Photoshop CS2 problem

AnneL

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Joined
Jul 11, 2001
Posts
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Loc
Wautoma, WI USA
I'm hoping someone can help me on this. I've posted it on a photo forum also and looked at the official Adobe site with no luck. I'm having trouble opening images in Photoshop CS2. We recently upgraded to it. Some days they open just fine, most days I get an error message that says "can not complete your request due to program error." Same images, different days. It's getting me frustrated because I want to try some of the new tools in there.
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So far, the only solutions I found for that error on the Adobe site were for Macs and involved downloading patches for the Mac operating system. Not much help since I have a Dell. Any ideas. Is it a program problem or a computer problem? We have some older versions of Photoshop on the same computer, could there be a conflict?
 
What are you opening the images from? (Explorer, Open dialog, Bridge etc...)

Some ideas:

Check that your RAM setting is not too high (i.e. should be <65%), also check to see what your virtual memory is set to and if it allows for the space you need. If this is on a multi-processor I suggest you check for possible conflicts.

If you have it installed on the same HD as the OS it can also be problematic.

I installed it 3 times before it worked properly on one machine - others have been fine though. You’re going to love it!!!
 
Anne -
Your trouble may be not having enough RAM - you need at least 512meg for PS-CS2 to run smoothly.
You can run with only 256meg but it will be SLOOOOOW - Also, turn off some other programs that are running in the background (ctrl-alt-delete) - this may help.

"We have some older versions of Photoshop on the same computer, could there be a conflict?"
It shouldn't - but, you could always re-install
 
Anne-

Can you tell us a little bit about your system and settings? How old is it, how much RAM, how big is the hard drive, how big is your paging file? It sounds like you are running out of memory or virtual memory (pagefile). Adding to one or the other ought to provide some relief. I'm a recent convert to CS2 (from elements) and it's awesome.
 
We got this computer in 2002. It has 1.5G of RAM and 2.86 mhz operating speed and a Pentium 4 processor. We custom ordered it specifically to do digital imaging on with the max on everything. We have 2 external hard drives hooked to it, one as a scratch disk and the other as storage for images so we don't clog up the hard drive. I don't think the amount of memory is a problem but there is a possiblity that it is conflicting with the other Photoshops.

Lance, I'm using the Open dialog from the main CS2 menu, just like I've always done in CS, and in 7, and in 6 before that but for some reason it doesn't work in CS2. It is enstalled on the main HD with the OS. I also noticed yesterday that the scratch disks weren't set for the external drive, so I reset them. Maybe that will help. That computer is scheduled for it's weekly scans today so I'll see how it is after that. I think I'll have my husband run a defrag tonight too. If none of that works, we'll have to uninstall and reinstall it.
 
Anne, I think you would be best to take the uninstall/re-install route first as the problem you are having is very similar to my own experiences.

The possibility of conflicting with earlier versions is very unlikely unless you're running them at the same time, I have one terminal that has all versions back to 4 (it was a whiz bang 166 MHz with 512mb ram back in the day!!!). In fact all of the terminals I have currently have multiple versions and no conflict has ever been apparent.
 
Well, it sounds as though you have enough horsepower to do the job. If you don't mind my asking, why are you using an external drive for the scratch drive? That's a good recipe for not so good performance. Performance is usually noticeably better on an internal drive. How much unused space do you have on your internal drive? On the external drive you use for the scratch drive?
 
TheDoctah is kwite right, an internal drive will serve the purpose much better - even a partition of the main drive would be better than an external...
 
We haven't noticed any performance issues using the external drive for scratch. You do need to use something other than the main drive for a scratch disk. Most Photoshop classes I've attended recommend either partitioning or using an external hard drive and since we weren't real comfortable with partitioning, we went with the hard drive. Besides, we wanted to be able to use all the space on the hard drive for image processing. We use this computer not just for Photoshop, but for downloading images from hard cards, running 2 printers, and also with Painter. It already has alot on it and works hard.

Lance, how many terminals do you have? Are they all networked?
 
It is very unlikely the open error is related to the external drive issue anyhow, so no major there.

I currently have four terminals - about to go to five. All are networked to the main network (incl POS, admin, workshop etc) and also onto their own network.
 
In general, the performance you get from an internal drive will be better than that of an external drive. It's usually not the difference between lightning fast and dog slow, but if you had two identically set up computers, one with the 2nd drive internal and one with the 2nd drive external, if you used both of them you'd develop a preference for the one with the internal drive. ;)

But Lance is correct that this is more a matter of refined performance than basic functionality. CS2 should run just fine the way you have it set up. I'd give the uninstall/reinstall loop a try. If it fixes nothing, you've at least eliminated one possibility (plus, repeatable problems are much easier to diagnose).
 
Don't you just love computers?
 
I suugest that when it does do it that you check to see exactly what else is running using task manager. If it relates to a memory issue then you may wish to reduce the RAM dedication to PS -thus freeing up more for the OS - what did you have previous versions set at?
 
