packbit-compressed TIFF files in Photoshop CS

I'm having a problem opening some packbit-compressed TIFF files in Photoshop CS for PC.

I could not open a file in Photoshop (the error message was "Could not complete your request because of a program error"), but I can open the same file using Paint Shop Pro. When I re-save the file in Paint Shop Pro, it gets about 4MB bigger in size, and then it will open in Photoshop.

I have many files that are packbit compressed, and would like to avoid the open/re-save step in Paint Shop. Any help is appreciated.

Steve.

Chris,

Packbits might be not very common but unfortunately it is used by the panotools package as the only option for 16 bit output. Many panotools users have upgraded to photoshop CS for a complete 16 bit workflow.

Panoramas, especially for large format printing, very soon exceed the 32000 pixel limit, so converting images with photoshop 6 (where Packbits used to work) is not possible. Other tools (tiffcp or ImageMagick) have other disadvantages.

It is very hard to use two of the major advantages of photoshop CS (16 bit layers and more than 32000 pixel) together with panotools. Therefore I would like to ask Adobe in the name of the panotools community to fix this bug in the next update.

Best regards
Erik

Packbits doesn't even work well for 16 bit data -- PLEASE contact the maker of Panotools and ask him to fix his TIFF output.

This is not something we can fix in an update.
It will have to be fixed in the next major version.

But PanoTools should be able to fix it in their code by using a better compression method for TIFF.

Chris,

I fully agree with you. Unfortunately it won't be easy to fix this in panotools due to some very odd circumstances. Many thanks for your reply, though.

best regards
Erik