PS CS4 after the patch…problems remain….

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Posted By
Pickman
Mar 18, 2009
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1081
Replies
17
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Closed
Some Months ago, Photoshop CS4 was useless for me due to many problems that occured on my system (and as far as i can see, many other user’s systems).

Meanwhile i installed the Patch to Version 11.0.1 and updated to new NVIDIA-driver Version 182.03.

I gave PS CS4 another try and realized, that some of the problems are gone. The OpenGL Features stay activated, rotating and smooth zooming are available and work fast and stable, graphic glitches and wrong menu-drawing are gone. That is most of the time…

Some problems remain:

– My long trusted wacom driver Version 493-3 (the only driver i had no problems with) does not grant me pressure-sensitivity in Photoshop CS4. It works well with CS3, but in CS4 theres no pressure at all. So switched to ne newest driver version. But even the newest Wacom-Driver does not work properly. If I close photoshop and reopen it, some pressure sensitivity of the brushes is gone. Sometimes ALL pressure sensitive functions are gone. Sometimes it helps reloading my brushes, sometimes this has no effect at all. Driver Version is 610-6 in combination with an Intuos3 Tablet.

– I have many cases where Photoshop just disappeared. It closed without warning or error-message.

– the OpenGL Features STILL deactivate out of nowhere. This happens mostly with layer-intensive documents and in combination with taskswitches. I only realise this when zooming becomes jumpy and the smoothness is suddenly gone. Then the rotate feature is greyed out. Strange thing is, all openGL features are still marked as active in the preferences. There’s no warning or error message, the features simply vanished for this particular document. (It stays active for other open documents at the same time)

I am completely helpless here. For me it is AGAIN back to CS3. Working with Photoshop CS4 is really not possible with the above mentioned things happening all the time.

I use the most recent drivers available. My system is still fresh and nothing of this ever happened with Photoshop CS3.
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Pickman
Mar 18, 2009
I have to ad an observation concerning the loss of pressure sensitivity:

– When i open Photoshop with the STYLUS AND the brush palette is CLOSED, everything is fine.

– If I open photoshop with my MOUSE, all pressure sensitivity is gone, the thumbnails in the brush-palette show only opaque strokes with no transparency or size change.

– When I open photoshop with the STYLUS AND the brush palette is OPEN, pressure sensitivity is only lost for those brushes that were visible in the palette. Scrolling the palette down shows, that the other brushes still have their pressure sensitive features enabled.

This is so strange i almost did not dare to post it. So here are Screenshots of my brush menu as it appears if photoshop is opened via mouse:

Image A

and via Stylus:

Image A

Not only is the palette view altered, the pen indeed produces no pressure sensitive strokes.
SK
Stefan_Klein
Mar 18, 2009
I also still have many OpenGL problems (Geforce 8600GT/512MB latest driver, Intel Q6600, Vista 32 Ultimate, PS CS 11.01)
– OGL sometimes just stops working without any message (like Pickman said) – 66,66% view eats up about 60% CPU usage (just for viewing the picture, nothing else) – GPU accelerated HDR view produces strong shadow banding – when drawing a path, the hand tool via spacebar is sometimes not available and sometimes it is, but flick-panning is not working
– when in 66,66% view sometimes tiles of the image only show a flickering checkerboard (again, I`m not moving the image)
-UV-scaling of textures does not work with raytracing
– zoom tool is sometimes not working as it should and only resetting preferences helps (imagine a huge skyscraper (great hight, small width). YOu set your zooming rectangle exactely around the edges of the skyscaper and PS of course should zoom in so that the whole building can be seen. But instead it zooms in that the width of the building fills the entire screen. Resetting prferences helps…..for some days. Then it starts again)
– When making changes to a 3D model it happens from time to time that if you go back one step in the history panel the whole 3D model dissapears! Go forward one step again and it reappears.

And then this strange behaviour:
-Create a new document
-create a new layer
-go to "3D-new form from layer" (winebottle for example) -zoom to 50%
-go to the 3D panel and change surrounding light or diffuse light -while having the color picker of one of those dialogs open (in order to change light color) change zoom view to 66%.
Then the whole 3D model disappears! Zoom to 50% and it`s back again!

I really love those GPU features and they were one of the reasons for me to upgrade, but there are still bugs all over the place. I worked very much with 3D in the last couple of days and there really are annoying bugs every couple of minutes.
All in all, PS CS4 11.01 is MUCH better than 11.0, but still very buggy.
BC
Bart_Cross
Mar 18, 2009
Pickman: I have an Intuos3 tablet with CS4 and do not experience any of the problems you are having.

