Okay, I'm just about at my wit's end with this Adobe fiasco.
I've downloaded every update there is, including the latest Camera Raw 5.4, I've talked to Adobee 'experts' in India who don't know anything about CS4, I've uninstalled and reinstalled this mongrel of a thing and still I have problems.
First up, can anyone please tell me what it is in CS4/Bridge that prevents that charming duo recognising raw files? Okay, so I'm ham fisted, and I'm a photographer not a program writer, but for some reason Bridge has greyed-out the ACR icon in the toolbar and now I can't open raw files. Moreover, it will open some tiff files but not others.
What am I doing wrong? Is there something in the inscrutable Bridge or Camera Raw Preferences dialogue box that has me tied in knots, and how do I get out of this mess?
As always, any contribution producing a resolution will be celebrated with vast amounts of good Aussie riesling. Jeez I'm sick of this!
Posted by Kah Kit Yoong on September 14, 2009 at 4:34 AM
Do you use the Mac or Windows version? Bridge may be set to only display files up to a certain size.
Posted by Wick Smith on September 14, 2009 at 8:43 AM
what camera are you using? Each manufacturer (Canon, Nikon, etc.) have slightly different versions of RAW files. I had to update the Bridge to the latest version to get it to see the Canon 5D II files. You said you did that already, but I know there are differences in the files. Sorry I'm not any more help for you.
Posted by Hali Sowle on September 14, 2009 at 9:04 AM
If you've got the latest camera (i.e. Nikon D300S like my husband just bought) Adobe Camera Raw (and LR2) will not recognize the raw files for it until they come out with an update, which hopefully will be soon. The only thing to do right now would be to convert to DNG and import them that way.
Posted by John Farmer on September 14, 2009 at 12:29 PM
And I was just going to say, before you mentioned it, do you have the option to shoot in DNG? That is what I do and I have no problem with Bridge/ACR/CS4.
Posted by Mark Caton on September 14, 2009 at 12:37 PM
The most likely answer is as Kah Kit Yoong proposes, i.e. filesize.
Check Edit/Preferences/General and see what the default has been set to, against the typical size of your raw files, and increase as necessary.
The fact that Bridge can show some of your tiff files is likely to be that they are smaller?
Re the ACR icon, if you click on a raw file so it is highlighted (thumbnail visible or not), the Camera Raw button should come to life, no?
One last thing to check would be Preferences/Startup Scripts. You don't need all these, and unchecking will free up some memory. But you do need "Adobe Photoshop CS4" and Adobe Bridge CS4" checked at the least.
Otherwise it is as otherwise suggested, and you have a brand new camera!
Get back on your results.
Mark
Posted by Greg Vaughn on September 14, 2009 at 12:42 PM
Barry - no direct solutions for you, but two suggestions:
(1) Let Adobe know how dissatisfied you are with your experience calling tech support. They need to hear this. They've admitted they have problems - see http://www.adobe.com/support/open_letter_to_adobe_customers/ , which has a link for additional help.
(2) Often times the Adobe Forums are great sources of expert help. Go here http://forums.adobe.com/index.jspa , select your program and whether Mac or PC. When posting, it helps a lot to include software version, OS version and specific camera model. Many times you'll get an answer to your question within a couple of hours.
Here are my relevent OS details( nine-tenths of which I don't understand).
Adobe Photoshop Version: 11.0.1 (11.0.1x20090218 [20090218.r.523 2009/02/18:02:00:00 cutoff; r branch])
Operating System: Windows XP 32-bit
Version: 5.1 Service Pack 3
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:15, Model:6, Stepping:4 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2
Physical processor count: 2
Processor speed: 3000 MHz
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 x 4294967296 colors
Video Card Driver: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.11.9062
Built-in memory: 2046 MB
Free memory: 1346 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 1684 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 77 %
Image cache levels: 4
Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS4\
Temporary file path: C:\DOCUME~1\HP_ADM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\
Photoshop scratch has async I/O enabled
Scratch volume(s):
K:\, 465.6G, 456.1G free
D:\, 8.36G, 559.5M free
C:\, 177.9G, 149.4G free
When I got the out of memory message I bought another 2GB of RAM.Now I'm told the computer doesn't know it has an extra 2GB and is still running as if it still had only 2GB. Lordy be!
If I try to open raw files from Bridge it tries to open them in PS and of course it can't do that. The ACR icon is still greyed-out. Exactly which Preference field pertains to the raw file size adjustment?
