Different Actions, Same Result

Long ago, I had a chat with someone about the fact that there are too many different ways in Photoshop to do the same thing. He believed this was a bad thing, while I didn’t find anything wrong with it. Having thought about this afterwards, I have formed my opinion about it, with arguments.

Let’s take Word for example, and say we want to copy and paste something. How many ways are there to do that?

• Ctrl + drag = copy, paste
• right-click + drag = Copy Here
• Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V = copy, paste
• Edit > Copy, Edit > Paste = copy, paste
• right-click > Copy, right-click > Paste = copy, paste

There are five different ways, maybe even more!

Now, in my opinion this is a good thing, because I like Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. But I know others who cannot grasp the concept of shortcuts and use the Edit menu, while someone else I know feels very comfortable dragging it with the right mouse button. In the end we all perform the same action in the way we feel most comfortable with, instead of being forced into one solution.

I believe this gives a program power. Yes, you should have at least one easily accessible way of doing things (the menu), but it doesn’t hurt to have some shortcuts and right click options as well to make others happy.

In conclusion, the fact that Photoshop has a toolbar, shortcuts, menu options and icons is very nice in my opinion, because it allows me to use whatever method I like.