emil_ems5

<p>Sorry Patrick (Lavoie)! I see that I misspelled your name in my intervention. I was referring to a workaround that I recall you had outlined here some time ago.</p>

<p>I own a MacBook Pro 17 inch laptop, bought in August 1008 (the second to last model). Recently I also acquired an Eye-one 2 calibrator. I made a first calibration. My question in that context relates to the luminance issue. What I did was put the screen on its highest luminance, by applying the appropriate keyboard key. Thereafter, in the Eye-one 2 programme, which asks for the target luminance, I put in 120 candles. Thereafter I proceeded as the programme told me to do. Was this the right procedure to follow? I seem to recall that Patrice had proposed some workaround to follow, as concerns setting the luminance, but cannot find it now in the archives. <br>

Patrice, is your workaround still to be applied to the more recent MacBook Pros? If so, could you please remind me of the right procedure to follow?</p>

<p>I have an intermittent problem with my D90. Once in a while, I push the "On" button but the camera remains inactive. I can operate the menu on the back screen, can also look at photos already saved on the card, but cannot take any pictures. Pushing the release button does not result in any action by the camera. Furthermore, the little screen on top does not show me the shooting data (f stop, speed etc.) it should show. <br>

This problem usually stays with me for 10 minutes at least, but it has also happened that the camera does not get started at all and I have to wait a day or two for it to function normally again.<br>

Has anyone else in the community had the same problem? Is it caused by the body malfunctioning, or is the flash card to blame?</p>

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<p>I googled a lot to find out if others are having the same problem. In fact, it turned out that almost EVERYONE having installed InDesign CS4 on Snow Leopard is having this problem. Finally, I found the good solution originally suggested by a hero at the Adobe Indesign Forum. There is an Adobe TechNote dealing with this issue! It is kb404722. They suggest to remove at least part of the SING folder, that follows with Indesign. Actually I tried to do that earlier, but there is a trick to it. You have to enter the "Library" folder from the "Desktop", and not from "User", since, strangely enough, these are two different "Library" folders. Once in the right "Library" folder, you delete all (if you wish) or part of the SING folder located there. HEUREKA! But before doing so, take the trouble of reading Adobe Technote kb404722. It tells you precisely what to do.</p>

 

 

 

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<p>I recently bought a Mac Pro and installed the latest versions of Photoshop and InDesign (both CS4), which I am already working with on my MacBook Pro with the former (Leopard) operating system. <br>

Photoshop works just fine on the Mac Pro, with the machine's new Snow Leopard operating system. However, there is a problem with InDesign. Everytime I open a file, even opening a new file, the programme is stalling and I have to force-stop it. <br>

Does anyone else in the Community have a similar problem and could suggest a solution? </p>

<p>Thanks a lot, guys, your answer saved my day. I work on a MacBook Pro with touchpad, so there is no right-click action. However, when hovering the click on the "Crop" tool, I got the choices you showed me and everything is going smoothly again! </p>

<p>I have been working with ACR for a year now and always found the "Straighten" tool very useful. Until recently, when applying the tool, ACR cropped the picture accordingly, in the exact proportion of the original picture (2x3). But some days ago, suddenly, it stopped doing that and now is cropping the picture in the 4x5 proportion, cutting of a much bigger part of the original than needed. Furthermore, I cannot change the crop back manually into the right proportion. I cannot understand this change in behavior, and neither can I find commands in ACR that would correct this mal-behavior. Can any of the formidable experts in the community help me out here?</p>

<p>Colin,</p>

<p>Thanks for your timely answer. Actually, I applied Option+Click, just used the wrong wording "Enter" for the the operation. The problem thus still exists as described before. I tried to source the color by Option+Clicking. Thereafter I tried to paint, while just keeping "Clicking" permanently engaged. Still no result!</p>

<p>Dear friends, I have a problem that is driving me crazy. I have read the manual on how to apply the color replacement tool, but somehow I cannot get it to work with my laptop.<br>

Here is what I do. I create a new file, half of which I fill with a certain color and half of which I leave white. I then choose the color replacement tool from the tools bar. The screen then shows me a small circle with a cross inside. The next logical step should be to sample color from somewhere. But however I do it, nothing happens. I put the small circle on the colored half of my file and apply "Alt"("Option")+Enter; this should sample the color in question. Instead, the sign changes from the small circle into the ordinary brush sign, which changes back to the small circle after releasing the commands. If I thereafter move this small circle to the white half of the file and move around, while keeping "Enter" pushed down, but nothing happens. <br>

Is there anyone out there who uses a MacBookPro of 2008 model with a touch pad instead of the mouse, like me, and knows how to apply the color replacement tool?</p>

<p>Ry!<br>

Overlapping images manually is easy. <br>

Open the middle image and then go to "Image"/"Canvas size" and increase the canvas to the left and right so as to make room for the other two pictures.<br>

