When you closed your files, a box popped up asking you if you wanted to save changes. I’ll bet you clicked "OK" or "Save". You should have clicked "Discard."
Unlike MS Word and some other programs, when you "save as" in Photoshop, the name of the open file doesn’t change to what you saved as; it keeps the original file open. So when you clicked save changes on closing the file, you saved over the original.
I’ll bet I did exactly that, chose to "Save," believing I’d be saving only the newly formed file. Because this choice always happens after saving for the Web, and saving the original makes no difference, I assumed… Well, I’m going to stop all this assuming.
Having used Photoshop for years, I’m feeling a bit stupid right now, but thanks to you, my next stupid mistake won’t be this one.
Barbara, we’ve all been there and done that. No need to feel stupid. We learn not only from our mistakes but from Adobe’s! (And, thanks to this forum, from others’ mistakes, too.)
I’ve returned because it’s happened again, only this time I was paying close attention. I finished editing a 16-bit file in ProPhoto color and saved it. I then reduced it to 8-bit and changed it to Adobe RGB and did a Save As to a separate folder. I closed the file and was not asked if I wanted to do a save, which I would I would have refused doing anyway.
The original file ended up being exactly the same as the one I’d saved for the slideshow: 8-bit, Adobe RGB.
Previous versions of Photoshop never did this, and unless there’s some weird preference I don’t know about, I’d say this is a serious programming flaw.
Well it certainly doesn’t happen here Barbara, so a bug it ain’t.
I think you should try resetting your Preferences files (see the FAQs) because a corrupt Prefs (caused by not letting PS close properly before shutting the computer down) can cause all sorts of weird things to happen.
Chris
By the way: Use sRGB for a slideshow that’s going to be viewed in a non colour managed environment.
I reset Preferences and then did a test. It still does it. My only way around it is to create a duplicate file, close the original, and then do my changes to the duplicate. This is unfortunate since "Save As" should be keeping my original file safe.
Slideshow: Thanks for the reminder on that one.
This is embarrassing. Photoshop isn’t broken–I’m the one who’s broken. I was doing my changes via an action, and guess what the last item was in that action. Yup, that’s it: Save.
Next thing you know, I’ll be hiding my money in my shoe to keep the elves from stealing it.
I’ll be hiding my money in my shoe to keep the elves from stealing it.
That’s better than hiding it in you account and letting the bank steal it!
Barbara….
You stated, "…I’ve returned because it’s happened again, only this time I was paying close attention. I finished editing a 16-bit file in ProPhoto color and saved it. I then reduced it to 8-bit and changed it to Adobe RGB and did a Save As to a separate folder. I closed the file and was not asked if I wanted to do a save, which I would I would have refused doing anyway…"
I know it is OT. However, I would suggest to you to change from ProPhoto to aRGB before you change mode to 8 bit. Prophoto is a huge color space relative to aRGB and I think you will get better results if done in 16 bit mode.
John
John, what you’re saying makes absolute sense, and yet I haven’t seen any differences whichever way I do it. I most certainly see a huge (and ugly) color difference between sRGB and both ProPhoto and Adobe RGB, but I’ve not seen any change in this ugliness depending on which of the original color spaces I’ve used.
Now you’ve set me off on a quest to find out what I’m seeing or even if I’m seeing it all. This is much more interesting than what I’d planned on doing.
I tried every way of converting, and maybe it’s a function of my monitor, but the differences were so small that I’m not sure I wasn’t just imagining them.
It’s interesting to note that, before I started using ProPhoto for all my processing, a conversion from Adobe RGB to sRGB always necessitated brightening and having to eliminate a red cast. I no longer have to do any of this.
and maybe it’s a function of my monitor, but…
Your monitor’s gamut is little more than sRGB. You will only really see the benefit of the wider colour spaces in print.
If there’s no viewing difference, it then begs the question as to why Adobe’s "Save for Web" automatically changes everything to sRGB, doesn’t it?
"If there’s no viewing difference, it then begs the question as to why Adobe’s "Save for Web" automatically changes everything to sRGB, doesn’t it?"
There’s no viewing difference in Photoshop because it’s color managed and automatically compensates for the difference in working spaces, but most browsers are not, so sRGB is the color space of choice. In a color managed browser like Safari, if you embed your profile in the file, the browser will act like Photoshop and compensate the display using the embedded profile.
Barbara: No. The wider gamut of AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB will be compressed down, and not in a linear fashion, leading to photos that will display as horrible (especially if they were ProPhoto).
Chris: Given that most printers’ gamuts are smaller than most monitors’, at least as to most colors, I’d have to disagree in part. Some printers’ gamuts are wider as to some colors than some monitors, so ProPhotoRGB may result in more accurate colors in print than on the monitor in those cases.
Both: The advantage of a wide-gamut profile over a smaller gamut profile is that a wider gamut is available within Photoshop, where it can be manipulated for proper display on the screen or in print.
Michael, I’ve found ProPhoto compresses down better than Adobe RGB does, even when viewing the results outside Photoshop. Now I’m wondering if what I see and how I see it is wholly a function of the quality of my monitor, a very nice Viewsonic.
Peter, it sounds unwise to use Safari for posting work on the Web since it could give a false idea of how one’s pictures look.
In the end, we’d probably all be better off if there were a little more conformity in equipment.
