Preserved Topic: PS 5.5 question

I know that this should probably be on the PS board, but I have yet to find anyone that has an answer to this question, so I though I would stump you all with it too.

If you go to the history pallet in PS 5.5 and go to the pallet options, you have a choice between linear and non-linear history. Linear is the standard default for the history pallet and works fine, but what is the deal with the non-linear option? I tried to play with for about two hours last night and then check all over the web and found nothing about it. It's like it dose not exist.

I spoke to my PS teacher at school. She said that she has heard at PS seminars that it is a non-functional option that was ditched at the last minute by adobe and was intended to make it possible to edit your history without removing all the actions below it.

If you are in non-linear mode, you can actually drag a specific action from the history pallet to the trash icon and remove it, and it dose not delete all the steps below it! However, it dose not actually remove the action from the image you are working on? Sound strange, ya, I know it dose, but try it and see what you can find.

Any thoughts are more than welcome, because I am stumped!



~Anything with wheels, chips or tits is going to cause you trouble sooner or later~

The non-linear history does indeed exist, although I don't like to use it. I guess the easiest way to explain it is to first explain linear history. Linear history is just that. It follows a straight path. If you go back to a certain point in the history, then do something new, you have changed the history from that point forward.

Non-linear history does not follow the same straight path. Let's say I have gotten to a certain point and want to back up. So, I click back a few steps in the history. Then I do something new. Rather than writing over all the history steps from that point on, it tags my new steps on to the end of the history. It's as if the step I went back to the first time were a fork in the road--a branching point for two different history paths. So, if I wish, I can actually go back to a point in my previous path--before I backed up the first time. I hope that makes sense.

The problem I have with it is that there is no visual indication from which step those two branches split off. I get confused trying to back up to a previous branch.

BTW, you mentioned it exists in 5.5, but it also exists in 5.0, which I'm using here at work. 5.5 may work a little differently, but when I have tried it at home, I didn't notice anything. Someone else may know if there are any differences between those versions.

Yikes! That is amss confusing trying to keep up on where the two paths sperate. You are right on that one for sure. I can see how this option may be usefull in theory, but it is not as practical s it sounds. Thnx!

~Anything with wheels, chips or tits is going to cause you trouble sooner or later~

Aye, non-linear history is a pain, but it can also be useful. Say you do something, then go back several steps and try it a different way. Blech! That way's worse! Now you want what you did the first time back. Rather than repeating it all again, just click on its spot in the non-linear history and wallah! There you go. If you really want some bits of history gone, you can just drag them to the trashcan.

i like the non-linear history because i'm so careless and i sometimes press the revert button an dlose all my work, but this way a history entry appears saying open and i can go back and save... phew <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/biggrin.gif">

There is no spoon...sort of speaking

That's an excellent addition they added to 5.5. You can revert to the last saved version, but it doesn't clear the history. Before, if you reverted, you were done for.