17 Replies Latest reply: Oct 22, 2010 8:42 AM by TerryLn22 RSS

    Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4

    TerryLn22 Community Member

      1) When I change a photo, I click to save, up pops the JPEG Options box, which has been set to 12 since last year. Today, it suddenly changes itself to 6 for no good reason. Each and every photo I change, I have to now tell it 12, not 6. How do I get it back to 12, and get it to stay there??? How/why did it change itself in the first place?

       

      2) How can I view photos and select the ones I want to go to the lab? In previous CS versions, I could view large thumbnails, and use the flag feature. I can't seem to find out how to do that, within Bridge.

       

      3) When I pull a lot of photos up, say 50, in Photoshop, and try to float them all to view them, it won't let me, says I have too many windows open, and to close some so it can float the remaining ones. This is retarded. Without floating, the images numbers are all stuck together in a line on that top bar, and I have to click each number to see the image, but I can only see maybe 6 images total, unless I close them one by one, which is then replaced with a different image. Any suggestions on how to undo this feature altogether? I always love "new features" that makes everything 20 times as hard as it was before. Great thinking.

       

      Thanks.

        • 1. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
          D Fosse-QDEaQ1 Community Member

          First, the raised finger and stern look: Stay as far away from jpeg as possible until final output. Then save out a copy to jpeg, once, if jpeg is what you need.

           

          Jpeg is a lossy and destructive format and your files deteriorate every time you resave. With quality set to 12 it just happens more slowly.

           

          If you import or receive a jpeg, resave it as PSD or TIFF immediately, and do your work on that.

           

          Seriously.

           

          As for Bridge, look under the Label menu. And play around with workspaces. You can resize and reshuffle panels and show thumbnails and previews at any size.

          • 2. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
            TerryLn22 Community Member

            Unfortunately, none of your answers were what I needed.

             

            Please read the original post.

            • 3. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
              John Joslin Community Member

              I did read your original post and thought, "How can I advise on practices which are either wrong or misguided?"


              Maybe someone with time to spare can answer you.

              • 4. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                TerryLn22 Community Member

                1) They're not wrong or misguided. I've been a professional photographer for over 20 years. If I choose to use jpeg, that's my business, and I don't need to explain to you why I'm doing that.

                 

                If you asked someone where to buy gasoline, the guy might say you shouldn't be buying gas for a car, you should pedaling a bicycle to keep the air clean. But you might say you drive 20 miles to work every day one way, and have a family of 4, and a bicycle, though nice, won't work for you.

                 

                The bottom line is, you can't read people's posts, then redecorate their whole life because it doesn't suit you, or because you want the question changed since you don't know the answer, which I am assuming is the case.

                 

                Please, prove me wrong, and answer my original questions.

                • 5. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                  D Fosse-QDEaQ1 Community Member

                  The normal behavior is to use the last setting for quality, and there is no user option to change that. Reset Photoshop preferences to restore it to factory defaults. This is apparently a corrupted prefs file.

                   

                  There was nothing in your post to indicate that you even knew jpeg is destructive. Still isn't.

                   

                  And I still don't understand what you mean by "flags". You can however label with one to five stars in Bridge, and color coded at that. And thumbnails can be as large as you like, just drag the slider lower right.

                  • 6. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                    Chris Cox Adobe Employee

                    1) The quality setting defaults to 12  UNLESS the image already has a JPEG quality associated with it, in which case that quality setting will be used.

                    So if you open a JPEG image that has quality level 8, the JPEG save options will use quality level 8.

                     

                    2) It's all still there in Bridge.

                     

                    3) You're using OpenGL drawing, and that is a restriction of your video card and driver (because each GL window uses up VRAM).  Photoshop CS5 improves on this a good bit by doing more window management in the app.

                    • 7. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                      D Fosse-QDEaQ1 Community Member

                      Ah, so that's the deal. I haven't resaved a jpeg in years.

                      • 8. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                        TerryLn22 Community Member

                        If you absolutely MUST know, yes, I know that TIFF, PSD, etc. are let's say "more stable" images than jpeg. However, my lab only accepts either jpg or tiff. Since jpg, like it or not, is the standard, I go with jpg. Further, the images are only going to be opened once for the most part, and probably never even printed bigger than a 4x6, so it's no big deal.

                         

                        I hope this fully answers your questions as to the global reasoning on why some people, despite the fact that you don't approve of it, use jpg images.

                         

                        "Flags" are something that PS CS had, but PS CS4 apparently does not. And if they're in Bridge, I can't find them.

                         

                        Flags allowed you to view a photo in large view, about 5x7 so you could see if anyone's blinking, etc., and if you liked the photo, you could flag it, and do the same for any others you wanted to flag. Once you're done, suppose you flagged 40 pictures out of 200. You could then do some good things to help speed up your work flow. You could say, I just want to see only the flagged photos. So now you're just looking at a sub-set of 40 images, not 200. Or you could save those 40 to a new folder, like, "images for the lab to print", or whatever. It was a way of easily editing and sorting, and culling down the list.

