# Photoshop seems to be screwing up other apps and memory



## edX (Jan 30, 2003)

ok, i've been using the trial version of photoshop 7.0.1 for the last 10 days or so. since that time i have experienced more problems with my mac than i have in the last 10 months. my first experience was leaving it launched all night along with my normal apps i always keep open. i woke up and found my computer had ground to a halt and was making all sorts of wierd noises - just like when i tried efoivox's first version of classic? and it turned out to have a memory leak. so i rebooted and all was back to normal. but since then if i launch PS, then my image capture doesn't work but once in iphoto. and sometimes it doesn't read all the pics on the camera even then. a reboot solves these problems again. also my browser has become very unstable after i run PS. 

is this app really such a poorly written peice of junk that does what it's supposed to do wonderfully, but takes out the city block in the process? it's hard for me to believe that the mac community puts up with such shoddy work from such an expensive app. i was really considereing getting elements with my student discount, but not if it's going to be the app from hell.


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## Ricky (Jan 30, 2003)

Actually, the version I have (retail) is extremely solid...  no problems...  Perhaps a reinstall is in order?  I mean, have you ever just started again fresh on your iMac?


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## edX (Jan 30, 2003)

you mean like reformatting the whole drive? blasphemy!! no i never have and never will unless i have no other option. over the past year i've had very few problems and i seem to do a lot of things with less troubles than people with more expensive macs. i do regular repairs and defragmentation so i really don't run across things not working properly very often. and when i do, i can almost always find the culprit. i can't be 100% sure that PS is the cause of all this, but it was the only thing new the nite of the big memory leak type experience. and as far as i know, the trial version is just like the retail version but with a kill switch after 30 days.


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## Ricky (Jan 30, 2003)

Well, speaking from experience, even a good OS seems to need a reinstall every two years.  I try to do that with my stuff when things start to go buggy.  Just a suggestion.  

Who knows, it may seem like a whole new computer...


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## RacerX (Jan 30, 2003)

Hummm...

I usually give people a hard time when making generalized and sweeping comments about software, I guess this shouldn't be any different.

I have been using Photoshop 7.0.1 on both my PowerBook and my iMac for about six months without any problem. As both Photoshop and Acrobat (the full version) are my main work applications and I spend a large amount of my computing time within them, I would most likely be one of the first to notice that it was a _poorly written piece of junk_. In fact it is amazing that someone using a trial version would discover that Photoshop is actually a piece of _shoddy work_ before me.

As with so many who have first blamed the makers of some type of software, it is often the configuration of the end user's system (something that is out of the control of the software maker's hands) that causes most of the problems.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that you are not actually having these problems, but why don't we first take a few steps back from the accusatory tone of your post before we start trying to figure out what is actually wrong here.


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## edX (Jan 31, 2003)

yea, yea 

i'm already finding indications that there is something else involved here. but if i'd i just asked politely, nobody would have answered. maybe i'm just having a very long, very bad day and photoshop just seems to have been where all my problems started. and when i open and close it regularly, less problems appear.  i mean i figured it was kind of unlikely that i would be the first one to complain about it if there really was a problem, but then some people around here are such die hard PS fans they might have trouble admitting to it. i don't know. i'll be running diskwarrior tonight and then drive 10 on the externals tomorrow and see what happens. and i think if you read my 1st post closely, all those desriptive words were more of a question than a statement. at any rate, it's good to know that this isn't some known issue that i just missed cause i never read photoshop threads cause i don't have it. 

btw - hi dave. life's been a bitch in general this week and PS is only a small part of it. pachell is becoming sbc yahoo and i can tell you i will have some less than complimentary synonyms for it very soon. pachell was bad at first, SomeBadChit is worse!!  i may start a boycott yahoo campaign soon if they don't fix my lady's email. it's been a week and i have literally talked to 8 different people about it and it still won't work. and of course they all want to blame mail and think it would work fine on Outlook until i make them try it. I diagnosed the problem for them but you have to sit on their side to fix it. there - how's that for a very specific bitch?


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## RacerX (Jan 31, 2003)

Well... I just didn't want anyone saying "Oh look how nice Dave is to Ed because they are friends when he comes down so hard on everyone else for doing the same thing."

Sorry if I added to your bad day.

Known issues with Photoshop:

(1) Photoshop loves memory! The more memory in the classic Mac OS you gave it the better it ran. In Mac OS X, Photoshop can ask the system for as much memory as the system is willing to give it. Ever seen a kid in a candy store? That is Photoshop on Mac OS X. The thing is, Photoshop won't give back any of that memory once it has gotten it even if it doesn't need it anymore. So shutting down Photoshop when you are done is the best way to keep it from hogging memory from other apps and the system.

(2) Photoshop uses its own form of virtual memory for caching the histories. It'll fill up a drive to the point where Mac OS X can't rewrite it's own preferences (which is pretty bad). This only happens on very large projects or very small hard drives. I usually keep a second partition on my systems (if the drive is large enough) to use as the scratch disk for Photoshop, the _startup disk_ is usually my last choice.

(3) The image browser is still a new feature and has some bugs to it. I suggest using Curator for browsing your system for images. It is far better than GraphicConverter which increases the size of every image it previews (because it adds the preview to the image). Curator creates an invisible file of the previews and leaves the original images untouched (very important for people trying to keep their images small for web design).

I'll see if I can find out anything else. Just remember that I *do respond when people ask politely about things.*


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## edX (Jan 31, 2003)

actually dave your explanations of known problems make sense in light of my problems - especially number 2. i'm running it off my main drive which has been getting down to around 500mb of free space left. and yes, problems with prefs have been an issue i hadn't even remembered to mention. i guess i'll see how to move my 'scratch disk' to my big open 40gb with over 20 gb still open. and of course keep shutting it down - which frankly i would think would be something that people would make adobe fix. sounds like i wasn't as far off as you made it sound when you list those issues. they seem pretty unacceptable for a $500 app. but what do i know, i'm not used to what pros are. but i would be raising more hell with adobe for not getting memory management right than i would be with apple for not just upping the ghz so you won't notice.

and naw, i wouldn't want special treatment from you on something like this. i'm just thankful you stopped by and helped enlighten me.


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## Jason (Jan 31, 2003)

iirc you can purge histories, preview files etc etc while still having photoshop on, but thats more disk cache...

just to let you know, i have two scratch partitions myself, and in my experiences its mucho bad to have the scratch disk set to your startup drive... anyways he covered everything so i'll shutup


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