[Closed] Simple Photoshop CS5 question...

I'm going to try a nice software metaphor:

Start Microsoft Word
Open a plain text document
Make some text bold, add some headings and a diagram
Now try saving it back as a plain text diagram...

Stupid Word complains. Says it will throw away my formatting if I save as plain text. That's ridiculous eh? 🙄

I don't expect to have to pay through the nose for software which then needs to be customised to perform simple functions

"simple functions" this is why you don't need photoshop.
there must be other software out there to do the basic tasks you require?

One more go, for the hard of understanding:

Open your pic.
Rotate canvas (image menu).
Adjust Levels if desired (shortcut is L)
Adjust curves if desired (M)
(Or, if that is too confusing use one of the other contrast adjustment tools, they all are different ways of doing the same thing)
Are you sure you like it?
Save (S)

Until you close the file the History line lets you undo anything you like.

And if that is all your doing then as MrsMith says, you are wasting your money on full Photoshop. Try paint.net, Elements, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp - all of which are free or considerably cheaper.

Or use CaptureNX which is hundreds of pounds cheaper and (IMO) has better support for that kind of basic non-destructive editting of Nikon NEFs.

Ha! Programmer meets end user!... Irresistable force meets an immovable object! A very good friend of mine, and veteran fellow photoshop user of several years summed this up perfectly using the following acronym....

"Its a PICNIC error, Problem In Chair, Not In Computer! "

Also called a PEBCAK:

"Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard"

Has he left the room?

"Stands up & punches the air"

I open a .psd and select "save for web..." and get:
[img] [/img]
on a machine with at least 2GB free (bearing in mind Photoshop is using 900MB to edit a single image). No link to help to explain what this means or how to fix the problem, no tick box to say "don't show me this again"

so then I close the file, having only saved a reduced jpg version, and it says "do you want to save your changes ?". But I haven't made any changes, so it isn't protecting me from anything, just some lazy programmer seems to have assumed that [b]any[/b] action modifies the .psd. I checked and it doesn't even save the reduced size I used, so if I go back and try again it has jumped to full size again 🙁

What are the pixel dimensions of your image?

The warning pictured has nothing to do with computer performance - and everything to do with a sense of propriety and respect for web audiences/bandwidth.

What are the pixel dimensions of your image?

4288x2848 like every other shot from my camera

The warning pictured has nothing to do with computer performance - and everything to do with a sense of propriety and respect for web audiences/bandwidth.

but at the time the warning is displayed it does not know the final size because it hasn't given me the opportunity to tell it, unless you think it is able to anticipate my choice using telepathy ? FYI it always assumes full size...

"4288" har-de-har.

No. Save for web is not a tool to alter the pixel dimensions of an image. As I said before, it's an optimisation tool, allowing fine control over compression settings and colour palette.

What size is your screen? I would guess perhaps 1024 x 768 pixels?... then why in the name of f00k would you -or anyone else - want to look at an image on a website where you could only see 1/16th of the content at any given time?

Think about it. No, really... THINK. Please.

Save for web is not a tool to alter the pixel dimensions of an image

so why does it contain boxes to specify the dimensions? And surely since most web images will be smaller than the original, it should ? I draw your attention to the boxes bottom right which allow choice of dimensions and compression method - are these just to kid novices to the program ?
[img] [/img]

What size is your screen?

1920x1200

. then why in the name of f00k would you -or anyone else - want to look at an image on a website where you could only see 1/16th of the content at any given time?

indeed not, which is why one normally reduces the size...

My mistake. I don't have CS5. Must be a new feature.

Novices such as myself are obviously lagging far behind. There is nothing I can possible teach you.

Good luck with everything. Toodle-oo.

My mistake. I don't have CS5. Must be a new feature.

it goes back to CS3...

It does seem odd that it complains about memory. I agree that it shouldn't be an issue.

My best guess is that the Save For Web thing might be written as some kind of plug-in and may not have access to all the working memory pool that Photoshop uses so may genuinely run low on the memory it can access.

Or maybe it's just a bug? Possibly left in from when you had to resize before doing the Save For Wen thing.

My best guess is that the Save For Web thing might be written as some kind of plug-in and may not have access to all the working memory pool

except an actual plugin can load a 14761 x 2366 panorama without complaint ?

i would have thought that 'save for web' would be sRGB (or untagged) and have a different compression logarithm optimised towards smaller file size and smaller image dimensions.

if you wanted to make an image smaller you would re-size the image (apple>shift>I) and choose the resolution/dimensions/DPI/sampling method etc.
this would leave your profile intact and be re-editable by using history/snapshot or just saving a copy.

no idea about the memory error, get a programmer who knows about computers to sort it out.

if you wanted to make an image smaller you would re-size the image (apple>shift>I) and choose the resolution/dimensions/DPI/sampling method etc.
this would leave your profile intact and be re-editable by using history/snapshot or just saving a copy.

so you mean I should ignore the tool designed for the job and do it a different way ?

no idea about the memory error, get a programmer who knows about computers to sort it out.

that's not how it works, the Adobe programmers have to fix it.

