should be the first to realize and use it to our advantage. Keep the upgrades coming, if there are better ways of me doing what I do everyday, I want to get my mitts on them asap.
As far as multiple new products, Apollo, Flex etc. I think new specialized apps are awesome. If you aren’t trying to learn new applications for the reason of learning new applications I believe you will naturally pick up the application that suits your job the best. Narrowing tools down opens doors in multiple areas. Flash is no longer the do everything application. I won’t be sorting through animation tutorials trying to find OOP practices and AMF packages. Everything is narrowed down. The sites covering the application, the news about the application, the messageboards and the feedback to the developers.
I feel that wanting progress to take a break while we catch up is counter productive. As the internet progresses I believe we will see less people who are jacks of all trades. Being able to put php, xhtml, actionscript and seo on your resume is great. But there comes a time when we all benefit from specializing and becoming the best we can in our field. It’s neat to dabble in everything, but sometimes it just doesn’t make sense.
@Dustin:
Note to self: sarcasm does not work in written form!
I agree that new tools are fun. See my comment above about Christmas morning.
I definitely agree that we, web developers, can afford to become more specialized. I used to think I needed to learn PHP, and mySQL, etc. to round out my resume. Now, I just want to be the best damn Flash Developer I can. Having a general idea of how other languages, environments is great but there’s no need to be good at everything.
Haha well shoot. I don’t mean to write a huge spiel when you were making a joke. Monday morning… thinking too literal. My apologies.
Dustin.
@Dustin, at least we have managed to digress into something I think is worth stating: a person can be just a Flash Developer and still be in high demand.
Its true. I think if you are just a flash developer and good enough to support that, you are in more demand then a jack of all trades.
i always wished i had time to learn after-effects… that thing is awesome.
Have you guys seen how many products Adobe has in its catalog? It’s absurd, there’s like 30 or 40!
Actually did you know that Adobe is the 5th largest software producer in the world now that it has acquired Macromedia. I’m not sure who the other four are, i guess Microsoft, Oracle and then some business software people like PeopleSoft or SAP or something … probably way off, i’m going to go look it up
oh apparently i was wrong … odd :-(
It’s MS, Oracle, FirstData, SAP, Accenture?, Google, Yahoo and then Adobe is 15th …
I guess it depends on what you call a software company
Ah, but if we counted quality software then Adobe would be #1. :-)
This is a very useful discussion on niche - generalization vs specialization. Dustin and Abe are correct, Polygeek too (master of sarcasm?), that a damn good Flash expert can be enough, really, at this point. Or specializing further into Flex or Apollo, whatever comes along next. Usually anyone with a good handle on those would at least be familiar with other applications picked up along the way. Not all things to everyone, but a few other skills like HTML, ASP or Ajax. Whatever one picked up enroute to Flash should be enough.
Learning a little about everything can be fun for it’s own sake, but if you want to make a name for yourself, you have to focus pretty much on that. I have always had a problem with finding too many things interesting and wanting to learn and do them all. Nowadays i am (finally) learning to ask myself first, “what do I want to really do most of all?”
Thats very true, it is important to specialise, it doesn’t hurt to specialise in one thing and have a bit of knowledge in a few others, in fact it can make your specialisation more powerful. For example if you have a flash animator who knows after effects to some degree they have access to lots of extra capabilities that ordinary animator man doesn’t
there’s my two cents worth anyway.
And yep, adobe is always #1 :-) I should really be getting paid by them for all this shameless promotion
So say we all….. ;-p
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