News, news, news..

Apple has posted a new update, 10.5.4 for Leopard users that is stated to resolve an issue with saving and reopening Adobe Creative Suite 3 files on a remote server. This issue has resulted in corrupted Photoshop and InDesign files when documents have been saved over a network volume.

The update should show when running Software Update and is available as a stand alone installer from Apple Support Downloads. The stand alone installer is 88MBs while the combo installer is 561MB.

The 10.5.4 update also includes recent security updates as well general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac. The 10.5.4 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Leopard. Additional info about the update is here.

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff

Mac Photoshop CS3 users who updated to Leopard 10.5.3 last week are reporting file corruption issues when saving files over the network to network mounted volumes. The issue seems to have come with the 10.5.3 update which updated certain network components. The issue seems to be related to a previous issue from January 2007 and the 10.4.5 to 10.4.6 update as outlined in this Adobe Tech document. The issue also appears to effect InDesign documents as well.

Adobe said it was looking into the matter but indications are that it’s an Apple issue to fix. Users report a work around by using the Save As command instead of simply saving over the remote file. It should be noted that Adobe doesn’t officially support opening and saving over a network and has long suggested copying a file locally and then moving it over the network.

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff

Recently listed on the Photoshop Support Center are the following issues;

Error “Could not initialize Photoshop because the file is locked” on Mac OS 10.5 (Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Elements 6)

Photoshop CS3, CS2, or Photoshop Elements fails to start after installing a scanner

Adobe Setup initializes then disappears in Creative Suite 3 or Photoshop CS3

Error “License has expired” when you start Adobe CS3 applications, including Design and Web Suites

Error “Installing Creative Suite 3 / Adobe Photoshop CS3 results in a conflict with Adobe Photoshop CS3″

Even small files take a long time to open or save (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign CS2 and CS3 on Mac OS)

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff

In Chapter 1 of my Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers book, I provided a brief example of how one might apply the Lens Blur filter to a Smart Object in Photoshop CS3 and keep the background blur settings editable. However, it was pointed out to me just recently that the Lens Blur filter is actually disabled in CS3 when you seek to apply it to a Smart Object. This is one of those things that I failed to notice as I was finalizing the book and it seems that I am not the only author who got caught out by this late change to the program. Fortunately there is an easy remedy for accessing Lens Blur as a Smart Filter.

At first, disabling Lens Blur for Smart Objects seems like an odd thing to have done, because if you can use the Lens Blur to make a background go out of focus, you might well want the opportunity to re-edit those settings at a later date and work from an original, unblurred image – an ideal case for using Smart Filters. But then it was explained to me that one of the key features of the Lens Blur filter is its ability to reference an alpha channel and use this as a depth map to control the level of blurring across different parts of the image. This is indeed a useful feature, but it did have the potential to cause confusion when working with Smart Filters. Imagine you had applied the Lens Blur filter to a Smart Object layer and had referenced an alpha channel in the source document. If you were to later edit the alpha channel in the source document, the Smart Object layer would not register any change, no change that is until the next time you double-clicked to open the Lens Blur filter. Doing that would cause the smart filter to reference the alpha channel again and if the channel had been edited, you would only then see a new rendering of the Lens Blur filter. Figure 1 has a summary taken from chapter 1 of my book that shows the Lens Blur being used as a smart filter to blur the background in a photo.

Figure 1. In this example I opened a raw DNG image as a Smart Object and added a normal pixel layer of a backdrop image, which I then converted to become a Smart Object layer. I then added a layer mask to reveal the model on the layer below. Once a layer or group of layers have been converted to a Smart Object, one can then apply Smart Filters. Here, you can see how I applied a Lens Blur filter to the Smart Object and applied a gradient to the Smart Filters mask to reveal some of the unsharpened detail in the original pixel layer.

Now to be honest, if you are the type of person who is inclined to use the Lens Blur filter with depth maps, you are probably going to be OK coping with anomalies like this. The good news is that although the Lens Blur has been disabled to get around Photoshop’s inability to ‘paramertize’ the depth map settings, there is a simple way to override this behavior.