Open the left picture, whilst keeping the middle picture open. Open the Icon "Arrange Pictures" on top of the screen and permit 2 pictures side by side. Drag the left picture over to the middle picture and place it on the empty canvas to the left, where it belongs. Go the back to the left picture and close it.<br>

Open the right picture, whilst keeping the middle picture open. Drag the right picture over to the middle picture and place it on the empty canvas to the right, where it belongs. Go the back to the right picture and close it.<br>

You will now see that your middle picture now consists of three levels, one each for the three pictures you have merged. You can still move the individual pictures around by clicking on the appropriate level. For exact positioning, just decrease the opacity of the level you move down to about 50%.</p>

<p>I hope this helps</p>

<p>Thanks a lot, Andrew and Sheldon,<br>

Andrew made it perfectly clear to me what 0+1 Raid means. With this configuration I will actually have two virtual harddisks at 2 TB each. The first "disk" will be the space for (1) the photoshop scratch disk, (2) for the files and (3) for the system application files. The second "disk" will mirror the first, acting as "back-up".<br>

With this set-up, I guess that I will have to partition the first "disk" so as to ensure that the scratch disk gets first priority of access, the files the second priority and the system applications the third priority. Would the following be a good partition: Scratch disk 250 GB (125+125), files 1250 GB (625+625) and system applications 500 GB ( 245+250)?<br>

Sheldon, I appreciate your advice to read the macperformanceguide. Actually, I have studied the text several times, but somehow I do not get the content, it is too technical for my limited computer grasp. This is why I was compelled to pose my question (as well as the present follow-up question) in a more practical manner. I hope this is OK and that I still could get a response from both of you to my draft approach.</p>

<p>I am about to order a Mac Pro and would urgently need some advice.<br>

The computer will have the 2.66 Ghz Quad-Core processor, 16 Gb Ram and four 1TB SATA2 72000 rpm HD installed. In addition, I have an external 1 TB Harddisk. I've been told that this should be sufficient hardware for handling also very large files (I am working a lot on panoramas consisting of up to 20 pictures).<br>

I will use the computer mainly (if not only) for Photoshop and Indesign work (still have to learn Indesign though).<br>

The seller advises me to configure the computer as "Raid 0+1". I am unsure how this works and what will have to be installed on each internal hard disk.<br>

Could anyone here on the forum explain to me, in simple terms, where the scrap disk, the programmes (including photoshop) and the picture files should be installed and how to implement this on the computer?<br>

As you maybe understand, I am not very used to computer practice, so some simple words of advice would be much appreciated. </p>

<p>Sunil, To your two questions: Stretching does not give you any noise, or other artifacts, if done to reasonable extent. As to the sky, you are right in presuming that I use a fill layer. However, I usually borrow the extreme values (in terms of colour and lightness) of the original picture. Using those extreme values, I fill the layer with the gradiant tool. The result then looks close to the original sky. I would love to include one of my panoramas to emphasize the point, but don't know how to add photos in this Forum.</p>

<p>Sunil Ganji,</p>

<p>Although correct in his technical comments, the preceding comment is overly harsh on the practical photographer. It happens to me many times that I am in a beautiful landscape without a tripod, but still wishing to make a panorama. In such occasions, I fire away the shots as well as I can, hand-held of course and have to worry about correcting the deficiencies at home in Photoshop. The techniques most commonly used by me to fill in the inevitable gaps are the following:<br>

(i) Stretching parts of the picture (using Photoshop's Transform/Distort command)<br>

(ii) Cloning uneven parts of the picture<br>

(iii) Constructing a new sky (since cloning in major sky parts is often telling)<br>

(iv) Going back, if possible, to take a picture of the missing parts and putting them into the original picture<br>

These techniques are of course most useful in landscape panoramics, but I have also used them in making panoramas of single houses or, say, a square.<br>

Don't let yourself be discouraged by the exact practitioners in this field. Experimenting will help you correct many mistakes made when taking the panoramas. Having said this it is of course best to play by the rules, but, again, this is often impossible. </p>

<p>I own a MacBook Pro and find iPhoto very suitable for preparing "quick and dirty" slideshows. They are easy to set up and music can be added in a flash from my iTunes library. Furthermore, by linking the laptop to my HD television set, a slideshow can be shown to a wider audience, without having to use a projector. <br>

I would like to show a sequence of slideshows on the television set without having to go to the laptop and push buttons as soon as one slideshow ends and a new should begin. Is there a way to get the laptop to do this for me?</p>

