I need to be able to compare images side by side, and the new layout of CS4 doesn't have that as a default view, and frankly it's driving me crackers for a number of reasons, not just the inability to see more than one image at one time, also there's the way the zoom works, or rather doesn't work like it used to, now I can zoom in okay but when I try to zoom out the view stays to one side instead of centralising the image - this means I need extra keystrokes to get back to where I was before zooming in - it's a real time waster.

Can anyone help me set PhotoShop up correctly?

I.e. the way I want it?

Oh well, it seems asking the question once again I found the answer.

How come I only ever find the answer after I post?

It's: Window/Arrange/Float All in Windows

(In case anyone else wants to know.)

Quote - (In case anyone else wants to know.)

Yes, I did - it was annoying me, too. I hadn't got round to checking it out, so that's saved me some time, thanks!

Unfortunately you have to reset PhotoShop every single time you use it - as the damned default is not with the floating thingies!

Arghhhhhhhhhh!

So if anyone knows how to set the floating image windows thingies as the default - please - PULEASE! Let me know?

(goes away to whimper in a corner)

Now, there I can help! Go to Preferences->Interface and uncheck 'Open Documents as Tabs'. Job done.

Wonderful!  Thanks a million!  phew.....

Hey Spedler, if you find out anything else about this new CS4 that older versions did differently - do please let me know how to 'cure' it... (ggg)

Unless it's something useful... - Is there anything I wonder?

Wow! I am about to upgrade to CS4 and I am certainly glad I found this post!!!

ThanX!

Ariana

There are a few nice sounding things in CS4 Production suite but due to the problems I just haven't had the time to try them out yet.

I sit here spending hours waiting for a render in After Effects only to have the render crash the program after about 6 seconds worth of render which took 3 or 4 hours to fail... (sigh)  (should have been 1 minute's worth)

So, apart from messing up the view - what exactly are the new improvements in PhotoShop CS4?

Quote - what exactly are the new improvements in PhotoShop CS4

I don't have it yet, but have viewed some vids over at Adobe.

I think the dodge and burn tools have been greatly improved.

And did CS3 have OpenGL hardware acceleration? CS4 lets you do some pretty useful-looking stuff in that regard.

donquixote,

I'm a bit suspicious of Open GL hardware acceleration, as I think that might be why PhotoShopCS4 occasionally crashes on me.

What is it supposed to do?

Hi Robert, I won't pretend to know exactly what OpenGL is, but I use it in poser and it is an exceleration program. here is a link that might help... 

http://www.opengl.org/

Hugs

Ariana

Quote - What is it supposed to do?

A couple of things it is supposed to do: Allow you to rotate the image instantaneously on screen without having to actually rotate the image, i.e., not a transform, meaning even an extremely large image can be rotated in an instant on screen for purposes of making a brush stroke or a selection or some such. Much the same goes for zooms and pans and bird's eye navigation.

There is also, of course, that PS CS4 is now potentially 64-bit, and thus potentially much faster and capable of using much more RAM, if you have a system and OS to support it.

donquixote,

To be able to temporarily rotate - just to do a few brushstrokes, would be a great advantage indeed...

What sort of OS and system would you say you would need to support it?

Quote - What sort of OS and system would you say you would need to support it?

Well ... PC or Mac?

I'm certainly no expert, but ...

... I downloaded the trial today and installed it, and it works pretty fine on my 5-year-old dual Opteron system. I have 4G RAM and 64-bit Vista installed and a relatively new, fairly top-notch video card (supposedly one of the best available for the old AGP standard which is all my system board supports).

But I wouldn't exactly recommend my system for anyone who wants to be very productive. Oh wait. Yeah, I would. Wanna buy a system?   ;)

But seriously, best bet would probably be the latest and greatest Mac, or whatever Apple calls them these days. Just about everyone tells me as much. But I'm an old PC hand, so I'm likely to stick with it, and in that case I'm dreaming of an i7 with Windows 7 (when it's clearly out of beta, of course) and about 12G RAM.

Of course I have a couple of dreams beyond Photoshop ...

At the moment, they're just dreams though. I lost about 85% of my net worth in the Dubya years, am semi-disabled, am staring the very real possibility of poverty in the face, and who can say what's still to come? If or when I get to the point where I think I can justify it, it may still take me 3-6 months to psyche myself into letting go of the $$$ ...

I have:

MicroSoft Windows XP Media Centre Edition

Version 2002

Service Pack 3

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU

Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

2.40GHz  3.00BG of RAM

NVIDIA Ge Force GTS 8800 graphics card.

That should be enough... shouldn't it?

I have never owned a mac, and have no intention of ever getting one.

Quote - That should be enough... shouldn't it?

I'm not too familiar with the particular version of your OS, but it sounds quite adequate to me.

Why not go to adobe.com and download the trial and try an install and see?

But prior to installing PS, I would suggest you make sure you have the very latest drivers for your video card installed. I understand older drivers can cause problems with the OpenGL functions, which seem (so far) to be some of the cooler features, IMHO.

Quote - I have never owned a mac, and have no intention of ever getting one.

Ah, now, one should always try to keep a flexible attitude. One never knows when it might come in handy.   ;)

Oh. Wait. I just re-read the thread. You already have CS4. Why are you asking?

Oh yeah. The new "spring-loaded" commands feature is cool.

Why am I asking?  Because it's not working properly!  It keeps crashing and says things like "there was a problem so PhotoShop is continuing without GPU or"... something like that - and sometimes it crashes after that, and sometimes it doesn't.  (shrug)

What's a ""spring-loaded" commands feature"???

I do have the very latest drivers for the card, when the problems began I rushed off and got it, I've also updated all of the Adobe Production Suite.  Windows is service pack 3 and keep updating whether I want it to or not...

No no, the reason I'm asking is not because I haven't got it, but because I have these problems with it crashing.

I have asked Adobe for help, but apart from acknowledging receipt of my email detailing the problems, and assuring me of an answer within 24 hours, I've heard nothing from them since I bought it off them, and I bought it from AdobeUK and registered it on the 6th or 7th of January.

Okay.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I'm using a video card with a chipset for which the OpenGL support has a reputation of being often somewhat inferior to the card you seem to be using, but I've seen no crashes and pretty much stellar performance so far.

I guess you never know ...

Give Adobe a chance. But if they don't come through on support or are too slow, you might try asking around to see if someone can loan you a different high quality video card just to see if yours may be the main cause of the problems you're seeing.

As for my "spring-loaded" comment, tools can be temporarily switched to by pressing and holding the shortcut tool, i.e., you can be, say, zoomed up in the image and in the middle of some brush work and can press and hold the 'H' key and click on the image with the hand tool (keeping the left button down) and it will zoom out to a bird's eye view of the image, and you can then select a different portion of the image and then release the 'H' key and continue with your brush work, i.e., whatever tool you were in the middle of using will again be active, whether it is the dodge tool, burn tool, clone stamp, etc..

You can do it with the rotate tool, too, i.e., while in the middle of another task, you can press and hold the 'R' key, rotate the image on the fly, and then release the 'R' key and proceed with whatever task you were in the middle of. It's very cool, and should prove to be a productivity enhancer for those willing to learn these shortcut keys. My only complaint with it is you can't do it with the any of the selection tools active, i.e., it would be nice to be able to rotate the image in the MIDDLE of making a selection. Still, one should be able to get similar results simply by doing a partial selection and then rotating and then adding to the previous selection. Still, the other way would be very much cooler.

You should be able to operate similarly with some of the other tools, like the move tool, the eyedropper tool, etc., but I haven't experimented with much besides 'H' and 'R' yet.

That all sounds great.

I must try it some time.

What I'm not so happy about is when I'm zooming in to an image and need to shift it a little so I can access the image below (which is a sort of palette of the colours I want to use to fill certain areas of the image above it).

