Yet another bug in Photoshop CS3: Lab Colour Mode

OU
Posted By
Olaf_Ulrich
Jun 26, 2007
Views
256
Replies
6
Status
Closed
Using Photoshop CS3 Standard (english) on Windows XP SP2, I cannot switch to Lab colour mode. Or rather, I can, but the image will turn completely black. In the channels palette in Lab mode, there are four channels: L, a, b, and Lab. The three single channels obviously contain the correct data, and I can select each one and the display will show the correct greyscale representations of the L channel, the a channel, and the b channel. But it won’t show the colour image of all channels combined, i. e. the Lab image; this will appear simply black instead.

Fortunately, I still have Photoshop CS2 installed. So due to this and numerous other bugs (particularly the §@#!& printing) I am using Bridge 2.1 and ACR 4.1 but not Photoshop CS3. This application is just too buggy to get serious work done 🙁

— Olaf
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JJ
John_Joslin
Jun 26, 2007
It doesn’t happen here so I don’t think it is a bug. Does it do it to all files? Have you tried resetting the Preferences?
OU
Olaf_Ulrich
Jun 26, 2007
John Joslin wrote:

It doesn’t happen here …

It doesn’t? Strange … well, so it might indeed be not a bug but some quirk in my set-up.

..
John further wrote:

Does it do it to all files?

Umm … yes. To all I tried—but that was only a few. The same files get displayed just fine in Lab mode in CS2 on the same PC.

..
John further wrote:

Have you tried resetting the Preferences?

No, I haven’t, but that’s the next thing I’ll try. Thank you for the hint!

— Olaf
PD
Penny_Deutz
Jun 26, 2007
The exact same thing happened to me just 2 days ago. It was the first time I had ever tried LAB, in any version of PS, and all I got was the black box. I switched to my earlier version (PS7 in this case) and tried it, thinking that maybe my computer wouldn’t support it for some reason, since it’s several years old. PS7 displayed LAB just fine… I went back to CS3 (I had closed it down completely) and when it restarted – it LAB worked correctly, BUT all my preferences had been reset to default! So, I agree with the previous poster who commented that it may be a preferences thing. You should also check the color management settings in your earlier version & make sure the CS3 has the same settings. I have no idea if that made a difference or not, but I did notice that my CS3 didn’t have the same color settings as PS7 did. Try resetting preferences to default, shutting down CS3 and restarting, and then check to see if CS3 will display LAB correctly.
OU
Olaf_Ulrich
Jun 28, 2007
Update: In the meantime, I have tried a few things. I installed the latest Windows Security Updates; I reset Photoshop CS3’s preferences (by pressing Alt-Shift-Ctrl during launching); I tried more image files of different formats; I switched to an earlier version—CS2 in my case—and back to CS3 in succession as Penny suggested … all to no avail. Photoshop CS3 Standard still refuses to display images in Lab colour mode (even though the L, a, and b channels are there in the channels palette).

Arrrggh …! 🙁

— Olaf
H
Herb
Jun 28, 2007
Olaf,

Look at the blue header on the top of your image. What is written there after the name of the image? Does it say (RGB/8) or (RGB/16) or (Lab/8) or (Lab/16) or anything else?

Herb

wrote:
Update: In the meantime, I have tried a few things. I installed the latest Windows Security Updates; I reset Photoshop CS3’s preferences (by pressing Alt-Shift-Ctrl during launching); I tried more image files of different formats; I switched to an earlier version—CS2 in my case—and back to CS3 in succession as Penny suggested … all to no avail. Photoshop CS3 Standard still refuses to display images in Lab colour mode (even though the L, a, and b channels are there in the channels palette).

Arrrggh …! 🙁

— Olaf
RH
Reuben_Hann
Jul 20, 2007
I had exactly the same failure. I read all the comments here and remembered I had changed a couple of Preferences during the session when I was trying to make the mode change. I did not reset them. Instead, I simply re-started CS3 and voila! Mode change worked correctly. My altered Preferences are there and all is well on that front. I still do not see what this problem has to do with Preferences, but there are many things in this world I do not understand–many of them having to do with Photoshop. Of course, time will tell whether this is really fixed.
Thanks.

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