Interface design - Photo apps

[eric j]

Interface designers are likely to be many years younger than I am.

A few years ago they began to give a more "modern" look to, especially, photo apps. At left of the image they started to display the text for albums and folders as white on a black ground, on the right the same for tools etc.

As an exercise in graphic design I admit it looks really cool - BUT for people of my advanced age the words are barely, if at all, legible. I'm sticking with SL as long as possible because I have a lot of apps that will not run on later versions of OSX. Luckily I found that PSE version 11 adhered to black on white text and runs on SL.

I have scoured the Net for photo apps that still offer white on black text, ideally with non-destructive editing and cataloguing like Lightroom. So far Picasa appears to be a possible compromise.

Any thoughts?

eric j

[Xairbusdriver]

I know what you're talking about. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any apps that will help. You might be able to find older versions of PSE, I may even have some disks, I think I started with 9 and I think it had the white background...

Of course, Adobe (and probably most other image editing makers) claim the black background helps cut down on the distractions adjacent colors might cause while editing what's on screen. PSE did decide to offer a lighter, neutral grey app background, but it's also used in Lightroom. "Adobe" (Apple?) always knows what's best for us, you know...

As for 'non-destructive' editing, my first step in PSE is command-j. That makes a copy of the original. I then click the little 'eye' icon and work only on the copy. Of course, one also needs to save as PSD to keep that original... Only reason to mention this is that you might do this in something like GraphicConverter. I've not kept up with that app since OS X arrived, however, so I know next to nothing about it now. OTOH. I'm not sure it works with 'layers'... much less if its app background has succumbed to the "Black is better" movement!

[Xairbusdriver]

Eric,

Had some screen shots I was going to upload for you this morning, but I ran out of time! I'm now 8.5 hours west of home for a pilot training reunion!

The reason for the screen shots was to show you that PSE 11 does not have the dark gray background seen in Lightroom and even PSE 9 or 10. It is not quite white, of course, but the text is easy to read. I should have checked yesterday, but I've been away from doing much of anything with PSE or LR for most of the month. I'll be back home Monday and upload the shots then. OTOH, if your hardware won't run PSE 11, it's a moot point.

[eric j]

XABD,

I wish you a happy experience at your pilots' reunion. It will give you an opportunity to "air" some fine reminiscences.

In my message i now realise that I omitted to say that I managed to find PSE 11 for sale and purchased it quickly (there were only 2 left).

Thanks for the command-j tip.

Until Monday---.

eric j

[Xairbusdriver]

Since you now have PSE 11, I'll save a few bits by not uploading the images, they were not extremely exciting, anyway! On the other hand, if you do see a very dark background and white text, I try to find out where the setting is to change that.

Be aware that we have some severe punishments for people using "puns" at TS! :noon: