Hi all

have been playing with old dsc707 images in photoshop & am perplexed. When I rotate images that I have taken by turning the camera to get the long view, the subject becomes shorter and fatter). Does anyone know if this is dictated by the camera or the software & how? Am hoping it won't happen with the FZ30 or 5D.

Katheric

Photoshop's never done that to any of my images, regardless of which scanner/camera they've come from. Which version of Photoshop are you using? Have you checked for updates? (It sounds a bit like a bug in the programming.) Other possibilities...

What computer are you using? If you rotate the image, then save it, close Photoshop and reopen again, is the image stil stretched? if it's not, it may have something to do with insufficient RAM memory... I've seen that happen once or twice, usually on older machines...

I've sent you a PM. If you'd like, email me a full image from the camera, and I'll rotate on my computer to see if it does the same.

I must admit that I've never seen anything like this, either. How are you rotating the image? I'm assuming it's just through Image->Rotate Canvas->90° CW/CCW?

What do you have set in the preferences for max RAM used? You can check in Edit->Preferences->Memory & Image Cache. Photoshop is a bit weird in that you have to tell it how much RAM it can use in your system, rather than just leaving it to the OS sort it all out.

Hiding_Pup the system is old. I bought it new in 2000 with Windows XP. I run Photoshop 7.0 which appears to update every time I open the program. The computer is an Acer and only has 38.28 GB but does have 10.4 GB free. I defrag regularly & use system mechanic to clean up any clutter. System is still slow though. Am about to put the hard drive in to see if I have a virus actually. Am also considering buying 300GB external hard disk & small lap top. Plan is the use lap top for broadband only for max speed, except when on holdays when I'll use it for additional storage for photos & will load photoshop for playing whilst on holidays (the only time I ever feel particularly creative these days). Any suggestions re this solution will also be appreciated.

"I must admit that I've never seen anything like this, either. How are you rotating the image? I'm assuming it's just through Image->Rotate Canvas->90° CW/CCW?" Smeghead

Yep Smeghead thats how I do it.

"What do you have set in the preferences for max RAM used? You can check in Edit->Preferences->Memory & Image Cache. Photoshop is a bit weird in that you have to tell it how much RAM it can use in your system, rather than just leaving it to the OS sort it all out." Smeghead

Very interesting I didn't know this. I have checked it out and must say it does not look good. Really is time I upgrade I think. Available RAM comes up at 426mb! To add insult to injury its then set at 50% = 231 mb. Could have found my problem. What can I safely change this to, given above specs?

Have made a smaller image to put up for you to see. Of course I can't preview the images and it might not happen - given it would appear to be my computer (trapped in the dark ages as I clearly am).

A woman's work is never done...

Attached Images

	DSC07602 smaller.jpg (73.7 KB, 345 views)
	DSC07602 smaller rotated.jpg (113.3 KB, 363 views)

Hmm... I hate to say it but the pictures that you posted are identical in size, although one is on its side...

When you pull up image size (Image>Image Size) do you find yourself actually losing pixels? if not, I'm tempted to say it's something to do with your monitor preferences... You haven't got it on "squashy mode" or anything similar have you? (like widescreen tellys which make everyone look like stick insects or pancakes)

Instict tells me it's not a RAM issue though why your system should be running slowly is anyone's guess. Windows 2000 was a stinker though :-(

One more check: does it do this with every image on your computer? how about downloading these two sheep I snapped this weekend? :-) Not RAM.

Attached Images

 

That is strange behavior indeed. But enough about Pup your photoshop shouldn't be doing that either.

Have you tried with the photo viewer that comes with Windows? Ie. make a copy and rotate using that... see if that shows up the same on Photoshop too. Otherwise it seems that Photoshop is holding you to the same HxW dimensions and resampling. The two examples you give are the same size and appropriately proportioned on my pc as well... and mine's pretty old too. I've pretty much maxed out the RAM at 500... I think if I throw something out I could get to 750. But then, I'm using Elements 1.0.

So, try another program to do the rotate, and then see what Photoshop thinks of it. Or, but of course save what you rotate on Photoshop and then look at it using the windows viewer and also IE or whatever browser you use. Perhaps there IS some fancy setting on your Photoshop that has gotten itself stuck!