I've set 'Thumbnails' in the relevent dialogue box but don't get a raw thumbnail, I get the image icon and file size for my 5D2.
I could open raw files a few days ago but now I can't. Why is my computer doing this? What happened to the ACR icon? Where'd the thumbnail go? Why does flipping sausages on a barbie always burn one side?
Buggered if I know.
Posted by Fred Stearns on September 14, 2009 at 7:33 PM
I don't know if this will help or not, but here goes. Open Preferences, select Thumbnails. The first box is titled "Performance and File Handling". The first line is "Do Not Process Files Larger Than:" ___ MB". You can fill in the box with any number you want. Mine is set for 1000 MB. I can open 5D2 files with no problem. I hope that this helps. If it doesn't, we tried.
I have that setting already Fred, but thanks for trying.
Posted by Bill Brennan on September 14, 2009 at 11:48 PM
Barry, it appears that you want to have Bridge host Camera Raw for you so that you can open RAW image files in Bridge. Question: Have you set the Bridge Preferences by checking the box: Double-Click Edits Camera Raw Settings in Bridge?
If you did not have this box checked, then Camera Raw is hosted in CS4.
If you continue to have problems, suggest that you uninstall CS4; turn off your computer; have a cold one; and then reopen computer and install CS4 again.
G'day Bill. Thanks for taking the time to get involved.
Actually I'd like to open raw files in ACR, ans a few days ago I could, but for some reason I can't do that now. I can't use Auto Align Layers either - "Out Of Ram".
I thought I may need a converter update for my 5D2 so I tried downloading and install 5. but got an error message telling me it couldn't install the converter. So I tried again this morning. This time the error message says that (Adobe's) zip file is 'either invalid or corrupt'.
The circles are getting smaller and I'm going madder. I think I'll dump this digital thing and get myself another Pentax 6x7 and a heap of Velvia. They never let me down.
Posted by Bill Brennan on September 15, 2009 at 10:08 AM
Barry, try uninstalling CS4 and shutting down the bloomin computer. Give it a rest while you have a cool one.
When you restart and reinstall CS4, if you continue to have the same problems, try CS4 on another computer. If there is an Apple store nearby try to open your Raw images on one of their demo computers.
Let's see if we can spot what is causing the out of memory error. As soon as you get the error, go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Event Viewer. When you open the console, look at the "Application" and "System" event logs. Each entry will be time-stamped. Look for yellow triangles and/or red x'es in both logs. If you see an error, highlight the entry, right click and select properties.The property sheet for each error will tell you where the error occurred-either in PS or Windows.
One thing I did notice in your system info above, is that you have PS set for 4 image cache levels. Try setting this to 2 in PS preferences. This will free up RAM and CPU cycles when you work with your images.
If you are still seeing errors, the next thing to try is a System Restore. Pick a restore point before you started having this issue and then restore your system to this point. Next, try to reproduce the problem. If the problem persists, we'll have took deeper. If the problem goes away, then some change was made to your system: It could be a program you recently installed, a Windows update, or malicious software.
Another thing you can look at is programs running in the background that are eating RAM. Click Start>Run. In the Run dialog box, type "msconfig" without the quotes. in the System Configuration Utility, look at the 'Startup' tab. This lists all the stuff that loads when you boot your machine.Once you have your Startup list, go to Pac's Portal.and search for items on this very comprehensive list of startup programs. If you find stuff you don't need to run at startup, uncheck the entries in the System Configuration Utility and then do a cold reboot of your machine. After doing this, try to reproduce the problem.
BTW: Have you run a full system virus/spyware/malware scan? Have you defragmented your hard drive(s)? If not, I would definitley do this before doing anything else.
If you get this fixed, please let us know what was wrong and how you fixed it. That information could be a life saver for someone else.
Hey guys, before I bumble on with this, thanks for all the help you've been willing to give to a total stranger ( and I'm getting stranger by the minute). That's one of the great things about NPN..
Okay, with my limited knowledge of compurtering I did what I could with Preston's generous suggestions. In Events Viewer/Application I discovered that nearly every error was a 'faulting application' that had something to do with an exe file, most of them bridge.exe. Many incriminated MsInstaller as well.
Event Viewer/Systems looked drop-dead weird. Almost the entire log was populated with error warnings related to Service Control Manager - whatever that is.