How to enable the Lens Blur filter
Help is at hand though in the form of a script that you will find inside your Adobe Photoshop CS3 application folder. Here are the instructions you need to enable all filters:

1. To enable Smart Filters for all plug-ins, go to the File ➯ Scripts menu in Photoshop CS3 and choose Browse…

2. This will open a system navigation window and from there you will want to use the following directory path: Adobe Photoshop CS3 folder/Scripting Guide/Sample Scripts/Javascript and select: EnableAllPluginsforSmartFilters.jsx (shown here is the Macintosh navigation window, but the PC directory path is exactly the same).

3. Once you have located the EnableAllPluginsforSmartFilters.jsx script, you can click Load or double-click to run it, which will then show the Script Alert dialog. If you wish to proceed, click ‘Yes’ and the Lens Blur including all other filters will now be accessible for use as smart filters. If you want to turn off this behavior, run through the same steps described here and click ‘No’ when the Script Alert dialog shows.

The benefits and pitfalls of enabling all filters
Now that you can see how simple it is to enable all filters, it is tempting to leave this as the new default. Which you can do of course, but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not just the Lens Blur you are gaining access to, but all filters that were previously unavailable for use as smart filters. However, unlike the Lens Blur, some of these do not fit in well with a smart filter workflow.

Basically, smart filters are intended for use with value based filters only: things like the Add Noise or Unsharp mask filter. They do not work well with filters that use brushes, such as ‘Liquify’. With ‘all filters enabled’ you can add Liquify as a smart filter, but the usefulness of doing so is restricted to turning an applied Liquify filter on or off. For example, you won’t be able to tweak the Liquify settings. If you double-click a Liquify filter in a filter stack it will cancel the current liquify settings and reopen the Liquify dialog with it reset to show no adjustments. This is not exactly what you would expect to happen here, but it does at least allow you to experiment with various liquify treatments and use the History palette to compare different liquified versions of an image. Likewise, if you adjust any filters in a smart filter stack, these too will force the Liquify dialog to reopen, with everything reset again.

Third-party plug-ins
With third-party plug-ins, the same rules apply, except you will find that those plug-ins that have been recently updated for CS3 should have an embedded smart filter marker that will automatically make them compatible with Smart Filters in CS3. If that is not the case, then enabling all filters in the way I describe here will help your get around such restrictions. But again, with the same provisos as before. Any filter you apply as a smart filter must be a ‘value based’ filter if it is to fit in successfully with a smart filter workflow.

My thanks to Uwe Steinmuelller for pointing out the ‘enable all filters’ script to me.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers is published by Focal Press and can be purchased directly from Focal plus all the usual book publishing outlets.

This latest edition is 704 pages and comes with a DVD disk containing a CS3 Help Guide plus movie tutorials.

As a special perk for PhotoshopNews readers, Martin has made his Chapter 1: What’s New in Photoshop CS3 available for free download.

The 24 page PDF, outlines all the new features of Photoshop CS3 and Bridge 2, written from a user’s perspective. It offers an honest appraisal of what is on offer in Photoshop CS3.

Click here to download the PDF (4.05 MB)

You can also access a Photoshop News story on the latest Camera Raw 4.1 update and download a printable PDF supplement the book: Camera Raw 4.1 Update (2.5 MB)

Original post by Martin Evening

Short on the heels (in fact, the smoke is still coming off Adobe’s FTP servers) comes a post by John Nack on his Adobe bog that drills down into the printing fixes included in the Photoshop CS3 (10.0.1) update. Read the post by John. Click here to download the PDF (04.9KB download) outlining the changes.

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff

Adobe has announced that the Photoshop CS3 bug running on Apple’s Leopard where entered values in numerical fields won’t stick still exists for the new Photoshop CS3 (10.0.1) update and the Leopard 10.5.1 update.

From a post on the Mac Photoshop User to User Forum:

Adobe and Apple are working closely to provide a fix to a known issue running Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended on Mac OS X Leopard (v10.5.1). Currently, when you enter values in numerical fields to set sizes for the brush, crop, marquee, lasso, type, and other Photoshop CS3 tools, those values revert to previously entered values when you try to apply them.

