WHERE IS PHOTOSHOP CS4 HELP???

JS
Posted By
John_Stanowski
Nov 28, 2008
Views
1746
Replies
25
Status
Closed
Where is the Photoshop Help for CS4? When I click on Help/Photoshop Help I get a browser opening up to some "community" crap. Community is fine but I DIDN’T CLICK FOR COMMUNITY. I’m at work and working against the clock and when I click on Help I need the Help! This is outrageous. Someone please tell me I’m wrong and I can install in-product help somehow.
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B
Buko
Nov 28, 2008
look in the top right corner.

Instead of flying of the handle you could have looked around the page for 3 seconds and found it.
R
Ram
Nov 29, 2008
Once again, the more irate the rant, the greater the probability of PEBKAC.
B
burt
Nov 29, 2008
<RamÛn_G_CastaÒ> wrote:

Once again, the more irate the rant, the greater the probability of PEBKAC.

I agree with the early part of the response, but give up on…

what the heck is PEBKAC?

I just know I will hate myself for asking… 🙂

—
– Burt Johnson
MindStorm, Inc.
http://www.mindstorm-inc.com/software.html
P
PShock
Nov 29, 2008
The has nothing to do with PEBKAC.

Help for CS3 was LOCAL – on the machine. Fast and efficient. Now Help takes you online. That’s fine but what if it’s not possible to be online or you have a really slow connection)?

The strange thing is that there actually is an HTML Help file that’s installed locally – but you have to find it and bring it up manually.

HD/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Help/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/index.html

The default Help behavior SHOULD be to trigger this local file (which includes a link to the online help), not take you directly online. Now, you need to make a browser bookmark for later access – and do it for each app in the suite.

Just like the new adjustment layer panel scheme, it’s a step backwards, IMO. Some things in CS4 are great – others have me scratching my head.

-phil
B
Buko
Nov 29, 2008
They take you online for the most current up to date help.

Are you sure it does not take you to the local help if you are not no line?
JJ
John Joslin
Nov 29, 2008
I wasn’t keen on it at first.

I used the feedback* in the on-line Help and got this reply from Adobe:

Choosing Help > Photoshop Help or pressing F1 takes you to <http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshop/>, the portal page for Photoshop Community Help. On that page, click the Photoshop Help (web) link at the top of the right nav to go to Photoshop web help, or type a search term in the search field to search all of community help.

To go directly to Photoshop web help, which is kept up-to-date, bookmark <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/>. You can also search only Adobe documentation from this page and all Help pages.

If you’re offline, pressing F1 takes you to the in-product help that shipped with the software, which is no longer up to date. To default to going to in-product help, you need to go offline in Photoshop. Instructions for doing so are in the Product Help topic at < http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WS2BE9B3A7-44AF-4 d86-AC08-912E2D9F1ECB.html>.

For more info on Community Help, including ways to use it effectively, read the commenta at <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/>, or read the Help and Support topic at < http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WS2BE9B3A7-44AF-4 d86-AC08-912E2D9F1ECB.html>.

We realize this is a new way to access and use Help, and we’d love your feedback and suggestions for improvement, if you have them.

In fact now I prefer it the way it is.

* Having the feedback function is certainly an advantage!
NT
Nini Tj
Nov 29, 2008
Problem is you cannot really get to the local help files unless you unhook the machine from the network and have then no email, no browsing, no forums, no contact with the surrounding world. So that is really not an option if you are on a broadband that is always connected. Unless you set Photoshop itself to stay offline (see below).

Problem also is that you don’t really get to the Help files by choosing Help in the application but you get to the communal Help and have to click yet once more at link in upper righthand corner (really not all that visible either) to get to the actual Help files.

Problem also is you cannot search the Help files and only find results for CS4 and Photoshop (or whichever other CS4 application you are searching fro Help for) and from the Help files – you get all kinds of other results searching the Help files. Unless you go offline.

Even if you bookmark the page as mentioned above, you are unable to search the Help texts only. The search is too wide and does not restrict itself to for instance Photoshop CS4 only. It also gives you results for CS2 and other versions… and also for Lightroom, the Layers Magazine and other stuff.

So, Help from inside a CS4 application does presently not work the way you expect it and it is really hard to drill down to only the area you are looking for to find any information for what you looked for in the first place.

Pressing F1 (as mentioned above) only lowers the intensity of the light of the display – it does not take you to the Help files.