Best o luck, and I'm eagerly waiting for yer new camera... need that vicarious thrill!

That's weird, especially given Pup's observations. In my browser (Firefox 1.5, Linux) I see the images as different sizes. The first (the statue is on its side) is 236x177, and the second (upright) is 236x315. The proportions are correct, but the second is bigger.

Which one is which? Is the first a small version of the original and the second the result of the rotation?

As far as the memory setting in Photoshop is concerned, I've never understood what the point of it is. It seems like a throwback from when old versions of Windows and MacOS had horrible memory allocation and this was Adobe's attempt of working around this. Something like this shouldn't be necessary in any version of in Windows NT, 2000 or XP or in OS X.

I doubt it's causing this particular problem, but I would go ahead and tell Photoshop that it's OK to pretty much use all your RAM, otherwise it'll take less when it could actually make use of more, slowing things down, Let Windows sort it out - if Photoshop requests more than is currently free, then Windows will either:

• Tell it to bugger off because no more memory is avaiable,
• Give it space in virtual memory, as there just isn't enough RAM to go about. Photoshop's space will get pushed to and from the hard disk as necessary.
• Give it space in RAM, resulting in less-often pages of RAM being bumped out to the page file on the hard disk,

Either way, the NT-based versions of Windows should know better than Photoshop what it can and can't do with RAM.

Let me take a peek around in Photoshop later to see if there's any other tweaks that can be done, or if there's anything else that might get stuck. I'll also take a peek in Windows' registry - it may be that something is fubar'ed in there and that deleting Photoshop's key for your user account (thus allowing Photoshop to recreate it again from scratch) might make things right again.

Oops - by identical in size I actually meant dimensions - figuring that something had been lost uploading to this site rather than in the rotation. (Imagine if rotating did reduce your image size: spin something long enough and it'd vanish!) I like the Nesster's idea about rotating in a different application: that would rule out monitor settings...

I'm surprised no-one's suggested that you walk into your nearest computer store and buy a beautiful new computer (a lovely Apple MacBook perhaps): regardless of whether we sort your current one out, you should bear in mind that the RAW/jpeg files from the Canon 5D will be huge (5mb for the jpeg; 10mb? for RAW?) and unwieldly for a seven-year old computer...

[I find laptops supremely useful by the way: in fact my old 12" G4 Apple Powerbook (not one of the new Intel chip-based ones) is my only computer, and it goes everywhere, does everything for me. One day, I'll get a second monitor and hook it up for oodles of space but I'm in no hurry...]

Well that got everyone talking.

Yep it happens if I rotate in Windows Picture Fax Viewer or Photoshop. AND it happened to your sheep Hiding_Pup - they went nice and skinny.

Oh and original computer was replaced in 2002 (now I remember - was a total lemon & I eventually convinced Acer I'd nail them to the wall if they didn't replace the whole thing. ) Its a Pentium (R) 4CPU 1500MHz 1.50 GHz, 512 MB of Ram. with XP Version 2002 service pack 2.

Don't want a MAC as much as I love them cause over here they cost heaps more & so does all the software/support for them. Getting them serviced is a nightmare. My first computer was a MAC & it was absolutely the best from a user perspective, but the above problems cancel that out. This said, any suggestions re a new system? Lap top will need to be part of it for travel reasons.

Will change settings in Photoshop anyway (very impressive explanation there Smeghead - I liked the user friendly language ), might make it work faster.

Thanks

Kt

Only non-Mac laptop I'd consider is a Sony Vaio, the nicest you can afford. Working in a computer shop for six months taught me that: every computer engineer I met raved about how well they were constructed. And then raged about how bad everything else was.

In the UK, though, the Sony Centres totally overcharge for additional sheep (RAM) and pretend they need to send your computer off to the Netherlands because they don't "have the tools". They tried to charge a friend of mine £100 for an extra 512mb!

If you need more RAM, take a look at prices at www.crucial.com or their Aussie equivalent. I've got 512+256mb of it: if I was buying now, I wouldn't set sail without at least 512+512...

Spec-wise, your replacement computer should be up to running Photoshop though. Any Windows users out there know what's up with the monitor? The last time I used Windows, it was Windows 3.1....