Generative Lighting

Trevor-Dennis

Only just installed Configurator 30 minutes ago, so super new to it. There is a 'Generative Lighting' option in the Edit menu, but there is no function of that name that I know of, and nor will it drag to a container. What am I missing?
BTW I thought Configurator died with Flash, so I was pleased to find it when trawling for useful plugins today. Way to go Thomas!

Thomas

Welcome aboard, and thanks for the kind words, Configurator is very much alive. 🙂

Nothing is wrong on your end. CR2 doesn't ship with a hardcoded list of commands; it reads the menu structure directly from Photoshop at runtime. That way new commands show up automatically whenever Adobe adds them, without me having to push an update.

The side effect is that occasionally an entry appears that Photoshop knows about internally but hasn't actually exposed in the UI yet. "Generative Lighting" is one of those, that's why you can see it in the list but can't find it in the Edit menu, and why it won't drag into a container: there's no working command behind it yet.

So you're not missing anything. If Adobe ever activates it, it'll simply start working in CR2 too.

Trevor-Dennis

I love the auto update feature Thomas. It was a lovely surprise to see the same container I'd configured in the release version, there when I opened the beta version. I've been one of the Adobe Community Experts since 2009, so I'll give CR a plug on the Adobe forum once I have some decent screen shots to share.

Thomas

That's great to hear, and thank you, that would mean a lot. I recognised your name and avatar straight away from the community forum, by the way.

What you're seeing there: CR2 keeps your configuration outside the Photoshop version folder, so every installation on the same machine picks it up – release, beta, older versions alike. If you ever want your setup on a second machine, you can export your workspaces and import them there.

For screenshots: feel free to use anything from the landing page at https://configurator.pixelsucht.net. There are videos and captures there you're welcome to reuse, so you don't have to shoot everything yourself.

And do tell me if anything could be better, feedback from someone who's been on the forums since 2009 is worth more to me than most bug reports.

Trevor-Dennis

A few points as I go.
I use three large screens, so have space to have most of the panels open. I'm constantly moving the panels, sometimes for screen shots to illustrate a forum answer, and sometimes because I begrudge moving the cursor more than I need to. So I have short actions triggered by Function keys that set and reset a workspace.

I wondered if I could do this directly with CR. I initially tried buttons to set each workspace (I use three) wondering if the Reset would automatically recognise the current workspace. That turned out to be not the case. So I thought I'd have a button for each workspace aligned three abreast, and a reset button under each workspace button. However, after I created a reset button for the first current workspace, I selected the next workspace (from the menu and not my Actions) the only reset option in CR > Menu was for the first workspace.

This was not a big issue as I reverted to creating the buttons using the Actions which set and reset each woprkspace.

Button and Container Colours
I am experimenting at the moment, and using bright tones for the buttons because they stand out from the container colour, and have good contrast for the button name. Having set the first button with a custom colour, AFAICT the only way to duplicate that for subsequent buttons is to remember the code. I guess I could copy the first one to the clipboard and paste for subsequent buttons. Is there a better way?

Trevor-Dennis

Just to add that I am very impressed with the UI and how easy it is to use. It's entirely intuitive — things behave exactly how you expect them to.

Trevor-Dennis

I've just discovered that I can scroll with the mouse wheel by holding down the Alt key. That was a big moment for me. I'd also discovered that I can expand the bottom window. Handy while setting things up. I'm liking it a lot Thomas.

Thomas

Thanks for the detailed writeup, this is exactly the kind of feedback that helps.

On the workspace reset: what you ran into is a Photoshop quirk rather than a CR limitation. Photoshop's reset command is not generic. The menu entry is literally named after the currently active workspace, so when CR2 captures it as a button, it captures that one specific command. Switch workspaces and the button still points at the old one. Your solution of wrapping set and reset in Actions is the right call, and honestly the only reliable one. Actions give you an explicit target instead of relying on whatever Photoshop considers "current."

On button colours: right now the custom colour value is per container/button, so copying the hex is the practical route.

Trevor-Dennis

This is where I am at right now
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I ran into that contextual menus thing again with Link and unlink layers. With two or more layers linked, Unlink appears in the Layers menu, so I was able to use a tiny Action for unlink. I'm coming up 77 years old and my eyes are not great, so I love all the button and font sizing options. As you can see, I have the buttons maxed out. I might experiment with auto show and hide to reduce the CR panel's impact on my main screen. I never use it in Photoshop Preferences, but it might work for CR. Can I toggle the CR panel on and off with a shortcut? I could have a second version of my main workspace, one with CR and one without, and toggle them with Function key shortcuts. I'll definitely make another CR workspace for Motion. The Photoshop shortcuts are all different with Motion, and I do quite a lot of animation work.

BTW You mentioned my avatar. Since Generative AI got so good I have started featuring the avatar in images.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/trevor-dennis/albums/72177720334918628/

Trevor-Dennis

Did you gather all those tool icons? By heck there are a lot of them. I put them on a single sheet to make it easier to find.