Pictures go blurry in Adobe Bridge

[Colin Southern]

Hi Deb,

Thanks for that -- I'm still struggling to see what I wanted though, due to the dark scheme though

Take a look just below and to the right of the "folder" word on the menu bar at the top - there's a button that refers to embedded images - try toggling that.

Other than that, I'd contact Adobe (or post on their forums) - I'd be pretty sure that line of attack would be able to help.

The other approach might be to try using the DNG converter and tell it to include full size previews - see if that helps.

Sorry I can't be of more help

[Loose Canon]

Are you still having problems, Debbie?

A while back, I had some issues with CS5 acting kind of screwy. I couldn’t really put my finger on the problem, and I don't recall that it had to do with viewing thumbnails, but it happened as I was accepting a general update. I can’t even recall what was updating, but I know it had something to do with something I did while the machine was updating. I had never seen nor had this problem before.

I thought it had something to do with the Adobe software, but as it turns out, there were some files corrupted on the HDD (which may have well been some of the Adobe files) which seemed to be causing the problem. I got the problem fixed and things are humming right along now.

I’d be happy to share what I did to solve the issue if you are still having problems and a couple of ways you can find out if your HDD (and the file system) is OK. That is, if you are unfamiliar with some of the diagnostic tools available in OS and third party.

I can’t say that this is necessarily your solution, but it sure doesn’t hurt to check for sure. I just didn’t want to post a lot of stuff on here if you have your machine issue resolved.

[wommby]

Are you still having problems, Debbie?

A while back, I had some issues with CS5 acting kind of screwy. I couldn’t really put my finger on the problem, and I don't recall that it had to do with viewing thumbnails, but it happened as I was accepting a general update. I can’t even recall what was updating, but I know it had something to do with something I did while the machine was updating. I had never seen nor had this problem before.

I thought it had something to do with the Adobe software, but as it turns out, there were some files corrupted on the HDD (which may have well been some of the Adobe files) which seemed to be causing the problem. I got the problem fixed and things are humming right along now.

I’d be happy to share what I did to solve the issue if you are still having problems and a couple of ways you can find out if your HDD (and the file system) is OK. That is, if you are unfamiliar with some of the diagnostic tools available in OS and third party.

I can’t say that this is necessarily your solution, but it sure doesn’t hurt to check for sure. I just didn’t want to post a lot of stuff on here if you have your machine issue resolved.

Hi,

I don't believe I have fixed the problem but I have gone into each individual preview, taken it into ACR, made an adjustment and saved and then when I went back into the preview it was fixed. Annoying that it was these files are fixed for now - but it does still happen and I don't know why so anything you could run me through would definitely be a good help. I have also started getting a message up that Bridge is running out of memory and needs to be restarted. I don't understand this either. I still have over 850 GB of memory on my hard drive.

Thanks for any help.
Deb

[shreds]

For what its worth, my reading of your situation Wendy, is that despite the memory you appear to have left, that is somehow not what is available to this application, and the normal process whereby Bridge produces 'blurry' thumbnails that correct after a couple of seconds into clear examples is not happening on your iMac.

Having said that all my photo files are kept on external hard drives to maximise the space available and only open up at the most one cards worth of images on screen before proceessing them and moving them off to a separate hard drive.

I am running an iMac 2.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, but with memory bolstered up to the max 4Gb, with a couple of replacement plug in RAM memory boards (that go in the screwable slot under the screen) and Bridge doesn't give me any problems, even though the Mac is not the most recent and is still running Leopard rather than the more recent Snow Leopard or Lion OS.

[Dave Humphries]

I have also started getting a message up that Bridge is running out of memory and needs to be restarted. I don't understand this either. I still have over 850 GB of memory on my hard drive.

Hi Deb,

If it says 'memory', it means RAM, not HDD space.
Do you know how much RAM you have?
It'll probably be between 1GB and 8GB.

Also, when editing, don't leave other applications open like word processsor or spreadsheet, etc. - every thing that is open takes a bite out of the RAM and leaves less for images. There's another thing, when you have finished editing an image, close it, don't start on a new one, or they'll be sharing RAM too.

Beyond that, we could get quite technical with questions about what operating system (Windows - what flavour), whether you have 32 bit or 64 bit, etc.
By then, Colin is better to advise you than I.

Cheers,

[shreds]

Hi Deb,

If it says 'memory', it means RAM, not HDD space.
Do you know how much RAM you have?
It'll probably be between 1GB and 8GB.

Also, when editing, don't leave other applications open like word processsor or spreadsheet, etc. - every thing that is open takes a bite out of the RAM and leaves less for images. There's another thing, when you have finished editing an image, close it, don't start on a new one, or they'll be sharing RAM too.

Beyond that, we could get quite technical with questions about what operating system (Windows - what flavour), whether you have 32 bit or 64 bit, etc.
By then, Colin is better to advise you than I.

Cheers,

Dave, it is a Mac..

Mike,
I should have put in that a run an apple computer 21.5" imac computer. Do you have any suggestions for an apple??

Deb

My version on the Mac is slightly different to Colin's presumably Windows version.

I have taken a screen shot of Bridge > Preferences and see that it is possible to adjust the amount of the cache, which might assist?

[The Blue Boy]

I've just had a sort of similar problem regarding space and RAM. I was trying to make animated GIFs. Photoshop was all over the place with warnings and telling me it was "Unable to save, not enough space". Shut it down, restarted, preferences-performance-increase everything-and problem solved.

[The Blue Boy]

Oh, I should add that Jan is now a double Grandma!

[Loose Canon]

Hi Debbie!

If Photoshop was working fine before, then started acting up, there really should be no problem with sufficient memory. Providing you take Dave’s advice about not having a lot of applications open at the same time. To find out how much memory your machine is running, tap the apple symbol at the top left hand corner of your screen, then tap “About This Mac”. It will give you the OS version, processor version, and amount of Memory.

If you already know these steps or tried them, please forgive me, but here is what I was going to suggest to you. If you have some corrupted files on your machine pertaining to Photoshop, they will have to be repaired before it will ever work properly again. Or you may have to do a clean install of Photoshop, which could be a PITA. Especially if you have actions, etc. that you use. Those would all have to be saved (which they already should be) and reinstalled also. You may also have other issues that you may not yet know about depending what files are corrupted.

So…

First, bring up a Finder window. Go to: Applications> Utilities>Disk Utilities.

When that window is up look in the left hand column. You will see your drives listed. Your HDD, probably your optical drives(DVD/CD) and any other drives you have mounted (external, whatever), or disk images. My internal HDD is labeled by default “Macintosh HD”. The right hand pane will say: “Select a disk, volume, or image”.

Tap (select) the Macintosh HD to highlight it. The RH pane will then come to life. In the four tabs across the top of the center pane (which read: First Aid, Erase, Raid, Restore) make sure the First Aid tab is selected.



Then tap the “Repair Disk Permissions” button. This action may not help the problem, but it doesn’t hurts to do so. Before and after any update, I do this action.

After that runs (and it may take a few minutes depending on the state of your Permissions), tap the “Verify Disk” button and let it do its thing. It should give you a full report on the state of your HDD. It will either say it is okay or its not.



Either way, there are a couple of things you can do from here.

First is start up in “Safe” mode. Rather than me confuse the issue, I’ll give you a link to follow:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

Another option is use Disk Utility to repair the disk if there is a problem. You cannot repair a drive that you are booted from. So you have to use your original boot disk, the CD’s you originally got with your machine, to boot your machine- Mac OS X Install. I believe it’s the first one (#1). To do this, insert the disk into your optical drive. Restart your computer and immediately press the C key and hold it. The computer will look for a bootable CD or DVD and, if it finds one, will use it as its startup device.

When you have done that and you are booted from the disk, re-open Disk Utility, select your hard drive, and then tap the “Repair Disk” button in the lower right hand corner of the RH pane. If issues are found during the repair, try repairing again. This should solve the issue if Disk Repair shows your disk has a problem. You can then run “Verify Disk” again to confirm.

If it doesn’t here is what I did when I had some issues, Debbie and something I recommend. I am on the road a lot with my Macbook Pro. At home, I keep an updated cloned copy of my HDD on an external drive. Macs support booting from an external HDD so if my internal drive fails, I can still boot and run from the external. Since it is a clone, it is identical to my internal HDD as of last time I updated it, files, OS, and all. Not to sound too "evangelical" but one of the beauties of Apple machines! So for on the road, I have a 1TB portable external partitioned into two 500 GB partitions. One partition I use to back up photos with, the other I use to keep another clone of my internal HDD so I can have that with me.

I purchased a copy of Disk Warrior (around $100 USD) and installed it on both my internal and the clone copies. This is a wonderful piece of software for Macs and I run it about once a month or so and it keeps things humming. Easy to use and is widely recognized as one of, if not the best, repair programs out there for Macs. Again, you can’t repair the disk you are booted from, so I just boot from the clone copy, run DW to repair the internal HDD, and my problems were solved. Once DW has done its thing and my machine is happy, I update the external HDD clone so I have a happily running updated clone to boot from in case of problems with my internal. This process can save your bacon, believe me, and could help you avoid doing a clean OS install should it come to that. I use a free program called SuperDuper to do the cloning.

DW will not boot a recent Macbook Pro as of now but it should boot your iMac, Debbie, so you use DW (instead of an external HDD or your original boot disk) to boot from while repairing your HDD should you decide to use it. Great program.

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

Now, I’m not saying this will solve your issues but it did mine, and Photoshop is running like it should. And I didn’t have to do a clean install of PS or the OS (thank God!). At the very least you can confirm the condition of your HDD and do it some good.

Good luck Debbie! We’re on your side!

Oh, and by the way? Congratulations to Jan!

[wommby]

Hi Debbie!

If Photoshop was working fine before, then started acting up, there really should be no problem with sufficient memory. Providing you take Dave’s advice about not having a lot of applications open at the same time. To find out how much memory your machine is running, tap the apple symbol at the top left hand corner of your screen, then tap “About This Mac”. It will give you the OS version, processor version, and amount of Memory.

If you already know these steps or tried them, please forgive me, but here is what I was going to suggest to you. If you have some corrupted files on your machine pertaining to Photoshop, they will have to be repaired before it will ever work properly again. Or you may have to do a clean install of Photoshop, which could be a PITA. Especially if you have actions, etc. that you use. Those would all have to be saved (which they already should be) and reinstalled also. You may also have other issues that you may not yet know about depending what files are corrupted.

So…

First, bring up a Finder window. Go to: Applications> Utilities>Disk Utilities.

When that window is up look in the left hand column. You will see your drives listed. Your HDD, probably your optical drives(DVD/CD) and any other drives you have mounted (external, whatever), or disk images. My internal HDD is labeled by default “Macintosh HD”. The right hand pane will say: “Select a disk, volume, or image”.

Tap (select) the Macintosh HD to highlight it. The RH pane will then come to life. In the four tabs across the top of the center pane (which read: First Aid, Erase, Raid, Restore) make sure the First Aid tab is selected.



Then tap the “Repair Disk Permissions” button. This action may not help the problem, but it doesn’t hurts to do so. Before and after any update, I do this action.

After that runs (and it may take a few minutes depending on the state of your Permissions), tap the “Verify Disk” button and let it do its thing. It should give you a full report on the state of your HDD. It will either say it is okay or its not.



Either way, there are a couple of things you can do from here.

First is start up in “Safe” mode. Rather than me confuse the issue, I’ll give you a link to follow:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

Another option is use Disk Utility to repair the disk if there is a problem. You cannot repair a drive that you are booted from. So you have to use your original boot disk, the CD’s you originally got with your machine, to boot your machine- Mac OS X Install. I believe it’s the first one (#1). To do this, insert the disk into your optical drive. Restart your computer and immediately press the C key and hold it. The computer will look for a bootable CD or DVD and, if it finds one, will use it as its startup device.

When you have done that and you are booted from the disk, re-open Disk Utility, select your hard drive, and then tap the “Repair Disk” button in the lower right hand corner of the RH pane. If issues are found during the repair, try repairing again. This should solve the issue if Disk Repair shows your disk has a problem. You can then run “Verify Disk” again to confirm.

If it doesn’t here is what I did when I had some issues, Debbie and something I recommend. I am on the road a lot with my Macbook Pro. At home, I keep an updated cloned copy of my HDD on an external drive. Macs support booting from an external HDD so if my internal drive fails, I can still boot and run from the external. Since it is a clone, it is identical to my internal HDD as of last time I updated it, files, OS, and all. Not to sound too "evangelical" but one of the beauties of Apple machines! So for on the road, I have a 1TB portable external partitioned into two 500 GB partitions. One partition I use to back up photos with, the other I use to keep another clone of my internal HDD so I can have that with me.

I purchased a copy of Disk Warrior (around $100 USD) and installed it on both my internal and the clone copies. This is a wonderful piece of software for Macs and I run it about once a month or so and it keeps things humming. Easy to use and is widely recognized as one of, if not the best, repair programs out there for Macs. Again, you can’t repair the disk you are booted from, so I just boot from the clone copy, run DW to repair the internal HDD, and my problems were solved. Once DW has done its thing and my machine is happy, I update the external HDD clone so I have a happily running updated clone to boot from in case of problems with my internal. This process can save your bacon, believe me, and could help you avoid doing a clean OS install should it come to that. I use a free program called SuperDuper to do the cloning.

DW will not boot a recent Macbook Pro as of now but it should boot your iMac, Debbie, so you use DW (instead of an external HDD or your original boot disk) to boot from while repairing your HDD should you decide to use it. Great program.

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

Now, I’m not saying this will solve your issues but it did mine, and Photoshop is running like it should. And I didn’t have to do a clean install of PS or the OS (thank God!). At the very least you can confirm the condition of your HDD and do it some good.

Good luck Debbie! We’re on your side!

Oh, and by the way? Congratulations to Jan!

Hi,

I have done the first part of all of this and it comes up like you image that all is O.K.
Do I still need to go further than this?

Deb

[Dave Humphries]

Dave, it is a Mac..

Oooops, good job somone is paying attention, still the other bit is still good!