When I ease the open image over a little - trying to see the palette image beneath, I find that PhotoShop will fix the image to the top of the screen, or else somehow manage to glue it to the palette image, so that I have to stop work, and zoom out so I can find the top of each image and try to unglue them both and then I have to go through the whole rigmarole of zooming in, and moving the edges of the image into position again, so I have it set up again so that I can scroll down while still zoomed in.

I'm doing an animation so I have loads of these images that need 'colouring in' like this.

This way PhotoShop has of thinking it knows what you're trying to do and so does it for you, is intensely annoying and interrupts the work flow a great deal - making it take a great deal longer to do an already laborious task..... (sigh)

As for "giving Adobe a chance" how much of a 'chance' do they need?  I think well over a month is a good deal of a chance when they said 24 hours.  They're rubbish!  Please, lets forget about them, thinking about them only makes me angry.

These forums are millions of times more help to me than Adobe and people here don't get paid for giving advice.  People here are kind and as far as I can tell a lot more knowledgeable than Adobe - from looking at their FAQ's list.

Anyway, Rendo is a much more friendly place, you can talk about almost anything here, as well as important stuff - a relaxed atmosphere...

Aaaaahhhhhhhh... like soaking in the bath... lol.

Quote - I find that PhotoShop will fix the image to the top of the screen

I don't have an answer for you, but I'll try to look into it sometime today and see if I can understand the problem you're having, etc.

Quote - As for "giving Adobe a chance" how much of a 'chance' do they need?

Sorry. I did not read your post carefully enough. I didn't realize it had been so long. Having been at times a developer and at other times the guy on the phone trying to get some help, I kind of see things from both sides. Companies are only people and people make mistakes, especially very busy people, and CS4 is still a relatively new release, and they may still be kinda busy ironing everything out, or they may simply be overwhelmed with support issues. Further, some people's demands for support are pretty unreasonable, i.e., those who are unwilling to crack a manual or look at the help, for example.

On the other hand, if they are willing to take your money, they should give you decent support.

Have you tried to stay in touch with them? Or have you simply waited and assumed they would get back to you? My old man taught me to squeak, i.e., the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you find you can't get the help you need, here or somewhere else, then try pestering them a bit. Keep sending them an email every day or so for a while. Or better, call them every day or two on the phone. It's a bit of trouble, but with a little patience, it sometimes works.

Another suggestion, if you have time enough, is to search the internet for and view some video tutorials. Some are free, and if you can spare a few bucks for a couple of months or so, the for pay site lynda.com can be a worthwhile investment, and the monthly subscription cost is fairly reasonable. Later.

I've been waiting since the 6th January, off and on...

Okay, I've given them another chance, I've opened a case - again, (yes I did try to stay in touch, by re-opening an unanswered case) tried to add as much detail to the new case as I could... we'll see...

Decent support?  I'd be happier with any support...

Oh, and I have hunted through the manual until I'm blue in the face... on this occasion I don't think the answer is in there, after all manuals don't often have a section on "Crash: cause?" 
Troubleshooting sections just don't cut the mustard.  They are usually pretty basic anyway, with stuff like - "Is the machine plugged in at the mains?"

Usually I find myself:

a) hunting though the manual,

b) using what to me sounds like a perfectly logical search phrase - since it has the program's own error message within it, but nothing will come up...

c) I then have to try to second guess what term the....

(searches for something meaning 'idot' but more polite, can't think of one so uses it anyway... Lol)

idiot who made the manual used for this problem... 

d) don't manage it, go online to search,

e) find millions of other people have had the same problem, also find they all had different solutions, but the solutions posted ends the threads, no-one coming back to say what actually worked...

f) Tries them all, nothing works...

g) Cries...

h) use different program, if available

i) if not, cry some more, swear a lot.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Unfortunately I am no longer in a position to simply abandon a project if the software doesn't work, I absolutely HAVE to finish the project.  Somehow.