A quick Google on the Adibe forums seems to suggest that the warning appears when the image is over 3374 x 2241 pixels.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/369681

I guess the Save For Web thing does have a 4-up display so it may theoretically need 4 times the memory of the main image.

But I still can't see any good reason for that dialog on a machine with plenty of RAM.

yeah, thanks for the link, it looks as if it may be a hangover from previous days when images that size were too big to handle, but is symptomatic of inadequate testing if it's been left in.

Of course, that doesn't address the fact that using the tool makes PS think the original has been changed...

Another question, how do I create my own toolbars to perform custom functions ?

so you mean I should ignore the tool designed for the job and do it a different way ?

possibly yes. photoshop offers different ways to do similar things.

i can think of 4 different ways to sharpen an image, none of them is the 'correct' way but all have their uses and advantages.

the save for web facility is just one interpretation of saving a jpeg for web use. that interpretation of what constitutes a web jpeg may not be what other people want.
(personally i want to control the sharpening and resampling method when making small jpegs from large files as they can get too sharp/brittle looking with some subjects)

Jeez - colour balance ?? The tool applies to shadows, midtones or highlights, with no option to select all at once. And it's not calibrated in colour temperature, and there's no button to reset to original 🙁 I'm partially colourblind, but I can usually drag a single slider to get the colours about right, but THREE of them ??

n fact is should carefully and silently save all your work unless you click a thing saying "Throw all changes away I've changed my mind" - with me this would be about once a month.

I wrote an app once that did this as its default action. USers ****n hated it and after what i would consider hate mail i changed it back to what they 'expected'

Oh crap I seem to have just agreed with Sfb. Bugger. 😆

Jeez - colour balance ?? The tool applies to
shadows, midtones or highlights, with no
option to select all at once. And it's not
calibrated in colour temperature

You generally do the white balance thing during conversion from RAW/NEF, where it will be labelled in temperature.

Doing it after the fact to a JPG isn't really the same thing at all.

What manual/tutorial for a partially colourblind engineer who wants to redesign the interface of the most popular image manipulation program? 😉 🙂

This might not be correct. but isnt the compression settings from save for web stored in the psd, so by altering the settings in save for web, youll need to resave the psd or discard the settings.

Those 3 different colour balance settings are for fine tuning, try variations or auto color instead.

own customised toolbar 😯 , not sure Ive been using the one provided by adobe since 1992.

An image that size will slow the computer down when saving for web, 2gb ram aint much when processing a 950mb image, save for web is effectively taking a huge 300dpi raw image, scaling and compressing 4 different versions of it.

hth

Jeez - colour balance ?? The tool applies to shadows, midtones or highlights, with no option to select all at once. And it's not calibrated in colour temperature, and there's no button to reset to original I'm partially colourblind, but I can usually drag a single slider to get the colours about right, but THREE of them ??

again multiple ways of changing colour. through curves(RGB channels), adding a photo filter (80A etc) hue/saturation, channel mixer,

photoshop assumes you are already aware of how additive/subtractive colour works and how the 80-82 85-81, red/green cc filters work etc.

a °kelvin adjustment is usually done when processing the raw.
you could also argue the other way, if the colour balance was global. why can't you adjust the highlights and shadows separately?

it's far more useful to have highlight/midtone/shadow controls.

Yet again you are essentially complaining that you don't know how to use the software. Colour Balance is only one tool for adjusting, er, colour balance. Other methods (curves for example, or hue, levels and more) do amend the full range of tones simultaneously. You need to find the one that suits you - I would suggest something but clearly you have no intention of listening.

In that save for web dialog screen grab you are still showing the image's original size. Are you saying it gives you a memory error even when you enter a more appropriate pixel dimension in the fields? What pixel dimension are you asking it to reduce to?

Yet again we come back to the beginning - your OP title is simple Photoshop question, but you don't have questions really (at least you are totally unwilling to listen to the answers that have been helpfully provided). You just want to piss, moan and troll. If you can think of something you want Photoshop to do, it will do it. You will, however, need to find out how it works first.

2gb ram aint much
when processing a 950mb image

Well no it wouldn't be, but Simon has 6GB of RAM and is seeing that message when doing "Save For Web" on a normal 4288x2848 photo from his camera, which will only be a couple of MB.

So why is there an issue?

So why is there an issue?

dunno. but i doubt any prefs have been changed regarding cache/history states/scratch disk/graphics redraw/compression when saving/ amount of ram allocated to photoshop.
all of the above affect saving/working speed.

What GlenP said!

Why don't we all start a thread ridiculing programming language, illustrating our total lack of knowledge of the subject?..... "why oh why can't they just use plain english?"

