Sounds like a video driver problem. From your display preferences dialog, go to settings > advanced > troubleshooting and try turning hardware acceleration all the way to the left. This may slow down your monitor’s response, but it will help to indicate or rule out a video driver or hardware problem. If the problem you are encountering disappears with HW acceleration turned down, get and install the latest driver (you probably need to remove the old one first; check the instructions). Now, see if the problem persists with HW acceleration turned all the way to the right. If so, you may need a different video card.
Thanks Michael,
The drivers for the Ati Radeon X800XT I’m using are the latest Catalyst set. I tried your suggestion, and it had no effect. It could be that there’s a glitch in these latest Ati drivers, and it only shows up in CS3. If this bug isn’t something many CS3 users are seeing, then it’s probably down to a conflict of drivers somewhere in my system.
Coincidentally though, today all the components are arriving for a new PC I’ll be building, in which I’ll be running an Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS. So I’ll have a bang up to date platform on which to run CS3, and see if the problem disappears.
(If this wasn’t the case, I doubt I’d have swapped out my graphics card just to make the PS menu titles look nicer! 😉 )
Cheers, Neil
I’m having the exact same problem. My video card is a Matrox Parhelia APVe, latest drivers. No change when turning off hardware acceleration. Also, this problem is only in Photoshop CS3; Illustrator CS3 and Indesign CS3 are okay in this regard. What could it be?
no change when turning off hardware acceleration means the display drivers are probably ok. try the mouse drivers next. easiest way to tell is just remove them and let the os handle the mouse. they’re easy enough to reinstall (unlike video drivers!)
also consider there may be a corrupt font on your system. there’s a faq on tracking down corrupt fonts in the faq section of this forum. but it’s a pita. try removing the mouse driver first.
also what os are you guys running?
Well, I’m running XP Pro – and I’m using the default XP mouse drivers. If the font was corrupt I’d expect to see this problem occuring in other applications.
As Guy Lento mentions, this bug only shows up in Photoshop’s menus. I really don’t think this is an OS or driver bug, it gives every indication of being a minor bug in the PS CS3 menu code – although it’s clearly something that’s sparked by PS CS3 being used with a particular hardware/software setup.
I continued to ponder the significance of what I’d just posted – that the problem was occuring for me on two PCs comprising completely different hardware setups – and it very soon struck me that an obvious common factor between the two was the monitor setup. My new PC is running on the same dual monitor setup that the old one was: Samsung SyncMaster 215TW (21" widescreen, running at 1650 x 1050) and Dell Ultrasharp 18" (4:3, 1280 x 1024) TFTs. So, first I tried switching the SyncMaster to non-native resolution, but the font problem was still present. Then, I slid the Photoshop window across to the 18" 4:3 Dell monitor… and the corrupt font problem disappeared.
but what was more interesting was that upon sliding the PS window back to the SyncMaster, the font corruption was no longer there. I then quit Photoshop and re-launched it… And the corruption was still gone!
Next though, I checked Photoshop on my other (older) PC, which has a single 19" 4:3 TFT by ATMT. And I found that this was also displaying the font corruption.
Another common factor between the PCs’ display setup now occured to me. When I set up a PC, in the Display Properties Control Panel I always go to the Appearance tab, and access the Effects options screen. Then I check the box by "Use the following method to smooth the edge of Screen Fonts" and select ‘Clear Type’ from the drop-down menu (because IMO this makes screen fonts look much nicer, especially on a TFT). So the next thing I tried was setting this to the other option, ‘Standard’. And hey presto… The font corruption disappeared. Set it back to ‘Clear Type’, and the corruption is back.
So, I think that’s the case of the mysterious font corruption solved. Now, will anyone from Adobe step up and plead guilty to failing to properly support Screen Font smoothing effects in Photoshop CS3?
and it very soon struck me that an obvious common factor between the two was the monitor setup
nice work neil! good sleuthing! 🙂
I always go to the Appearance tab, and access the Effects options screen.
another (probably the most common common factor!) that many people forget when troubleshooting between machines is obvious. the user is common! and so is the user’s preferences for programs utilities and tweaks.
cheers, dave
Indeed Dave – it took me a while to get to my ‘lightbulb’ moment, but once I’d realised that two quite different PC hardware setups were exhibiting the same glitch I was able to track down the common factor… Me!
You might want to adjust your ClearType setup. By default it’s set for one particular arrangement of RGB elements, but some LCD screens use a different arrangement. There is a downloadable ClearType Tuner from MS and also a MS page where you can tune its settings in the browser. Google cleartype+tuner — for me these come up as the first two hits.
If your computers’ graphics cards only have a single processor but two outputs, you won’t be able to tune ClearType separately for each monitor. If cleartype looks great on monitor A and terrible on B, and vice versa with a different setting, then you’ll need to keep it turned off.
That’s interesting Michael, but as Clear Type looks absolutely fine on both monitors, in every application except Photoshop’s menus, I don’t think messing with the Clear Type settings is relevant.
I can report that since yesterday, when I dragged the PS CS3 window onto my second monitor (where the artifacting bug disappeared) and back again to my main monitor, the menu fonts bug has completely disappeared (although it’s still present in CS3 running on my backup single monitor PC).
I’m surprised that every suggestion in this thread has been in denial of there possibly being something (albeit minor) awry in Photoshop’s menu code. Seeing as this is the only application on either PC that’s demonstrating this behaviour.
But, feel free to continue making suggestions – it’s all food for thought… 🙂
Although I don’t have the same problem as discribe in previous posts, I have found that the appearance of the fonts in the drop down menus are practically the same whether ‘active’ or ‘inactive’.
There appears practically no difference in boldness. This makes it very difficult to see which options are selectable. OS is Win XP Pro SR2.
I don’t have this problem on any other applications or on any previous versions of Photoshop. The hardware remains the same.
Any ideas?
Widescreen monitor/Font Effects seems to be a factor, then. Although for me, having Clear Type enabled causes the bold font corruption!
(And although I thought I’d cured the problem, it came back again – subsequent to PS hanging at startup due to images in the Open Recent list not being present!)
Just to add some more info to this-
I see a similar problem, but only when I have Microsoft’s Royale theme running – if I switch back to the standard Windows XP theme, the problem goes away.
XP SP2
19" non-widescreen monitor
cleartype is on
ATI Catalyst 06.11 drivers