Oh never mind! It did it again! It let me work all afternoon on some family pictures, even let me go open the original file from the session to look for eyes to replace the closed ones in one photo. Then I tried to switch and work on the yearbooks due this week but noooo, it won't let me open those!!!

Lance, I'll check task manager but I'm also going to try uninstalling and reinstalling tommorrow. I checked all the settings today against the ones for CS and they are the same.
 
Anne, you may also want to run some basic tests on your memory and drives. A good one for your RAM is MemTest86. Though it sounds more in your case drive related, so you may want to try something like Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test and there's also a million other test utilities out there.

I just had something similar to my wife's box. Pagemaker would work fine until she ran it for a couple days or loaded a really huge file and then it just crashed. Sure enough, I tested her RAM (she has a gig) and found errors at the upper end. Popped the bad stick out and Pagemaker doesn't crash anymore.

My rule of thumb with computers is that when bad stuff happens randomly its usually a sign of impending hardware doom. Because your issues are localized to errors loading files I'd point my finger at the drive first.
 
Nah, you usually don't have to replace the whole computer... but like a car, the parts inside occasionally need a little lovin'. I'd find another computer repair person and ask him / her to run some diagnostics, just don't get sold on entire system upgrades...
 
You wouldn't have to replace the whole computer (chances are). If it's just a DIMM that's gone south, you can buy a replacement and fix it in a jiffy. Maybe 1/2 hour, tops, for a complete neophyte. It's not as scary in there as you think.


Even if it's the hard drive, that's not a difficult problem to fix either. If you can follow directions, you can do it.

Whether it's the hard drive or the memory, if it's a HW problem you should be able to fix it for less than $100.

I'm surprised you haven't tried the uninstall/reinstall rain dance yet. That seems as likely to bear fruit as anything.
 
I haven't had time to try the uninstall/reinstall yet. I've been busy removing acne from high school senior portraits so the images can be ready for pick by the lab in the morning.
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I've just been using CS for everything. There are some new tools and filters in CS2 I've heard can make retouching go faster and look smoother, that's why I've wanted to try it.

Plus, I'm encountering resistance to uninstalling and reinstalling. My husband only wants me to do it as a last resort. He went through alot of work to tweak it to his liking and load his plugins and doesn't want to have to redo it. Little does he know resistance is futile. If I get fed up enough, I'm pulling the plug and redoing it.
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He went through alot of work to tweak it to his liking and load his plugins and doesn't want to have to redo it.

Oh, so it's his fault that CS2 is broken. ;)
 
Loading plug-ins takes only minutes. Workspaces, presets etc can be loaded in from previous versions without having to remake them.

In fact, here am I thinking away... TheDoctah could be right, perhaps - on this rare ocassion the man is at fault!!! (albeit unintentional...)

Try this; remove all plug-ins and see if you can make the error repeat, if not then reload the plug-ins one by one (or groups if necessary), each time restarting PSCS2 to see if that is the problem.

IMHO - un/reinstall is never a last resort - it should be a first resort for problems encountered early in its life.


What tools attracted you to CS2?
 
Actually, Gary got it as an upgrade to CS when he heard they had improved file handling in it. I've been wanting to try one of the new blur filters (can't remember the name right now, I think it's call surface blur). There is a technique for skin smoothing I read about I wanted to try. I've also found the spot healing brush handy in some cases. It's not for everything, sometimes the healing brush is better if you want to control where it samples from.
 
aah- the trusty Bridge. I kinda like it but still use explorer mostly. All my batching is done there but it can suck a lot of memory. Spot healing - it takes a bit of getting used to but I certainly use it a lot more now than I did for the first few weeks on it.

Smart sharpen is also handy for snappy sharpening, better than unsharp by a mile but still not as good as with high pass etc.

The new blur tools will be fantastic for your work, faces just got a lot easier to work on!!!
 
Anne~ The photofinishing store I used to work at had the same problem. It's annoying, but from what I could tell, it didn't have to do with the computer it's running on and it never seemed to harm the CPU. Let me ask you: Are you going to the dropdown menu in Photoshop to open the files, or are you just double clicking on them? I noticed that for me, the problem was when I double clicked the file. I'd always just close the program and then restart it. We fixed the problem, I believe by downlaoding an update from adobe. If that doesn't work, then maybe try emailing or calling them???
 
Using the open dialog (this is the one from the DD menu or CTRL+"O") often does not have the same problems - however using the Explorer will likely have issues if you do not have a PostScript printer set as the default.
 
Today I was able to open some images I transferred from another computer in there. They are jpgs of some copy work. I transfered them from a zip to my work file using the control panel. I think I'll ask my husband what he is using to transfer images into my file, see if there might be a problem there.

By the way, I really appreciate everyones input. I will get to the bottom of this yet, with a little help from my grumble friends! :D
 
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