CS4 Photomerge doesn’t work

Posted By
Mar 26, 2009
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756
Replies
10
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Closed
Photomerge doesn’t work for me when I am trying to run it from Bridge or from Photoshop. Photoshop stitches the images but when the process is done the document closes, resulting in no image.

The same issue has been discussed in this thread, but no solution was provided: <http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.59b830ed>

Purging the selection / folder cache in Bridge prior to merging doesn’t help.

Resetting the PS preferences solves the problem but only temporarily. The issue appears again when you try to make up another panorama.

I shot the images in RAW format.

SCRATCH DISK: 1 Tb
SYSTEM SPECS:
Operating System: Windows Vista 32-bit
Version: 6.0 Service Pack 1
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:10, Stepping:4 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2 Physical processor count: 4
Logical processor count: 8
Processor speed: 2666 MHz
Video Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Video Card Renderer: GeForce GTX 260/PCI/SSE2

Thank you
Panos Efstathiadis
www.PanosFX.com

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SS
Steve Sprengel
Mar 26, 2009
Here are some more things I can think of to try experimenting with in case you find a combination that works. The main idea is that there is a resource issue that Photoshop is not gracefully handling.

Does it even work if you stitch a couple tiny images, and then what is the number or size of images where it starts to fail consistently, and then can you vary things related to resources where it starts to work with a larger set of images that used to fail, before?

Try changing the amount of memory available to Photoshop in Preferences, where smaller seems like the direction you can go from what you’ve posted.

Try changing your scratch disk to another drive, perhaps even the program drive and/or the system-boot drive. It’s unlikely it’s running out of 1TB but maybe something about that particular HD is causing a problem.

Watch the amount of memory used by Photoshop in TaskManager and see if it fails when the amount of memory used passes a certain threshhold. Select both Commit Size and Working Set as types of memory to track in the process view, and also watch the total memory used by the system in the Performance tab.

If there is a BIOS setting when you boot your computer for how much memory your video card uses try changing it.

The memory size being a multple of 3GB seems like an uncommon amount. Maybe take one memory chip out so it is a multiple of 2GB. Only do this if you are comfortable mucking around with your hardware and use proper static-reduction techniques, etc.

Try reducing and expanding the number of history states Photoshop keeps track of using Preferences.

You don’t say anything about OpenGL settings, so I assume your card doesn’t support it? If it does, try turning it off or try turning it on if it’s off but can be used.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Mar 26, 2009
If ACR doesn’t show your camera, you need to convert to DNG first.
K
KatWoman
Mar 27, 2009
Sorry to butt in here,
I don’t know the answer but some other guy was on here awhile & ago posted same problem with RAW files (only)
He said changing them to other formats worked, like tiff or jpg. So it may not be related to your comp putzing out but to the new photomerge unable to handle RAW.

off topic:
CS4 (sorry) sounds horrid
it is one update I will skip
I have found open GL to really suck for gaming applications and too much of CS4 seems dependent upon it
too bad there is no Direct x choice on CS4 (even ancient 3d vid games have that option)
have never had any issues with programs running Direct x maybe Mac cannot use it?
I cannot afford to upgrade all my hardware this year, am reluctant to change to Vista for obvious reasons, and PS is too important to my work to risk messing up with a poorly designed upgrade that messes up functions that previously worked well in CS3.
I love CS3 and will stick with it until this comp dies and I have to replace it.

Does anyone know if the CS3 ACR works with newer cameras if you input jpgs not RAW formats?
I prefer to upgrade the camera before replacing the comp and PS version. Cannot afford all 3 at once.
Mar 27, 2009
Thank you for your replies.

Steve: I lowered the amount of RAM used by Photoshop from 70% to 65% and it worked. My video card is among the latest NVidia cards. Therefore I don’t think that the card is the problem.
I even tried to photomerge 4 RAW images which I opened at a smaller resolution (@ 2.8 Mpx). Photomerge would not produce any results even in this case where the resources should not be a problem.

I still cannot understand this peculiar behavior. I have PS CS4 for five months and Photomerge used to work fine (with the same preferences and PS & Bridge the only applications running).

Anyway, I’m glad it’s fixed even with this small compromise. Panos
SS
Steve Sprengel
Mar 27, 2009
Since the amount of RAM is a percentage, Photoshop’s allocation depends on how much is available at the time you start up Photoshop, so the fact it works on one day doesn’t mean it’ll work the next, so further tweaks in the Photoshop allocation could be necessary, but at least you know what to try.

I would guess that the PhotoMerge process is aborting due to a memory issue but it is deep enough that no error message is generated. This is surely a bug, and allocating even less memory to Photoshop may change when Photoshop is swapping things out to its scratch file sooner, allowing it to have more memory for itself, during the PhotoMerge.

It could also be something related to OpenGL being used for image rendering and the display-driver having an issue that Photoshop can’t really see.

The amount of RAM available is somewhat dependent on what applications have run before, not just what are currently running, so even if you only ever have PS and Br running, the available RAM could be different based on what applications have already run and closed, already, and maybe some OS component or driver has been updated sine it used to work and that component uses slightly more or less memory than it used to. And even if there is an identical amount of RAM available, memory is allocated in chunks that aren’t freed up immediately, so, again, it could depend on what appliactions have been run, before.

It seems to me that CS4 and ACR have been updated to 11.0.1 and 5.3 less than 5 months ago, and maybe that is what is different, now.
K
KatWoman
Mar 27, 2009
If ACR doesn’t show your camera, you need to convert to DNG first.

jpeg to dng???
I was asking if CS4 ACR will still take jpg from the newer cameras even though I know it will not do the RAW files
JJ
John Joslin
Mar 27, 2009
I was asking if CS4 ACR will still take jpg from the newer cameras

It should, try it.

The data that is needed to interpret a camera-specific raw file should not be needed for a JPEG.
K
KatWoman
Mar 28, 2009
It should, try it.

The data that is needed to interpret a camera-specific raw file should not be needed for a JPEG.
I don’t own the camera (YET)
would have to try it with a rental
JJ
John Joslin
Mar 28, 2009
You could take a card in and try a shot taken in the shop.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Mar 28, 2009
And while you are at it, load some images as RAW and see for yourself.

I never use jpeg.

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