Image adjustment ‘levels’ graph solid black

W
Posted By
Widescreen
May 25, 2004
Views
293
Replies
8
Status
Closed
An existing installation of PS LE has worked fine for a long time, but suddenly it developed a problem displaying the graphs of the image adjustment tools. The graphs were solid black.

This problem applied to ‘levels’ and to ‘curves’
The graphs continued to function, but it was guess work.

Subsequently installed PS Elements and find the same problem is manifest there too: Enhance/Brightness-Contrast/Levels: Levels graph area is solid black.

What could be the problem?

As PS LE is still installed is it possible both programmes call the same faulty dll?

Roger

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NS
Nancy_S
May 25, 2004
Widescreen,

Did you by chance recently update your video drivers? What happens when you turn video acceleration down all the way…
W
Widescreen
May 25, 2004
Nancy, thanks for your helpful reply.

I certainly installed video editing software around the time the problem started, so its quite possible these applications changed the video acceleration settings.

I assume the video acceleration control will be found via the Windows Control Panel on the Display Driver settings:
Control Panel/Display/Settings/Advanced/Performance: None…Full

I have turned down one notch but must restart to see the effect.

Will report back.

Roger
W
Widescreen
May 25, 2004
Nancy,

You were spot on.
Turning down the video acceleration one notch has restored the image adjustment graphs to normal.

I don’t really understand the effect video acceleration has on the video display, but presumably the fastest setting is required for fast pixel rendering in computer games.

I don’t have any games, but do have camcorder video editing. Will turning down the acceleration setting be likely to impair this?

Thanks again.

Roger
NS
Nancy_S
May 29, 2004
Widescreen,

Turning down/off video acceleration is more of a simple diagnostic procedure to determine if the video drivers are the culprit for PSE misbehaving. Since your graphs reappear after turning it down, your drivers do seem to be the problem. Perhaps you have dueling drivers in the background, or a file was overwritten. You could; try uninstalling PSE and reinstalling it, or check your video card manufacturers site for newer drivers or leave it as is (do YOU notice a slowdown of any kind in your computer’s performance?)
W
Widescreen
May 30, 2004
Nancy,

My graphics card is fairly modern:
Sparkle brand card featuring N-VIDA Geforce4 MX440
128MB DDR.
I reinstalled the graphic card drivers, but without any effect as far as I can tell.

I’m afraid I do not understand what you mean by dueling drivers. Could you mean that more than one set of video drivers are installed and are acting in competition? Is this possible?

I have not noticed any change in performance after turning down the acceleration one notch, and my video editing seems to work fine, so I’ll probably leave it as it is unless something else shows up.

Thanks again for your help.

Roger
MM
Mac_McDougald
May 31, 2004
But are you indeed running in 32 bit color depth?

M
W
Widescreen
May 31, 2004
Mac,

You make an excellent point.

The black out problem corrected by turning down the video acceleration one notch was apparently in 16 bit colour.
(I thought 32 bit colour was set but somehow it must have got changed)

With colour set to 32 bit I can increase the video acceleration to Full and still have properly displayed graphs.

Roger
MM
Mac_McDougald
Jun 1, 2004
That’s almost always the case.
24 bit is usually fine too, if ones’ adaptor only goes that high. 16 bit, you were only seeing 65,000 color possibilities instead of 16 million, also.

Mac

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