I opened PS and a new file with the mouse, switched to the stylus and have pressure sensitivity.
SK
Stefan_Klein
Mar 18, 2009
Oh yes, I nearly forgot the OGL sharpness problem 😉
-Make a file 3333×3333 pixels
– go to vanishing point and double click on the second button to make a rectengular grid. Go to vanishing point`s options and set "render grid to Photoshop" (or something like that. I have german version)
– click ok. Now you have a grid in Photoshop
– deactivate OGL (it`s still activated for this picture, but deactivated for the next one, but that`s all right!)
– duplicate the picture (now this one is without OGL)
– position them side by side
– put both through exact same zoom levels. At 25% and 50% the non OGL version is much sharper, not to mention other zoom levels. At least 100% is perfect.
– Do the same test with a 3000x3000px file. Now there is no sharpness problem 🙂
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Pickman
Mar 18, 2009
@Bart Cross: That’s good for you. Maybe you have the "better" system respective of components that work better with PS CS4.

My system specs are:

MSI-p35 NEO2 Bios V1.10
Intel Dualcore E8500
Leadtek Geforce 9800 GX2 (2×512 MB) Driver Version 182.08 Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme
3GB RAM
Windows XP SP3
Silverstone Power-Supply 750 W
Intuos3 A4 Wacom Tablet with Driver pro610-6_int.exe

Everything is updated to newest Driver-Firmware Versions
BC
Bart_Cross
Mar 18, 2009
I have an Asus board, an Intel Q6600, & 8Gb of RAM with an Intuos3 6×11. Shouldn’t make any difference in getting pressure sensitivity.
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Pickman
Mar 18, 2009
Indeed, but as long as the problem remains, i have to look at everything for clues.
MP
MikeShaw_PSQE
Mar 18, 2009
Regarding drop of pressure in CS4.
Make sure that your tablet mode is set to Recognition mode in addition to having the latest driver. If you did an update instead of an uninstall and reinstall of the driver you may need to kill the Wacom prefs from the Wacom Tablet Preference File Utility.
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Pickman
Mar 18, 2009
I deinstalled the driver via the deinstallation routine in control panel/software, rebooted my pc, installed the driver, erased all user preferences with the driver tool. Problem remains the same.

I have Photoshop CS3 running on the same machine and there is no problem with pressure. It just happens with CS4.

Here’s the Link to my post in the Wacom-Forum, where it is assumed it might be a bug in Photoshop:

< http://forum.wacom.eu/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=734&p=2781 #p2781>
DC
David_Calvert
Mar 19, 2009
The update has made an improvement, but I’m still experiencing problems with the image looking slightly out of focus – something I don’t get with CS3.
CC
Chris_Cox
Mar 19, 2009
Either you get blocky images at non-integer zoom factors without GL, or you get slightly blurry but smooth images (which everyone asked for) using GL.

You can’t have perfectly sharp images at all zoom levels.
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Pickman
Apr 1, 2009
I have another problem:

I often work with layer comps and need to export them as single files. Strange thing is, that after working some time in my document, the script for exporting Layer comps to files gives me an error message:

<http://www.irrlichtartwork.de/TEMP/Snag-0001.jpg>

I have to save my file, close Photoshop, restart it and the script works just fine.

Very annoying. Photoshop CS3 does not give me this problem.
AH
Andrew_Hart
Apr 3, 2009
Stefan,

Just to let you know, I performed your tests as per your post #4 and got the same un-sharp results. This is not the first time you have given this example in this and other places and I have not seen any contradiction of it by anyone so far. It means that CS4 with OGL turned ON must be considered completely untrustworthy for judging or checking sharpness at any zoom level other than 100%, unless your image happens to have proportional pixel dimensions such as 3000×3000. CS3 and CS2 (and CS and Ps7 and ….???) are all sharp at 12.5, 25, and 50%, so what the heck went wrong with CS4?. Kinda reminds you of those infamous words : "Photoshop CS4 is a disaster, Adobe what were you thinking?"
SK
Stefan_Klein
Apr 3, 2009
Andrew, glad to hear that I`m obviousely not crazy 😉
I`d also like to know what Adobe is intending to do with the bugs I mentioned in post 2.
F
Freeagent
Apr 3, 2009
the bugs I mentioned in post 2

– 66,66% view eats up about 60% CPU usage (just for viewing the picture, nothing else)

I see this too, and it’s really puzzling. There was a thread about it some weeks ago, but nothing came out of it.

– when in 66,66% view sometimes tiles of the image only show a flickering checkerboard (again, I`m not moving the image)

This is another one I see, but occasionally and only under heavy load (many large files open). But this one I really believe is another video driver bug. God knows there have been enough of them. One by one they’ve crept out in the open, it’s been a veritable bug farm. It could keep an entomologist happy for years.

The others I haven’t seen.
BC
Bart_Cross
Apr 3, 2009
How do you get 66.66%, mine goes to 66.7%?
F
Freeagent
Apr 3, 2009
Indeed. That must be it… 😉

Actually, I hadn’t noticed that it was just 66.x%, I just saw the flickering tiles stopped immediately if I hit ctrl+1 to go to 100.

Maybe it’s trying to calculate 66.666666666%?

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