Though you would hope that the world's best image manipulation software might manage to choose some sensible defaults for those preferences when provided with abundant RAM.

Nah I'm definitely with Simon (and the Adobe forum users) on this one - that particular Warning dialog makes no sense.

SFB

and there's no button to reset to original

I only have CS2, but with most adjustment dialogue boxes, pressing alt (I think) turns either the 'OK' or 'Cancel' button into a 'reset' button.
Is this not the case with the colour balance bit you mention?

colour balance as an adjustment layer. you can turn it on/off, mask off areas, change it's strength as a percentage and edit it and edit it's mask in various different ways.

pressing alt (I think) turns
either the 'OK' or 'Cancel' button into a 'reset'
button.

Well you can't fault them for intuitive UI there can you? 🙄

colour balance as an adjustment layer

I suspect, judging by the reference to colour temperatures, that there was some confusion between "White Balance" (as performed by the camera and/or during RAW conversion) and "Color Balance" (as used within Photoshop).

Simon:

A key advantage of using CaptureNX is that it uses the same familiar Nikon terms and controls that you'll find on your camera.

So you have White Balance with Shady,Sunny,Indoor etc, Exposure Compensation, Color Mode, Optimise Image, etc and they are all set to whatever the settings were on-camera when you took the shot, and use the same processing algorithms that are used on-camera, so you can move pretty seamlessly from the shot you captured to the shot you edit.

GrahamS - Member
2gb ram aint much
when processing a 950mb image
Well no it wouldn't be, but Simon has 6GB of RAM and is seeing that message when doing "Save For Web" on a normal 4288x2848 photo from his camera, which will only be a couple of MB.

So why is there an issue?

RAW image is 300dpi ?
4288x2848 is a large jpg for a website?

RAW image is 300dpi ?

So? It doesn't contain any more actual information. That's just a number.

4288x2848 is a large jpg for a website?

Yes it is, which is why he quite reasonably opened the "Save For Web" dialog which lets you save off a JPG at a smaller size and different compression level without altering the main image.

Well you can't fault them for intuitive UI there can you?

What's wrong with a button press to change how something operates?
It means you keep one hand on the mouse to do whatever it is you are doing & then use your other hand to access other available options. Admittedly, it's one of those things that you need to know before you can use it, but no different to many other complicated software packages. Solidworks for example; manipulating a model on screen with pan, zoom, rotate etc. - different key presses combined with moving your mouse will result in a different type of movement, so you keep one hand on the mouse and the other can perform other tasks. It's not intuititve so to speak as you need to know what to press to operate it, but with something so complex there will also be a requirement to learn how it works. And when you have learnt how to use it properly, it is a very quick method of doing what you require.

Sounds like for the basic stuff that sfb and many others on here do (probably including myself), Photoshop is way more powerful than required and it is probably due to this complexity that certain things can seem long winded.

Photoshop can be using the scratch disk even when you don't expect it to. You can always purge the undo, history and clipboard before you enter that dialog, or make sure you have assigned a sensibly large scratch disk.

It means you keep one hand on the mouse

every designer/photographer/retoucher i know uses a wacom tablet/pen for photoshop unless it's just processing files.
if you have the pen rocker set up to operate the contextual menu or ctrl/alt it speeds up drawing paths or changing brush size/softness.
brushwork using a pressure sensitive pen is way better than using a mouse and a lot easier on the hands/wrist if you are working all day.

every designer/photographer/retoucher i know

glen p - tablet FTW, 2 week bedding in 🙂

best to not get the big a4 one unless you have 2x24in plus monitors side by side as big arm movements are not so good. i have an A4 which i mostly use with a 24in widescreen given the choice i would have an a5 widescreen tablet but they don't do them any more.
you can actually limit the image area of the tablet if it's too big but then you are just paying more for a bigger tablet.

MrSmith - maybe, but for the occasional user such as myself I can't justify forking out on a tablet on top of all the other things that I can't afford to buy, when a keyboard & mouse works OK.

GrahamS - Member
A quick Google on the Adibe forums seems to suggest that the warning appears when the image is over 3374 x 2241 pixels.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/369681

POSTED 11 HOURS AGO

GrahamS - Member
RAW image is 300dpi ?
So? It doesn't contain any more actual information. That's just a number.

4288x2848 is a large jpg for a website?
Yes it is, which is why he quite reasonably opened the "Save For Web" dialog which lets you save off a JPG at a smaller size and different compression level without altering the main image.

Save as > jpg would do if you dont want to see the results.

Save for web is used for optomising for website use. The average screen size is 1280. Only 25% of the image would be viewable from a jpg that size.

disclaimer : some numbers are a rough estimate.

Save for web is used for optomising for website use. The average screen size is 1280. Only 25% of the image would be viewable from a jpg that size

which is why it has 2 boxes to set the size you want (or a %age)...