<p>Tom,<br>

I was in a similar situation a year ago and looked at several books, among them Evening's book. I bought this book but found that it was to intimidating to learn Photoshop by. After further search I found the best book for my learning purposes, Scott Kelby "7-point system for Adobe Photoshop". This nice book contains about 21 examples of rather drab pictures, which Scott shows you, step by step, how to improve. He does it in a pedagogical manner. So if you follow his steps on your computer, you will have a good grasp of photoshop after having worked through his 21 examples. If you are a practical man like me, who has difficulties with following teaching by video tutorials, this would be the book for you. Permit me to add that Scott uses extensively ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) in his workflow. ACR is very similar to Lightroom, so you learn Lightroom at the same time as Photoshop, if working with his 21 examples.<br>

I hope this helps. </p>

<p>Patrick and John,<br>

Could you please explain what you mean by "trashing the preferences". I have a problem similar to Karen's and would like to make sure I am doing the right thing.</p>

<p>John,<br>

Your method seems to me to correct the original imbalance in a correct manner. Could you please be more explicit about how you used GUI to that effect? I have a lot of pictures of houses that I never manage to correct the perspective of in Photoshop in a satisfactory manner. I would like to learn your method and am sure that many others would too. Could you do a tutorial on this? I would highly appreciate it.</p>

<p>Thanks to you both. In fact, I always work in 16 bit, so I understand now that I would have to go down to 8 bit to use this command. Maybe not worth it. </p>

<p>I recently saw an excellent tutorial on how to achieve good white balance in Photoshop. The author used the "Image/Adjustments/Variations" command. When trying to emulate his exercises I discovered that CS4 on my computer does not permit me to use this command. It is listed on the menu, but is grayed out. I tried to apply it to a copy layer of my background copy of a file, which should be alright. Has Adobe suppressed this command in the latest update or is there some trick to make it work?</p>

<p>Thankful for all suggestions. I am a beginner with this programme.</p>

<p>Emil</p>

<p>Ania,</p>

<p>You might be interested to know that there is currently a rebate of €3000 on the X1 scanner (the cheapest version, which is more than satisfactory for your needs). The big difference to the Nikon 9000 scanner is that there is no issue with focussing, and you don't have to worry about necessary (and expensive) glassholders as for the Nikon.<br /> I hope this helps.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks a lot, all of you, for your excellent advice. In particular, Lex' and TM's answers have helped me solve the problem. I should of course have found the command "Auto-align layers" on my own. But one gets frequently confused with all the options in Photoshop. As to tripods, we may probably prefer to carry on that discussion under other forum headings, since the question was not about techniques for taking pictures. I am a long time practitioner of hand held large format street photography myself and am always glad to resolve any issues other photographers may have in that context. </p>

<p>I own a Nikon D60 which, unfortunately, is lacking automatic multi-exposure. I took recently two pictures of a street view against the sun with many details and moving cars, one normally exposed and one two steps over-exposed. I am rather fond of the motive and would like to combine the two pictures manually so that the over-exposed print can be used to lighten up, selectively, the shadows in the picture. <br>

What I did was to try to move the one picture on the other with the "Move" tool in Photoshop. The problem now is to get them to fit together perfectly. Both pictures are taken with the same focus length (of my zoom), but I happened to keep the camera slightly unlevel for the second picture. However I try with the "Transform" command to rotate the picture into the right place, I cannot manage to get a perfect alignment. Is there a command in Photoshop that could achieve this automatically, or will I have to acquire another programme to make this happen? If so, could you advise me on the right programme?<br>

As you can see, I am a beginner with digital imaging, but I am trying hard to get better and would highly appreciate any advice you can provide me with. </p>

<p>SZ, you may wish to know that the most recent versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements (7) permit you to download camera profiles for raw conversion. I own a Nikon D60 myself and downloaded the profiles for Nikon from the Adobe website. Using the profile "landscape" I get a raw conversion similar to the JPEG conversion done by Nikon in the camera. However, the Adobe conversion can be manipulated largely without loosing image quality. It is possible to gain a lot more information in the highlight region from Adobe's conversion than from Nikon's JPEG version. The Nikon JPEG will often clip important highlights, that are unrecoverable. In Adobe's conversion, a lot of those clippings can be recovered. For instance, if you have nice clouds on a blue sky, you will regularly obtain much more nice details in the cloud with Adobe's conversion. Try it, you will be delighted. I hope this helps.</p>

<p>Peter, I have tried a similar exercise with my Mac Book Pro. Apple's programme iPhoto provides an easy way to transform photos into slideshows with zoom effects, music etc. They looked marvelous on my laptop screen. However, when I transfered the file onto DVD, the television screen did not at all provide me with the same sharp views as that screen. What I did then was to connect the laptop to the television screen, using that screen effectively as the screen for my computer. This worked perfectly and the pictures were as sharp (relatively speaking) as the pictures on my laptop screen. The only problem was that the music did not transfer to the television loudspeakers, so I had to have my laptop open and playing music at the same time as showing the slideshow on the television screen. I hope this helps!</p>