While we have identified workarounds for some of the affected tools, this issue prevents people from working as precisely and intuitively as they expect. Providing a fix to customers is a top priority. Please note the following:

• The fix will be provided through an update to Mac OS X Leopard. Consequently, it is not part of the Photoshop CS3 (10.0.1) update.
• Apple is collaborating closely with us to get this fix incorporated into a Mac OS X Leopard update. No public schedule is available at this time, but both companies understand the urgency of this fix.
• As soon as the appropriate update to Mac OS X Leopard is available, we will immediately alert our Photoshop users.

Affected Photoshop CS3 tools: Art History tool, Blur tool, Brush tool, Burn tool, Color Replacement tool, Clone tools (all), Crop tool, Dodge tool, Eraser tools (all), Gradient tool, Healing tools (all), History tool, Lasso tools (all), Line tool, Magic Wand tool, Marquee tools (all), Paint Bucket tool, Pencil tool, Polygon tool, Quick Selection tool, Red Eye tool, Rounded Rectangle tool, Sharpen tool, Smudge tool, Sponge tool, Slice tool, Type tool

Workaround for tools with sliders: Instead of typing in a number, use the sliders to change the value.

Workaround for tools with pop-up menus: Enter a value for the size but don’t press Return/Enter to apply the value. Instead, choose it from the top of the Size pop-up menu to commit it.

Workaround for tools which do not have sliders or pop-up menus: For certain tools, such as the Line tool, you may want to set up presets that you can load to set common sizes. Alternatively, you can restart Photoshop CS3 to clear the problem. You will then be able to enter values again. However, the issue typically re-surfaces quickly.

Read the Forum post.

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff

If you are, you aren’t alone. There are several “known issues” that Adobe is working on and expects to address with a Photoshop CS3 update in the not too distant future.

For the time being, if you are interested in participating in helping test the solutions, you can apply for the position of “tester” by visiting John’s blog, reading the post and following the directions (note, it’s really important to follow the directions!) See: Fixes for Photoshop printing due soon

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff

Adobe Photoshop Q&E has been able to reproduce a crash in the Windows version of Photoshop CS3 when the Microsoft IntelliPoint version 6.1 is also installed. Rolling the IntelliPoint drive back to version 5.5 seem to resolve the issue. Adobe Photoshop Q&E is continuing to work on the problem with MSFT.
Additional info available on this Photoshop Windows User to User forum thread.

Written by PhotoShop News.

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff

Source: CNET
Written by Dawn Kawamoto
Security researchers have found a “highly critical” flaw in the portable-network graphics plug-in for the latest version of Adobe Systems’ Photoshop Creative Suite, as well as for other versions of the software that run on Windows.
The portable-network graphics, or PNG, plug-in vulnerabilities were discovered in Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 3 (CS3), Photoshop CS2, and Adobe Photoshop Elements (Editor) version 5.0 for Windows, according to a report released Monday by Secunia, which cited a researcher named “Marsu” with the discovery. Marsu tested a public exploit against versions of the software running Windows XP SP2.
Read entire article

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff

Source: Adobe Support TechNote 400950
This document can help you to resolve system errors that occur while you use Adobe Photoshop CS3 on Windows Vista. System errors can manifest in many different ways, including (but not limited to) the following:

A blank or flickering dialog box
A frozen cursor or screen
A blue screen
An unexpected restart
An error such as one of the following:

“This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, contact the program vendor.”
“Photoshop caused a General Protection Fault in module [filename].”
“Photoshop caused an Invalid Page Fault in module [filename].”
“Application Error.”
“Unhandled exception detected. Application will be terminated.”
“Illegal Instruction.”
“Segment load failure in [filename].”
“Photoshop has encountered a problem and needs to close.”
“Fatal System Error.”
A STOP error
Many different factors can cause system errors, including conflicts among device drivers, applications, operating system settings, hardware, and corrupt elements in specific files. Although a system error may occur only when you work […]

Original post by PSN Editorial Staff