I don't know enough about this stuff to delete start-up programs I don't need, but I did ask two experts to uncheck everything I can live without. I defragged this morning too, as Preston suggested. I was finally able to download raw converter 5.5 last night so I can now open raw files in ACR from Bridge again.
I guess the biggest remaining hurdle is finding out what all those Service Control Manager errors are about, and how to force my system to acknowledge that it now has 4GB not 2GB of RAM.
I don't know if I'm being too picky about this, but shouldn't the 'experts' who sold me the additional RAM have reset my system so it knew what was happening, or am I expecting too much service from the service industry?
Posted by Fred Stearns on September 15, 2009 at 11:19 PM
I may be mistaken, but I believe that Windows XP 32-bit only accepts 2 GB of main memory. You have to go to the 64-bit version to read above 2 GB. Or you can wait for Windows 7 to make its appearance and install that in the 64-bit mode.
If I am wrong, please correct me on this. I know that I have 3 GB of main memory, but my Wondows XP 32-bit only sees 2 GB.
"I may be mistaken, but I believe that Windows XP 32-bit only accepts 2 GB of main memory."
The amount of RAM recognized by 32 bit Win XP depends upon how much RAM your mother board and BIOS will support, with the max for Win XP systems being 4.0 GB. My machine has, and recognizes the 3 GB of RAM installed.
But, here's the rub...The amount of physical memory that can be allocated to applications by Win XP is 2.0 GB. Here's a quote from MS...
"The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional is 4.0 GB...".
"The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used."
So, on a system such as mine, the OS basically 'reserves' 1.0 GB for its use, and gives the remaining 2 GB to applications I may be running.
"I know that I have 3 GB of main memory, but my Wondows XP 32-bit only sees 2 GB"
Fred: Right click on "My Computer" on the desk top. Select 'Properties', 'General' tab. The tab should tell you the OS version, processor type and speed, and how much RAM is installed.If it shows you have only 2.0 GB of RAM installed, you'll ned to find out why. If your computer is failrly old, your sytem board may not support more than 2.0 GB of RAM. If that's not the case, you might have either a loose RAM stick, or the stick is bad. Are you receiving any I/O errors, or other error messages?
Barry, were you able to find out what is going on with your machine?
I have a 32-bit XP OS that, as far as I can tell, will not run 4GB of ram. My Computer>Properties informs me I have 2GB. The only way I can overcome this is to buy the 64-bit Windows Vista, which will recognise 4GB, but I've been told that Vista can be nasty.This morning I'll drag the tower out and have a look at the ram sticks. How do I know if one of those is bad? A
As I said before, I wish the shop that sold me the RAM, and installed it on my computer, had known a little more about their own business and warned me about potential incompatability problems with 4GB and a 32-bit system.
I'm getting nowhere but the weather is nice.
Posted by Fred Stearns on September 16, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Thanks Preston. I checked as you suggested and it does indeed show that I have 2.99 GB of RAM. I must have read something wrong earlier. Here I thought I had to wait until Windows 7 was released to the general public to use all the RAM supplied when I bought the computer. Actually, will stick with XP until I have a good reason to upgrade, like I upgrade my computer. Barry, if I were you, I would wait until Windows 7 was released for retail before I upgraded. From all the reports I have heard, it is everything Vista was advertised to be, plus.
Barry: If you think you have a bad RAM stick, take your box back to the guys who 'fixed' it and have them check it out for you. If you have the orginal owner's manual or the specs for your machine, you should be able to find out the max RAM you can install.
Fred: Glad to hear your machine is seeing all of its installed RAM.
I am going to stick with XP until I buy a new machine. It will likely have Win 7. One thing I would suggest: Don't upgrade to a new OS that's freash off the presses. Wait until the first service pack is ready, then upgrade.
you might join adobe forums where they love to answer any q you may have
Posted by David Bostedo on September 27, 2009 at 7:39 PM
Barry - You're computer not recognizing the 4GB of RAM you have in there has nothing to do with PC vs. MAC (if a shop installed an extra 2GB for you in a MAC, you could get the same issue). It also has nothing to do with 32-bit versus 64-bit. It would be a hardware/lower level issue that the shop that installed the RAM should be able to resolve.
Granted, without a 64-bit OS you can't make full use of the 4GB the same way, but it's still helpful to have in some ways. If you really want to make good use of 4 GB of RAM or more, though, a 64-bit system would be the way to go.
Discussion
23 repliesI've downloaded every update there is, including the latest Camera Raw 5.4, I've talked to Adobee 'experts' in India who don't know anything about CS4, I've uninstalled and reinstalled this mongrel of a thing and still I have problems.
First up, can anyone please tell me what it is in CS4/Bridge that prevents that charming duo recognising raw files? Okay, so I'm ham fisted, and I'm a photographer not a program writer, but for some reason Bridge has greyed-out the ACR icon in the toolbar and now I can't open raw files. Moreover, it will open some tiff files but not others.
What am I doing wrong? Is there something in the inscrutable Bridge or Camera Raw Preferences dialogue box that has me tied in knots, and how do I get out of this mess?
As always, any contribution producing a resolution will be celebrated with vast amounts of good Aussie riesling. Jeez I'm sick of this!
Check Edit/Preferences/General and see what the default has been set to, against the typical size of your raw files, and increase as necessary.
The fact that Bridge can show some of your tiff files is likely to be that they are smaller?
Re the ACR icon, if you click on a raw file so it is highlighted (thumbnail visible or not), the Camera Raw button should come to life, no?
One last thing to check would be Preferences/Startup Scripts. You don't need all these, and unchecking will free up some memory. But you do need "Adobe Photoshop CS4" and Adobe Bridge CS4" checked at the least.
Otherwise it is as otherwise suggested, and you have a brand new camera!
Get back on your results.
Mark
(1) Let Adobe know how dissatisfied you are with your experience calling tech support. They need to hear this. They've admitted they have problems - see http://www.adobe.com/support/open_letter_to_adobe_customers/ , which has a link for additional help.
(2) Often times the Adobe Forums are great sources of expert help. Go here http://forums.adobe.com/index.jspa , select your program and whether Mac or PC. When posting, it helps a lot to include software version, OS version and specific camera model. Many times you'll get an answer to your question within a couple of hours.
Adobe Photoshop Version: 11.0.1 (11.0.1x20090218 [20090218.r.523 2009/02/18:02:00:00 cutoff; r branch])
Operating System: Windows XP 32-bit
Version: 5.1 Service Pack 3
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:15, Model:6, Stepping:4 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2
Physical processor count: 2
Processor speed: 3000 MHz
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 x 4294967296 colors
Video Card Driver: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.11.9062
Built-in memory: 2046 MB
Free memory: 1346 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 1684 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 77 %
Image cache levels: 4
Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS4\
Temporary file path: C:\DOCUME~1\HP_ADM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\
Photoshop scratch has async I/O enabled
Scratch volume(s):
K:\, 465.6G, 456.1G free
D:\, 8.36G, 559.5M free
C:\, 177.9G, 149.4G free
When I got the out of memory message I bought another 2GB of RAM.Now I'm told the computer doesn't know it has an extra 2GB and is still running as if it still had only 2GB. Lordy be!
If I try to open raw files from Bridge it tries to open them in PS and of course it can't do that. The ACR icon is still greyed-out. Exactly which Preference field pertains to the raw file size adjustment?
I've set 'Thumbnails' in the relevent dialogue box but don't get a raw thumbnail, I get the image icon and file size for my 5D2.
I could open raw files a few days ago but now I can't. Why is my computer doing this? What happened to the ACR icon? Where'd the thumbnail go? Why does flipping sausages on a barbie always burn one side?
Buggered if I know.
Good Luck!
If you did not have this box checked, then Camera Raw is hosted in CS4.
If you continue to have problems, suggest that you uninstall CS4; turn off your computer; have a cold one; and then reopen computer and install CS4 again.
All the best,
Bill Brennan
Actually I'd like to open raw files in ACR, ans a few days ago I could, but for some reason I can't do that now. I can't use Auto Align Layers either - "Out Of Ram".
I thought I may need a converter update for my 5D2 so I tried downloading and install 5. but got an error message telling me it couldn't install the converter. So I tried again this morning. This time the error message says that (Adobe's) zip file is 'either invalid or corrupt'.
The circles are getting smaller and I'm going madder. I think I'll dump this digital thing and get myself another Pentax 6x7 and a heap of Velvia. They never let me down.
When you restart and reinstall CS4, if you continue to have the same problems, try CS4 on another computer. If there is an Apple store nearby try to open your Raw images on one of their demo computers.
All the best,
Bill Brennan
Let's see if we can spot what is causing the out of memory error. As soon as you get the error, go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Event Viewer. When you open the console, look at the "Application" and "System" event logs. Each entry will be time-stamped. Look for yellow triangles and/or red x'es in both logs. If you see an error, highlight the entry, right click and select properties.The property sheet for each error will tell you where the error occurred-either in PS or Windows.
One thing I did notice in your system info above, is that you have PS set for 4 image cache levels. Try setting this to 2 in PS preferences. This will free up RAM and CPU cycles when you work with your images.
If you are still seeing errors, the next thing to try is a System Restore. Pick a restore point before you started having this issue and then restore your system to this point. Next, try to reproduce the problem. If the problem persists, we'll have took deeper. If the problem goes away, then some change was made to your system: It could be a program you recently installed, a Windows update, or malicious software.
Another thing you can look at is programs running in the background that are eating RAM. Click Start>Run. In the Run dialog box, type "msconfig" without the quotes. in the System Configuration Utility, look at the 'Startup' tab. This lists all the stuff that loads when you boot your machine.Once you have your Startup list, go to Pac's Portal.and search for items on this very comprehensive list of startup programs. If you find stuff you don't need to run at startup, uncheck the entries in the System Configuration Utility and then do a cold reboot of your machine. After doing this, try to reproduce the problem.
BTW: Have you run a full system virus/spyware/malware scan? Have you defragmented your hard drive(s)? If not, I would definitley do this before doing anything else.
If you get this fixed, please let us know what was wrong and how you fixed it. That information could be a life saver for someone else.
-P
Okay, with my limited knowledge of compurtering I did what I could with Preston's generous suggestions. In Events Viewer/Application I discovered that nearly every error was a 'faulting application' that had something to do with an exe file, most of them bridge.exe. Many incriminated MsInstaller as well.
Event Viewer/Systems looked drop-dead weird. Almost the entire log was populated with error warnings related to Service Control Manager - whatever that is.
I don't know enough about this stuff to delete start-up programs I don't need, but I did ask two experts to uncheck everything I can live without. I defragged this morning too, as Preston suggested. I was finally able to download raw converter 5.5 last night so I can now open raw files in ACR from Bridge again.
I guess the biggest remaining hurdle is finding out what all those Service Control Manager errors are about, and how to force my system to acknowledge that it now has 4GB not 2GB of RAM.
I don't know if I'm being too picky about this, but shouldn't the 'experts' who sold me the additional RAM have reset my system so it knew what was happening, or am I expecting too much service from the service industry?
If I am wrong, please correct me on this. I know that I have 3 GB of main memory, but my Wondows XP 32-bit only sees 2 GB.
Yuk!
The amount of RAM recognized by 32 bit Win XP depends upon how much RAM your mother board and BIOS will support, with the max for Win XP systems being 4.0 GB. My machine has, and recognizes the 3 GB of RAM installed.
But, here's the rub...The amount of physical memory that can be allocated to applications by Win XP is 2.0 GB. Here's a quote from MS...
"The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional is 4.0 GB...".
"The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used."
So, on a system such as mine, the OS basically 'reserves' 1.0 GB for its use, and gives the remaining 2 GB to applications I may be running.
"I know that I have 3 GB of main memory, but my Wondows XP 32-bit only sees 2 GB"
Fred: Right click on "My Computer" on the desk top. Select 'Properties', 'General' tab. The tab should tell you the OS version, processor type and speed, and how much RAM is installed.If it shows you have only 2.0 GB of RAM installed, you'll ned to find out why. If your computer is failrly old, your sytem board may not support more than 2.0 GB of RAM. If that's not the case, you might have either a loose RAM stick, or the stick is bad. Are you receiving any I/O errors, or other error messages?
Barry, were you able to find out what is going on with your machine?
-P
As I said before, I wish the shop that sold me the RAM, and installed it on my computer, had known a little more about their own business and warned me about potential incompatability problems with 4GB and a 32-bit system.
I'm getting nowhere but the weather is nice.
I have found a solution though. It's called a MAC, and that's what I'll be getting next time.
Fred: Glad to hear your machine is seeing all of its installed RAM.
I am going to stick with XP until I buy a new machine. It will likely have Win 7. One thing I would suggest: Don't upgrade to a new OS that's freash off the presses. Wait until the first service pack is ready, then upgrade.
-P
Granted, without a 64-bit OS you can't make full use of the 4GB the same way, but it's still helpful to have in some ways. If you really want to make good use of 4 GB of RAM or more, though, a 64-bit system would be the way to go.