I can't call them on the phone as this is a bit of a bad reception area, and I only have my mobile - plus can't afford long phone calls on a student budget.

Video tutorials don't usually take you through the routine for solving program crashing...  None that I've ever heard of anyway.

I've asked the After Effects Render crash problem, not the multitudinous PhotoShop problems - one step at a time eh?

Besides the PhotoShop problems are more annoying and time-wasting than project halting...  It's the AE prob that's the real killer.

On a more cheerful note - boy did we need one now! - I got a load of free Lynda.com video tutorials, when I bought PaintShopProPhotoX2 - not that those will help much with PhotoShop... ROFL!

Can't buy anything at the moment, just bought Production Suite, and now have to get my car through its MOT... worrying me a bit, that is...

Oh about PhotoShop images sticking to the top of the work area screen, or each other, I can do a screen grab if that will help?

Yes. A screen shot. There is a "snap to document bounds" setting somewhere, but somehow I doubt if that is what you are talking about. A screen capture might help as I still haven't figured out what the problem may be.

As for crashes, Adobe probably hasn't helped (and probably won't) with that problem because this is most likely a hardware problem (and that is probably what their support is assuming). They don't guarantee their software will be compatible with all hardware. No software developer can. And they certainly cannot help all their customers troubleshoot all the hardware that's out there. That's why they publish (again, somewhere) lists of hardware and operating systems they consider compatible. If you can find the information (I know it's out there somewhere on Adobe.com because I've seen it), you should be able to determine whether your hardware and OS are considered (by Adobe) to be fully compatible.

If they are supposed to be fully compatible, a couple of things you could try -- though it could all be a waste of time and effort, but you never know until you try -- is to uninstall your video card drivers and reinstall them, or, if that doesn't work and if you are willing, fdisk and format the system (and program) drive(s) and reinstall everything from scratch.

Sometimes that last approach solves a world of troubles. Sometimes it solves nothing. Either way, as I'm sure you know, it's a commitment in terms of time and trouble, and you need to be sure you have reliable backups and get a professional to do it if you are in any way unsure of yourself. I've done it many times over the years and have almost screwed myself over a time or two in spite of that experience.

On the other hand if your hardware and/or OS is/are not fully compatible, you obviously need to start over and install a different OS if that is the trouble, or if it's the hardware, then you will need to try to find a local hardware guru who can swap out parts (I'm just guessing, but most likely swapping out the video card and its drivers will do the trick) until the crashes go away.

Just don't expect Adobe, or any other software vendor -- ever -- to resolve a hardware problem for you if that's what it is. If any software support rep has ever done that for you, they did it because they were especially nice and wanted to be helpful, not because they were obligated to.

And good luck.

1 shows how the images stack when you open them,
2 shows how things sort of fade when one image gets too close to another image (- but you haven't yet let go of the mouse button)
3 shows what happens if you release the mouse button when one image is too close to another image's top bar...

Exactly the same thing happens even if you only have one image open but this time you are too close to the work area's top menu.  If you have 2 images... then...

1 shows the image getting too near to the top menu bar and fading as PhotoShop takes over from you.

1. shows the image you were working on has spread out and is now stuck to the top of the workspace and hidden behind the 2nd image you had open and its side scroll bar is now way way over to the right and hidden somewhere under the right hand menus - which by the way are much wider than they used to be in CS2 - and are thus much more in the way...

2. just shows the image that photoshop has wrestled away from you - but I've minimised the other image so you can see more clearly.

Go to Edit > Preferences > Interface, uncheck "Enable Floating Document Window Docking," and then exit and reload Photoshop.

(Note: even with the above preference unchecked, you can still dock the windows as tabs, but you will now have to hold down the Control key to do it.)

Does this solve your problem?

Yeah. It solves your problem. No acknowledgment necessary. Glad I could help.

It does - it does! It does!!

Waaahooo!  At last, thank you thank you thank you.

(sorry I'm late, I only just found time to get back into the forums)

You're delightfully welcome!