Digital BW, The Print

> On Dec 9, 2016, at 7:21 AM, Myron Gochnauer goch@... [DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint] <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> The observations:
> The Adobe help functions for Photoshop and Lightroom are seriously inadequate for quick information and guidance.
> Help books for these programs have become an industry unto themselves. In attempting to be comprehensive most books make it difficult to answer specific questions that intermediate users, especially, face in the middle of a project.
> Good help for computer programs *is* possible.  Some are regrettably history - - the DOS word processor XyWrite’s early manuals were nearly perfect - - while others are limited to relatively small markets - - the text markup and formatting system LaTeX has a number of add-on help systems that are. . . well. . . helpful!

The days of DOS manuals are long gone, there have been so many changes in the industry since then that a comparison is pretty much meaningless. Back then, you got a fabric covered slipcover box, with sleeves for all the discs, and usually not one, but two big printed paperback books; certainly that was what Adobe sent for many years.

Help, at least on the Mac, is OS level help, and will get irrelevant results for other applications.

Some apps have excellent dedicated help as a separate item at the bottom of the Generic Help Menu list. Adobe has two items there, neither of which are Photoshop or Lightroom specific Help documents; let alone comprehensive User Guides; oddly, the one that takes you to the Adobe forums takes you to the plug-ins section.

On-line help and forums are a reality of modern life. The truth is that I seldom use that route for Adobe apps. For apps with much smaller audiences, a Google (or other) search brings up little or nothing, so you are obliged to use the help that comes with the app (and I find that such apps therefore tend to provide a traditional user guide); with Adobe apps there are many search hits, and I get my best results doing a general web search on my keywords, which may or may not take me to a related Adobe forum, or an expert’s website, or a video, etc. That’s the way to find answers, and if they don’t appear to be out there, then you have to leave a message on a forum (which may require signing up, and signing in) and wait, in hopes that someone answers, and that the answers are useful. 

Yes, Adobe apps are complex, require a new way of thinking, and a new vocabulary (or new definitions for an existing one), and are not intuitive to the new user, or sometimes to any user. Yes, a book or video series on learning to use them is recommended. And yes, it generally costs extra. Part of the cost of doing business. And yes, by the time you reach intermediate status, resources covering exactly what you are doing get much thinner on the ground.

Give thanks that you speak the most common language for use of these apps, or you would have yet another issue to complain about: that most Help, most books, and most tutorials are in English.

C. David Tobie
Senior Project Manager
Workflow & Color




Durst Phototechnik 
AG
Julius-Durst-Strasse 4
39042 Brixen, Italy
P.: +39 04 72 81 01 11
www.durst-group.com
cdtobie@...

skype: CDTobie