                         

                        I hope that I have answered all of your questions that my post has caused you.

                        • 9. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                          John Joslin Community Member

                          Have you considered reading the Help files in Bridge?


                          Quote:

                           

                           

                          Label & Rate files

                          Labeling files with a certain color or assigning ratings of zero (0) to five stars lets you mark a large number of files quickly. You can then sort files according to their color label or rating.

                          For example, suppose you’re viewing a large number of imported images in Adobe Bridge. As you review each new image, you can label the images you want to keep. After this initial pass, you can use the Sort command to display and work on files that you’ve labeled with a particular color.

                          You can label and rate folders as well as files.

                          You can assign names to labels in Labels preferences. The name is then added to the file’s metadata when you apply the label. When you change names of labels in preferences, any files with the older label appear with white labels in the Content panel.

                          Note: When you view folders, Adobe Bridge shows both labeled and unlabeled files until you choose another option.

                           

                          Label files

                           

                          Select one or more files and choose a label from the Label menu. To remove labels from files, choose Label > No Label.

                           

                          Rate files

                          1. Select one or more files.
                          2. Do any of the following:
                            • In the Content panel, click       the dot representing the number of stars you want to give the file. (In       Thumbnail view, a thumbnail must be selected for the dots to appear.       Also, dots do not appear in very small thumbnail views. If necessary,       scale the thumbnails until the dots appear. In List view, make sure that       the Ratings column is visible.)
                            • Choose a rating from the       Label menu.
                            • To add or remove one star,       choose Label > Increase Rating or Label > Decrease       Rating.
                            • To remove all stars, choose       Label > No Rating.
                            • To add a Reject rating,       choose Label > Reject.

                          Note: To hide rejected files in Adobe Bridge, choose View > Show Reject Files.

                          • 10. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                            acresofgreen Community Member

                            In Bridge's Label menu you will find different ways to flag photos.  Ctrl + 6  (Select) might be what you are looking for.

                            • 11. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                              TerryLn22 Community Member

                              I couldn't read the help file about "labels", because I didn't know they changed the name from what used to be "flags", even though they might work differently.

                               

                              Thanks for the reply. Now I know what they're called.

                              • 12. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                                MyStudio Hellen

                                @Jeff,

                                 

                                Did you found out the answer for question 1? I have the same problems for a long time.

                                Never tried to find an answer but it is annoying. I often do some quick changes on my pictures (they are all copies, I keep a extra map with the originals) and then I use only the keys. So make a change on a picture, click command+S and then immediately enter... If I didn't pay attention I suddenly forgot to change the quality in 12.

                                So I'm very curious if you maybe found out what is happening (sorry for my poor english)

                                 

                                Hellen

                                • 13. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                                  TerryLn22 Community Member

                                  Someone told me that if the images were originally saved as a level 6 or 12, or whatever, say level 6, the quality will reset back to level 6 with each picture since it was saved originally as a 6. If they were saved as level 12, the quality slide control will all be set at 12.

                                  • 14. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                                    Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

                                    For #1, the setting will stick, until you Open a JPEG with a lower quality setting, i.e higher-compression, and then you will need to reset it.

                                     

                                    For #2, you should be able to adjust the Thumbnail View in Bridge. Can you no longer do that?

                                     

                                    For #3, what are the specs. of your computer, especially your Windows Page File (Virtual Memory) and your Scratch Disks? You seem to be running out of resources. It could be that you will need to limit the number of Open Images.

                                     

                                    Good luck,

                                     

                                    Hunt

                                    • 15. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                                      TerryLn22 Community Member

                                      For #2, adjusting the size wasn't the problem. It was flagging them to sort them. I found out that in CS4, it has a different name other than flagging.

                                       

                                      For #3, I have tons of memory. 4 gb on a quad core computer. It's maddening that when the images are open, they're in those stupid boxes, very hard to work with. Free floating is so much easier. But if I say to float them, it won't. It just says too many are open. Well, they're ALREADY open. I just now want to FLOAT them. But it won't do it. Maybe if I have 20 or 30 open, then it'll float them.

                                      • 16. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                                        MyStudio Hellen Community Member

                                        okay, but the strange thing is, I ALWAYS save on 12. So why changes it to 6 ?

                                        • 17. Re: Need help with a few things in Photoshop CS4
                                          TerryLn22 Community Member

                                          I didn't save mine on 6 (that I remember, anyways). Just one day, out of the blue, this whole thing I was working on, kept defaulting to 6. I had to change the slider on each and every one back up to 12.

                                           

                                          I don't know why it happened. I guess it's a possibility that the shoot wasn't an important one, and I saved at 6 with an automate feature. It's never happened again, so it must have been my fault.