Newbie: Photoshop crashes in W2K and XP Pro

C
Posted By
CF
Sep 5, 2004
Views
297
Replies
4
Status
Closed
I have Photoshop 4.0 loaded on a W2K machine and until now it has always worked fine. I only use it to do minor photo touch-ups and occasional graphics. However, since last week, I have been working on a rather large graphic file 1.23 MB where the whole canvas is taken up by graphics. 90% of the times I open the file it won’t display and as soon as I use any of the Photoshop tools, the program crashes. To make matters worse, I installed Photoshop on an XP Pro machine thinking that my W2K was malfunctioning, and the results are the same.

Is 1.23 MB too large??? It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it??? Could I have 2 machines with bad Ram chips??? Is there a setting in Photoshop that I have to fiddle with in order to make it accept larger files???

Please help…Carlos

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N
noone
Sep 5, 2004
In article <sFF_c.1$ says
….
I have Photoshop 4.0 loaded on a W2K machine and until now it has always worked fine. I only use it to do minor photo touch-ups and occasional graphics. However, since last week, I have been working on a rather large graphic file 1.23 MB where the whole canvas is taken up by graphics. 90% of the times I open the file it won’t display and as soon as I use any of the Photoshop tools, the program crashes. To make matters worse, I installed Photoshop on an XP Pro machine thinking that my W2K was malfunctioning, and the results are the same.

Is 1.23 MB too large??? It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it??? Could I have 2 machines with bad Ram chips??? Is there a setting in Photoshop that I have to fiddle with in order to make it accept larger files???
Please help…Carlos

Carlos,

I do not recall what the image file limitations are on 4.0. While I have it on one ME machine, I only use it for one specific operation for one client. There could be something inherent to 4.0, and some of the folk here should be able to state those limits.

OTOH, a few things to check first would be:

Memory allocation to PS: Remember that your OS will need a certain amount to operate smoothly. Try 50%, and a Cache level of 8.

Scratch Disk: Ideally, it is best to have multiple physical disks, and set up the Scratch Disk(s) on one separate from the OS, program, and the Windows virtual memory. Baring that, a separate partition, is better than using your C; "drive." PS 4 allowed up to two (I think?) allocated Scratch Disks. These are also limited in their size (1GB each?). The more you have, the better. If the figures that I listed are correct (my 4.0 machine is at the studio, and I am not – sorry), then an ideal would be C; OS, program, Win virtual memory; D: =/> 1 GB un-fragmented (best is empty, except for PS Scratch Disk); E: =/> 1 GB un-fragmented space. Here C: is on a separate physical HDD, and D: & E: can be on another.

If these setups, which can be controlled from Edit>Preferences, you might copy your Prefs files to another directory, delete them and start PS. You will need to enter your Preferences into PS again, with whatever part of the above examples that you can provide.

If you can only use C: for everything, make sure that you defragment it.

Good luck, and I hope someone with PS 4.0 handy will correct any errors above.

Hunt
R
RSD99
Sep 5, 2004
"Hunt" posted:
"…
I do not recall what the image file limitations are on 4.0. …."

I don’t remember what version 4 was, but version 3.0.5 was capable of working with files well into the **hundreds** of megabytes in size. I specifically remember working with a photograph-based file that was something like a dozen layers and some 300+ megabytes (in 1995), using Win-NT-3.52, and thinking WOW …

File size is *not* the problem in this case. W2K or W-XP should also *not* be the problem. It might be having some other software running at the same time … too many fonts …. etcetera …
CC
Chris Cox
Sep 7, 2004
Make sure you have Photoshop 4.0.1 and the plugin updates. (or just remove MMXCore and FastCore completely – they had several bugs in 4.0.0)

No, a file that small should not be crashing.
(and 1.2 Meg is TINY, not large!)

Chris

In article wrote:

In article <sFF_c.1$ says

I have Photoshop 4.0 loaded on a W2K machine and until now it has always worked fine. I only use it to do minor photo touch-ups and occasional graphics. However, since last week, I have been working on a rather large graphic file 1.23 MB where the whole canvas is taken up by graphics. 90% of the times I open the file it won’t display and as soon as I use any of the Photoshop tools, the program crashes. To make matters worse, I installed Photoshop on an XP Pro machine thinking that my W2K was malfunctioning, and the results are the same.

Is 1.23 MB too large??? It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it??? Could I have 2 machines with bad Ram chips??? Is there a setting in Photoshop that I have to fiddle with in order to make it accept larger files???
Please help…Carlos

Carlos,

I do not recall what the image file limitations are on 4.0. While I have it on
one ME machine, I only use it for one specific operation for one client. There
could be something inherent to 4.0, and some of the folk here should be able to state those limits.

OTOH, a few things to check first would be:

Memory allocation to PS: Remember that your OS will need a certain amount to operate smoothly. Try 50%, and a Cache level of 8.

Scratch Disk: Ideally, it is best to have multiple physical disks, and set up the Scratch Disk(s) on one separate from the OS, program, and the Windows virtual memory. Baring that, a separate partition, is better than using your C; "drive." PS 4 allowed up to two (I think?) allocated Scratch Disks. These are also limited in their size (1GB each?). The more you have, the better. If the figures that I listed are correct (my 4.0 machine is at the studio, and I am not – sorry), then an ideal would be C; OS, program, Win virtual memory; D:
=/> 1 GB un-fragmented (best is empty, except for PS Scratch Disk); E: =/> 1 GB un-fragmented space. Here C: is on a separate physical HDD, and D: & E: can
be on another.

If these setups, which can be controlled from Edit>Preferences, you might copy
your Prefs files to another directory, delete them and start PS. You will need
to enter your Preferences into PS again, with whatever part of the above examples that you can provide.

If you can only use C: for everything, make sure that you defragment it.
Good luck, and I hope someone with PS 4.0 handy will correct any errors above.
Hunt
ME
Mike Engles
Sep 13, 2004
CF wrote:
I have Photoshop 4.0 loaded on a W2K machine and until now it has always worked fine. I only use it to do minor photo touch-ups and occasional graphics. However, since last week, I have been working on a rather large graphic file 1.23 MB where the whole canvas is taken up by graphics. 90% of the times I open the file it won’t display and as soon as I use any of the Photoshop tools, the program crashes. To make matters worse, I installed Photoshop on an XP Pro machine thinking that my W2K was malfunctioning, and the results are the same.

Is 1.23 MB too large??? It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it??? Could I have 2 machines with bad Ram chips??? Is there a setting in Photoshop that I have to fiddle with in order to make it accept larger files???
Please help…Carlos

Hello

You can find the update to Photodhop 4.01 here, as well as the MMX core. You will need to set your Windows swap file to Min 256 MB and a Max of
1.5 times your system ram.

http://www.btinternet.com/~mike.engles/mike/ps401udt.zip

Mike Engles

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