Thanks Ian,

Cheers,

[Loose Canon]

Then I’d consider that good news, Deb! On one hand, anyway. As regards needing to go any further, you could and it wouldn’t hurt anything. But I think Disk Utility probably wouldn’t fix it at this point. However, if I had a copy of Disk Warrior I would run it and see if that helps. This program is known to fix things that Disk Utility can’t. Again it’s a great program and the Apple techies themselves use it.

Barring that, I think at this point I would consider Colin’s advice and try to contact Adobe directly or their Forums. If you get no love there, I would probably start (begrudgingly) entertaining the idea of doing a clean install of Photoshop since personally I would probably find the situation you describe incredibly annoying and untenable. I would be miffed that an expensive program (and certainly my most used) like this wasn't running up to snuff.

I did a little surfing and it seems others have had this problem. But the solution they found was to set your preferences as Colin mentioned, specifically the “Generate Monitor-Sized Previews” option.

Deb, I’m really sorry I couldn’t help. I know this has to be irritating (to put it mildly)!

[wommby]

Then I’d consider that good news, Deb! On one hand, anyway. As regards needing to go any further, you could and it wouldn’t hurt anything. But I think Disk Utility probably wouldn’t fix it at this point. However, if I had a copy of Disk Warrior I would run it and see if that helps. This program is known to fix things that Disk Utility can’t. Again it’s a great program and the Apple techies themselves use it.

Barring that, I think at this point I would consider Colin’s advice and try to contact Adobe directly or their Forums. If you get no love there, I would probably start (begrudgingly) entertaining the idea of doing a clean install of Photoshop since personally I would probably find the situation you describe incredibly annoying and untenable. I would be miffed that an expensive program (and certainly my most used) like this wasn't running up to snuff.

I did a little surfing and it seems others have had this problem. But the solution they found was to set your preferences as Colin mentioned, specifically the “Generate Monitor-Sized Previews” option.

Deb, I’m really sorry I couldn’t help. I know this has to be irritating (to put it mildly)!

thanks Terry for your help. I have a program called Mackeeper - is this anything like the one you have (Disk Warrior)?

Deb

[Loose Canon]

Well, you're most welcome, Debbie. I sure wish you could get this solved.

As far as the MacKeeper/Disk Warrior question? In a word, Deb- not really!

Disk Warrior is on an entirely different level. But if I had MacKeeper on my machine I'd sure run it and see if it would help. If it does, then so much the better! I'll do a Happy Dance with you! DW might not even solve it if it is an inherent Adobe software issue somehow. If anything could, though, my bet would be on DW.

If it were me, I’d try to “fire all my guns at once” so to speak. Or in other words, I’d try anything that I even remotely thought might help! Especially if I were looking at a clean install as my last resort. And I probably wouldn't even consider that until I bugged Adobe to tears for an answer.

[wommby]

Thanks Terry,

I will wait and see if it happens again. All is good at the moment, but time will tell. It is so good to get advice from all at CIC, it is a great forum.

Deb

[Colin Southern]

Especially if I were looking at a clean install as my last resort. And I probably wouldn't even consider that until I bugged Adobe to tears for an answer.

Although having said that (and I must admit that I usually think along the same lines myself) - when I finally get my "A into G" I usually find that doing a reinstall of the program (not the whole PC) only take 1/2 hour or so. So if you feel so inclined ...

- Transfer activation
- Uninstall
- Reboot
- Reinstall
- Re-activate

Just to reinforce what Terry said though - we pay top dollar for these packages, and that entitles us to support (paid or unpaid) to get it sorted. I suspect it's not a hard one for the Adobe support team to solve.

[Loose Canon]

I apologize for being unclear.

I actually did mean a clean install of the Adobe software rather than the entire OS.

If your Disk Utility is telling you that your disk is fine, then you really don't necessarily need to consider a clean install of the entire OS. And if DU is telling you there are problems, I would definitely take steps to attempt to repair it before I even considered a clean install of the entire OS. In fact, I would consider a clean OS install a last ditch only solution to something I suspected I had seriously wrong. Such as a virus as one example. However, that still doesn't mean you may not have some corrupted files floating around somewhere.

If you do consider a clean Photoshop install, Deb, after Colin's step #3 (reboot) and before step #4 (reinstall), run Disk Utility again, repair permissions, verify disk. Then when you complete the installation, repair permissions again. Its easy, relatively quick, and even if you really didn't need it, it doesn't hurt anything. Better to err on the side of caution. It never hurts to verify disk either and you could even do it at this point of the reinstallation again just to be sure everything is behaving as it should.

You should be good to go after that.

As a side note, it is considered good practice by many Mac users to always repair permissions before and after any updates, upgrades, software installations (from download or disk). You may never really need to either. Lots of other Mac users never do this and are fine. I am one of the users who do.