It might be a new way to access Help. Problem is it doesn’t really work all that well presently. The idea to have the most actual Help files online is fine. If you ever get to those texts… I sure never do no matter which tricks I try.

Presently one alternative is to download the pdf help-file and search within that. The rest is presently quite "broken" as I see it. Unless you set Photoshop CS4 to stay offline (read on).

To set Photoshop CS4 to keep offline is not all that easy to find the option for. Go to Window, Extensions, Connection. Click the dropdown arrow in the dialog that opens and choose Offline options. Tick Keep me offline and click OK. Only then will you be able to browse the Helpfiles locally on your machine.
WG
Welles_Goodrich
Nov 29, 2008
Thanks for that information on how to keep offline, Nini. So far I haven’t found the ‘cloud computing’ help to offer much more than the blue sky of death.
R
Ram
Nov 30, 2008
A very good argument for keeping the Help file online was its lightning fast updating to cover ACR 5.2, a radical new tool. I was skeptical at first, but this move totally convinced me.

You will be pleased to know that the author of the Help files looks in on this forum from time to time, even contributes posts here.

This is the page < http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WS5441FC84-6A84-4 5f8-9041-C3EA3E357507a.html> I have permanently bookmarked.
WB
William_Burton
Dec 19, 2008
IMHO the new online help model is awful. With earlier versions, I could get a speedy answer using help file index. Now I have to slog through inducements to buy products I’ve already bought and a labyrinth of unintuitive hints about where I might want to go. Combined with the revised CS4 interfaces, this constitutes a major stumbling block.

Come on Adobe, release the kind of help files that you provided with every earlier version. If necessary, issue revisions and addenda on the web, if and when they are needed. I have yet to see a program that enhances productivity with web-based help, and frankly CS4 is one of the most egregious offenders.

Next, I’ll have to redigest one of your typically confusing web help items to figure out where you hid the admittedly obsolete help files that you released with CS4 in a shameful rush to ‘push it out the door’. Even if it’s a semi-standard that Microsoft established, it’s inexcusable in a product that costs this much.
R
Ram
Dec 19, 2008
William,

Try the link <

Not justifying the new Help, just providing an ameliorating workaround.
R
Ram
Dec 19, 2008
You can download a (40MB or so) PDF of the Help by clicking on the PDF on the upper left of that page too.
ML
Matthias_Lemcke
Dec 19, 2008
If you want to see a great interactive help system take a look at Cinema 4D. In C4D you can right-click on any item that gives you trouble and a help pops up within half a second. It tells you exactly want you need to know and nothing that you don’t need. No online connection needed, no rummaging in large PDF files.
I’d like to see something like that in CS5.
JJ
John Joslin
Dec 19, 2008
Don’t use the index, use the search box – it’s quicker.

Use the feedback facility to voice your dissatisfaction.
NT
Nini Tj
Dec 19, 2008
You can also turn off the access to the online help in Photoshop itself. Just go to Window, Extensions, Connection and turn it off. Help will then only access your built-in Help-files as was at delivery of software.
SG
steve_guilhamet
Dec 19, 2008
Hi,

You can now change the landing page when invoking Help (F1 & Cmd+/) here:

<http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/>

To change the Help command destination for all your Adobe CS4 products, choose an option:

Community Help (all adobe.com Help and support plus selected community expert content) Help on the Web (product Help system only)
SG
steve_guilhamet
Dec 19, 2008
Be aware that using the local HTML help files will provide you information that is old and has errors.

Also, by using the suggestion Nini offers, you will be turning off access to the Kuler extension, File> Share My Screen (Adobe ConnectNow), and any other future Adobe web service.

If you want to use local files, downloading the PDF will get you better and fuller information. You can use scripting and reassigned keyboard shortcuts in Ps to open the PDF with Cmd+/.
NT
Nini Tj
Dec 19, 2008
Good. It actually works to turn this option on (the one for product Help only for all CS4 apps) and you can actually search in the Help files again without getting results from all over the online world. Thanks. The option before now was extremely frustrating.

That shortcut mentioned above can only be used on English language keyboard layouts. The rest of us cannot use it as the / requires a shift-key to be involved.
SG
steve_guilhamet
Dec 19, 2008
Hi Nini,

Sorry for the prejudice. The intent was to point out that you can reassign the KBSC currently set to open Photoshop Help… to a script menu item.

