How do I prevent Photoshop from stealing focus?

M
Posted By
mm1
Sep 4, 2006
Views
742
Replies
6
Status
Closed
One of the most irritating "features" about Photoshop is its insistance to "steal focus". When I have a lot of pictures to open, and select to open them at once, I want to go to another program and work on something else. But, no, some moron programmer decided that Photoshop should continuously revert back to Photoshop every few seconds, no matter how many times you switch to the other program. WHY someone would design a program this way is beyond all comprehension and common sense.

I have tried the setting for "prevent programs from stealing focus" in Tweak UI but that does nothing to solve the problem. In addition whenever I am scanning documents the same issues arises, it keeps switching back to Photoshop every few seconds. Arghh!!!

Anyone have a solution for this irritating problem?

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

Y
YrbkMgr
Sep 4, 2006
Ever since I upgraded from 512 MB RAM to 2 gig, I’ve not had the problem. I don’t know that they’re related, but when it used to happen all of the time and I agree, it was "desk poundingly" irritating.

All I know is that since I’ve added more ram, I haven’t seen it happen.
P
Phosphor
Sep 4, 2006
Windows problem, and not a Photoshop problem?

I’m not thumbing my nose (as a Mac user)…I’m asking a question.

Hey, MM…have you ever seen Mac OS X’s "Exposé" feature in action? I can have 10 (or more) applications open at once, and with a quick flick of the wrist I move my cursor to the bottom right corner of my monitor and every window I have open shrinks to fit, tiled on mty screen. Click on any Window, and it comes to the front.

Something tells me you’d really like it. And I think there might be a somewhat similar replication of "Exposé for windows.
N
NickSims
Sep 4, 2006
MM1, how much memory do you have? I’ll agree with YrbMgr- more memory definitely helps with PS. I think it is more of a Windows memory management issue (in conjunction with PS requiring a ton ‘o memory).

For example, if I open PS, the memory usage is somewhere over 400mb. With no files open yet. If I just minimize PS, its memory usage drops to below 4mb. I haven’t figured this one out yet.

Anyway, if I try to open a few PS files at once, minimize, then go on to my next program while waiting, I’m generally ok without PS interrupting. Couldn’t tell you why it works though other than the minimizing.

Winxp, cs2.

Nick
Y
YrbkMgr
Sep 4, 2006
Windows problem, and not a Photoshop problem?

Hard to say – never happened with previous versions. So maybe it’s one of those "no program will tax a system like Photoshop" issues. Maybe it’s the complete redesign of the Photoshop workspace allowing you to "roll up" your PS window <wince>.

All I know is, for many, many features in photoshop, what used to work perfectly well under 256MB of ram on Win98SE, now requires 2MB of RAM on WinXP <shrug>.
JJ
John Joslin
Sep 5, 2006
I’m wincing with you Tony. 🙁
Y
YrbkMgr
Sep 5, 2006
yeah, it drives me nuts to have to wait for a windows style dialog to pop up to tell me that it’s going to take 8 or more seconds to perform the step. With already taxed resources, I prefer not to have the overhead, and just keep the status in the status bar at the bottom of the workspace, not with each image. That was a change as a result of the new style of workspace. Sigh.

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections