Photoshop CC 2019: Transform/Resize is constrained by default - Want ability to go back to legacy behavior

Do we need to remove the old PSUserConfig.txt entry after this release is installed? Or perhaps will it be used to define this checkbox initially and then redundant?

Holi cow.
Just installed update.
My Photoshop now ignores my PSUserConfig.txt entry AND the "Use Legacy Free Transform" box is unticked.
This update has reverted my SHIFT-to-Constrain settings AGAIN!
#facepalm

Jeffrey, the team at Adobe really need to do a better job notifying customers of changes like this.

We expect better than to have to exit the software we pay to use, to search online for answers.

We should not need to look into patch notes or forum posts to find out why one of the single most-used tools in all of Photoshop has changed behaviour after 15+ years.

Adobe's rinky-dink approach to customer experience is tiresome.

Jeffrey, this is not good enough. It's been many months since the free transform fiasco began, and you still haven't addressed one of the most glaring (and oft-complained about) problems: inconsistent transform behaviour between layer types. If you're going to ill-advisedly fool around with the default free transform behaviour then so be it, but for God's sake, finish the job!

With "Use Legacy Free Transform" unchecked, shift constrains vector layers, while it unconstrains raster, smart object, and text layers. Not to mention that Photoshop's default behaviour is now largely contrary to the behaviour in Illustrator, After Effects etc. This is poor interface design no matter how you slice it.

It adds insult to injury to refer to the previous (sensible, consistent) behaviour as "legacy" when the new feature remains unfinished, inconsistent and illogical. At the very least, the new behaviour should be called "beta" or "experimental" (and turned off by default) until you finally finish implementing it. 

I'm sure it's very tempting to write off the deluge of criticism you've received over this issue as just being the white noise of the angry internet masses. But honestly, Adobe dropped the ball on this one, and made some objectively and glaringly obvious poor decisions, the solutions to which are likewise glaringly obvious. 

Spending 8 months to add a legacy checkbox smacks of 'throw the complainers a bone to shut them up'. It signals that whoever's in charge of things over there hasn't actually listened to the customers, or genuinely comprehended what Adobe's mistakes were.

Very handy to know before updating.

Do you think users should be informed of such a major change in one of the most used features of Photoshop?
This wastes time in retraining muscle memory for millions of users, and by the looks of things, you've failed to provide an easy way to turn this off.
It is baffling when these kinds of decisions are made.

It's also inconsistent! I worked out quickly that constrained was the new default - sure, I'm ok with that as it is an attempt to standardize across apps - but then I go to resize something else and it requires the old key combo?!! Is there a bug where old documents or elements from old documents retain the old restraining defaults?! It's the only explanation I could come up with...

It’s also misleading. I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer, mouse, Wacom, etc. this change really blows. Also makes me appreciate Affinity Photo more and more.

Why? You could've just taken a quick glance at the "What's new" page.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new.html

Thank you dearly, John.

Thank you. This is an absurd change.

Thank you!!
(did you notice multiple undo is now just command + Z and no longer command + option + Z? I prefer the classic command + Z to quickly undo and redo the last change...oh well.)

So like me, but you may at least change your shortcuts to have it back.

THANK YOU.   It's been 24 hours of torture.   HOW does a major universal industry application like Photoshop arbitrarily reverse a SHIFT key functionality like that.   Holy smokes.   It was COMPLETELY changing my workflow last night.   15 years ... then overnight... mandatory functionality switch???

To be candid, this solution is not acceptable. We pay a lot of money every year to use this software. We shouldn't have to go writing & moving config files around our system folders. At the least, this should be a checkbox option somewhere in preferences or in the UI.

Well they broke that rule a very long time ago and people adopted it as the norm. Now they are trying to fix what they fixed when it wasn't broken

I don't remember it worked previously differently than till now. When it worked like now then?

Don't forget the Crop Tool change in PS CS6.... that was a masterful screw-up if ever!

Nolan - Yeah, they screwed that up too, but at least they put a Use Legacy checkbox there that worked. Check that box and you're good to go. 

this is my biggest problem with 2019

They should let us choose the way we want to confirm changes!

I also became aware of the same thing. . . even using the distortion has caused me grief. . I've wasted too much time and brain energy on CC 2019. I've gone back to 2018

Instead of fixing bugs I hated in CC 2018 (they moved them to CC 2019) now they introduce new ones that what's 'funny' are intended (problematic) behaviours :/

Mark - Fully agree. There are many times where you WANT to move your cursor farther away from the corner to make very minute changes, and now if you go too far, bam, you've committed the transform. So far I have yet to see, although I may have missed it, any kind of mea culpa from Adobe saying that they indeed, did eff it up and will have a fix shortly. In the meantime, the text file works fine but does not increase the safe zone around the frame during a (not so) Free Transform.

I agree, that change was not needed for anything :(

The fact that so many users have had to trawl through forums to find out how to use a tool thats worked perfectly well in one way for years, is ridiculous. 