Of course, I missed the fact that some keyboard layouts may have restricted options and therefore no available key combos to yoink. In that case, one could still mouse to File> Scripts> ‘Think Global, Act Local’ 😉
WB
William_Burton
Dec 20, 2008
To Ramon Castaneda,

Thanks for links. For some reason my post appeared in CS4 Mac instead of CS4 Windows, where I thought I’d placed it. It’s nice to have the PDFs, but they’re no substitute for a fully indexed local HTML or CHF help file. The search engine for web help is ridiculous. No matter what I query, the requested information, if it appears at all, is buried in the midst of many irrelevant or unrelated links. As an added bonus, every link I click on is recorded for posterity by Google-Analytics.

To Matthias Lemcke,

Amen! What you describe is what CS4 help should be, not the seriously degraded counterparts of what Adobe used to provide.
R
Ram
Dec 20, 2008
William,

That’s why I specifically wrote Not justifying the new Help, just providing an ameliorating workaround in #10.
NT
Nini Tj
Dec 20, 2008
Hm. Scripting is not my thing. Severely scripting-disabled…

Changing the shortcut to go to Help I know how to do but there isn’t all that many keys free for making a change if you want to keep as much as possible of default shortcuts (I do out of user-support reasons).

Using cmd+shift+/ – which is also mentioned in the keyboard shortcuts editor, takes me to the search field in the Help menu. Where is that searching? Online or locally? Looks like the Spotlight search.

Changing the shortcut for Help to cmd+shift + ? (which I wanted it to do) it doesn’t accept. It also does not accept the F16-19 on new Mac keyboard (the alu model), which are free. F13 works though (F14-15 are used by the OS, don’t know for what) and takes me to the correct place online provided I previously used the setting you mentioned earlier (which is very good, thanks for that). So F13 it is for me from now on. At least in Photoshop.

(Just out of curiosity I checked in Illustrator CS4 – there the default shortcut for Help is F1 – which is unusable because that lowers the light of the display by default…there you cannot use f13 as it interprets it as F3 which is not free and it doesn’t accept any f-key after 12 or any that the system uses unless I turn off the system use of F-keys – and it doesn’t let me delete F1… so no shortcut for AI CS4 Help so far that works).

(Haven’t checked in InDesign yet – as a long time daily user I hardly ever use the Help there).

And you guys wonder why some of us stop using shortcuts and want everything in menus? Sigh. ;).
NT
Nini Tj
Dec 20, 2008
Have now checked in InDesign CS4 too. Shortcut for Help there is a ? . Which cannot be used on Swedish keyboard layout either as it requires a shiftkey to be reached… (Was able to assign F13 to it though, as I did in Photoshop).

Would be nice of the Help had one single shortcut (with one single key) and the SAME one in all Adobe applications…
NT
Nini Tj
Dec 20, 2008
And Help in DreamWeaver CS4 is F1 like in Illustrator… which lowers light of display by default and therefore cannot be used. Ah well.
I give up on shortcuts and use menus.
HP
High Priest
May 26, 2009
In article , John Joslin
wrote:

I wasn’t keen on it at first.

I used the feedback* in the on-line Help and got this reply from Adobe:

….

If you’re offline, pressing F1 takes you to the in-product help that shipped with the software, which is no longer up to date.

It’s true, online help means Adobe can keep it current.

But, there is another side to the coin. In my opinion, there is still no way to improve on the printed page. For most apps, in the good old days, we’d get a printed manual. Whether online or integral with the software, this is not as good as the old-fashioned books.

OK maybe a book is impossible t keep up to date. But what’s to change anyway? If i am using Photoshop 4 and I’m a newbie, a printed manual needs to hold my hand all the way from rudimentary to the best that CSW4 can do. If Adobe issues an update, it will usually be a bug fix, not a slew of new features. If there are any substantive changes, _those_ can be satisfactorily dealt with by an online page.

If I look at the old-fashioned printed manuals for Photoshop, Word, Excel, QuarkXPress or any of a dozen other "big, complex" apps I have here, they are invariably better than anything we get today for our purchase money.

Yes, a printed manual is expensive to produce. So what? We’re already paying a hell of a price for these big apps. Books are still being printed yet, unlike a software developer, a book publisher must shell out a sizable percentage of the selling price for every book he sells. Adobe only has to pay a handful of dollars for every copy of CS4 it sells.

Makes me wonder what we’ll get when Apple’s reputed $10,000 Final Cut Extreme ships.

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