Photoshop has a wide range of tools that let us change our photos in almost every way we can imagine. But some of these tools are completely useless for most of us. In this fun video, Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect talks about five tools Adobe Photoshop has still kept in its 30-year long life, even though they have become pointless. Some of them are just obsolete, and others have much better alternatives that are also customizable. Let’s see if you still use any of these or you think they’re useless as well.
1. Pencil tool
A funny thing is that the Brush Tool mimics real pencil way better than the Pencil tool does. Using the Pencil tool with the same tip and the same settings looks like you’re drawing in MS Paint.
The Pencil tool is a “dumbed down” version of the Brush tool. It doesn’t have anti-aliasing, so it only paints with sharp and very pixelated edges. It doesn’t support variations in the pressure when using a graphic tablet, and it doesn’t show transparency. The alternative to the Pencil tool is, as you’ve probably concluded, the Brush tool. Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever used the pencil tool in my life.
2. Color Replacement tool
This is another useless tool in the Brush group. It’s used to modify the color of the object, but very destructively. There are many other ways to change the color of something in Photoshop and they’re way better than this. They’re more precise and, more importantly, non-destructive. You can check out some solutions here, here, and here
3. Pattern Stamp tool
Here’s another tool I’ve never used except when I tried to figure out what on Earth it’s supposed to do. It’s under the Clone Stamp group and it simply paints a pattern you choose from the gallery. And once again, pretty destructively. Thankfully, there’s a better way to do it. Create a Pattern adjustment layer, invert the mask, and simply reveal the pattern with a white brush. With this method, you can move the pattern, scale it, or even replace it for a different pattern.
4. Magic Eraser tool
The Magic Eraser tool is yet another tool I’ve also never used and probably my personal favorite when it comes to useless tools. It has more or less the same tolerance as the Magic Wand, only it doesn’t select the area – it deletes it. And it’s tragic rather than magic, as Unmesh jokingly says. The Magic Wand tool is actually a better way to delete certain areas of the image. You can make a selection with it, adjust it as necessary, and add a mask. This way you can mask out the areas you don’t want in the image without deleting them permanently, and you can always get them back.
5. Rounded Rectangle tool
This one is, logically, under the Rectangle group. It lets you draw a rectangle with rounded edges and adjust their roundness in several ways. That’s all cool – but you can do exactly the same thing with the regular Rectangle tool. So what’s the point of the Rounded Rectangle tool then? There’s a similar “problem” the Triangle tool. It lets you draw a triangle, ever round its edges the same way as you can with the rectangle. But since you also have a Polygon tool, you can simply draw a polygon with three sides and still get a triangle. I personally never even thought about this… But that’s probably because I’ve only used this tool to draw regular rectangles, circles, and custom shapes for some DIYP thumbnails. As far as I’m concerned, I could easily live without any of these tools in Photoshop (and probably a few other ones). What about you? Do you also think they’re useless, or you make use of them? Also, would you add any other tools to the list? [Top 5 Useless Tools in Photoshop! | PiXimperfect]