You're supposed to just "know" that you should click on the What's New below the app name to get to a page that tells you what's new.

But I do see a couple of significant usability issues. For one thing, the What's New is hardly prominent. It could be so it acted more like a warning than marketing, just in case you were interested.

For another, when I look at the page, the whole new Transform and Auto-commit is under the heading "Usability Improvements." Way to be so boring and technical on that page, no one reads it. The headers, imo,  should be the feature names to direct our attention, not "Usability," or "Top Customer Requests." They could even use heads and subheads so they could put Usability Improvements underneath Transform and Auto-Commit. Subheads were invented a while ago, I believe.

But it's not as if they don't tell us—they just do it very quietly. '-}

It's not that you cannot easily find the "feature" under what's new. It's just a bad feature. I did not hard to find out in 3 minutes that they reversed the constrain.

Further, Adobe's Whats New Page did not offer a fix there, someone here supplied it.

Most people find these features while working. Whats New Page would just make you frustrated in advance before finding them.

Finding a "fix," since there wasn't officially a hack to "fix" transform, isn't the same issue as " users have had to trawl through forums to find out how to use a tool thats worked perfectly well in one way for years. . . " You didn't have to trawl to find out how  it worked, only notice that there was a central location for finding out what was new before you went any further. You may think that reading the What's New page just makes you frustrated in advance. I prefer to know in advance what to look out for and test —before I make up my mind that it's a good idea or a terrible idea.

And I do think that better headers, like having a good index (which we don't have for the online guide), helps people quickly find what interests them. Getting their attention is half the battle in good design.

But yes, to fix Transform—since they didn't intend for us to choose to go back or they'd have given us a legacy setting—you do have to search hard, and in fact, had to wait for someone to supply it. Not that I think it's a genuine "fix" if you have to hack code to do it.  <g>

Yep. Merging does add up the Votes from the merged topic (but won't double votes if the same person votes on both the parent and merged doc - of that makes sense)

Good to know votes are merged, I always thought we lose them.

From a practical point this change makes sense... I teach new students and holding shift while constraining is just not natural because every app they use outside of Photoshop doesn't require holding shift.

BUT... The way Adobe implimented this shows their attitude and that they really couldn't care about existing users. They already have our money. They are only interested in getting new clients.

Mostly I see people say other applications also use 'shift' as modifier that let keep proportions, and that I noticed it's true. Can you say names of those other application that is different? Normally it's like in was till now, but even if different then for sure not that all other applications had that way to do it, not even half of them.

"Simple apps" like Powerpoint, Word etc don't use shift - just drag a corner and it keeps proportions. CorelDRAW / PhotoPaint also keeps proportions when using the corner handles. (Well used to when I used it before Adobe)

Me Too. I had to waste a lot of time digging through web searches to find this out. What's the point of the constraint link on the toolbar?

The only I'd like to have is the option to decide behaviour of that, so that was like now or before.

Sorry -- I disagree. By those standards there is no such thing as designing a product for your existing users. No existing user is helped by changing an easy, learned and automatic behavior. It's like re-arranging the keys on a piano. Middle C is one key to the right now! So much more convenient! Thank you piano tuner for forcing me to re-learn my craft! If you want to default the constraint on, that's fine. Just don't use the traditional "constrain" key to unconstrain! 

Do you reply for Max Johnson or mine comment? If mine the best for me would be like that was so far, till CC 2019 release, but I know half of users want it like it's now, so best is if these 2 kind of user groups could choose how they want 'shift' worked during their own session. I think that is possible by adding checkbox to preferences (even if that needed to restart Photoshop), don't you think so?

I can appreciate your perspective on this. And I can almost buy that if they change it in all the Adobe Suite at once, maybe we could get used to it. Kinda. But as someone else mentioned, it's a slippery slope now. So what if you draw a rectangle. Or a circe or a line. Do you also no longer hold shift? When you draw a rectangle in a layout program, you probably don't want it to be a perfect square. So now you have the opposite issue, you are holding shift to draw every diagonal line and rectangle. I dunno, this is such a legacy functionality, I would be curious to understand the research behind it and see why they thought this was a better option.

There was no “research” behind this. This was done to appease 12 year olds and weekend users.

I agree and I did mention that twice in my reply, though in-line with the other requests.
"...and the Maintain aspect ratio constrain link on the toolbar should function properly. " and "...fix the aspect-ratio button in the tool bar..."

Me too. Thanks Rosa. That's an even bigger bug!

I read enough many theards from last 15 years on different forums about Adobe. Conclusion is they won't listen us about some stuff they want us to enforce to get used to. And that will happen for sure as they know majority of us has no choise and will use Photoshop the way that's beeing redesigned for making more money purpose.

I think, they want us crying here together in a closed room so nobody takes a notice.

There are now many reviews out on many sites about the new CC2019 features. If you comment there in the open blogs, this reach many more people so there can read about, check it, an discuss about it.

Maybe Adobe would react slightly quicker than.