Healing/Mend Tool

[Mark 7]

Originally Posted by WendyW

Well it works!!.

So the way I did it was:

Moved a copy of the .zip file from the email to the desktop
Downloaded Zipit from maczipit:
http://www.maczipit.com/
Let Stuffit unzip it
Then I went to the Zipit folder double clicked zipit
File>Open ... selected the .zip file
Edit>Select All
Zip>Extract
And saved the unzipped folder (Mend) to the desktop
Clicked on the mend folder and held down Apple and I
this brought up the file info
Went to Ownership & Permissions and changed the Group Access and Others from Read only to Read and Write
Clicked on ... Apply to the enclosed item.

I then placed the Mend folder into the Effects Folder. Applications\Adobe Photoshop Elements 2\ Previews\Effects

Deleted the Previews Cache. Applications\Adobe Photoshop Elements 2\ Previews\Cache

Restarted Elements.

Now all I have to do is work out how to use it.

Thanks Susan and Richard for all the help

Wendy

Wendy,

I changed file permissions but still no go. I don't know what these steps are about

File>Open ... selected the .zip file What zip file? I don't see zip on my Mend folder

Edit>Select All
Zip>Extract


Nothing on my Mend folder has a .zip on the end. And when I save it to the my desktop it appears to be already uncompressed (104kb). Now I'm getting really frustrated. This shouldn't be so difficult.

[WendyW]

Mark,

When you go to Richard's original email ... does the file (on the email) say mend+.zip (16.4KB)?

Wendy

[Mark 7]

Originally Posted by WendyW

Mark,

When you go to Richard's original email ... does the file (on the email) say mend+.zip (16.4KB)?

Wendy

Wendy,

No...just Mend+

What are you doing up so late? Aren't you in UK?

[WendyW]

Mark,

The file should be Mend+.zip .... maybe Richard needs to check it for you ... something strange has happened to it.

Yes I am in the UK but do tend to stay up late ... its now nearly 1AM so I guess its time I signed off.

Hope you get something sorted out soon.

Wendy

[dave_m]

I tried the Maczipit utility that Susan used, but I still get the same problem in PE, that is all I see in the Mend window is an icon called "original" that does nothing. I have tried deleting the cache again but this doesn't work either. I am on 10.3.1 and use Mail (by Apple). Mail does appear to automatically decompress the file, but if you ctrl-click on the attachment, you pull up a menu that allows you to open the file with another utility. This is how I decompressed the file with MacZip and with Zipit, but no luck with either. The files are there in both cases; the mend.psd has 3 layers, I can read the readme, the actions have the appropriate icons, but PE doesn't seem to recognize them. Perhaps it has something to do with Panther (10.3)?

[dave_m]

OK, so here's what I had to do to get this to work. I have been on OS 10.3.2, and nothing I tried worked, so I changed my startup disk to an external drive with OS 10.2.8. I then started up PE on my hard drive and what-do-you-know?, the actions now work! PE gives me a message saying "some files needed to run PE in OS X are missing, ...reinstall it" (I didn't) but everything seems to work anyway. Now here is the wierd part. I shut down, restart using 10.3.2 again (so I can post a message saying the actions don't work in 10.3), restart PE, and NOW the actions work!

Anyone have any ideas? My guess is 10.3 organizes program information subtly differently than 10.2.x, and that PE under 10.3 requires something more than placing the mend folder in the previews/effects folder to work. (Or that PE in 10.2 automatically places the info from the effects folder into some other folder as well, but this step doesn't function in 10.3?) Starting PE up in 10.2.8 seems to have automatically fixed this. I'll look into the PE files to see what, if anything, has changed, but this will have to wait 'til tomorrow--reading over this paragraph just fried my brain.

[Susan S.]

Originally Posted by dave_m

Anyone have any ideas? My guess is 10.3 organizes program information subtly differently than 10.2.x, and that PE under 10.3 requires something more than placing the mend folder in the previews/effects folder to work. (Or that PE in 10.2 automatically places the info from the effects folder into some other folder as well, but this step doesn't function in 10.3?) Starting PE up in 10.2.8 seems to have automatically fixed this. I'll look into the PE files to see what, if anything, has changed, but this will have to wait 'til tomorrow--reading over this paragraph just fried my brain.

Good theory - except mine worked fine in 10.3.2, once I'd used zipit rather than stuffit expander...I may have also deleted Elements prefs as well as the cache file without checking whether it was necessary as I found I needed to do this with the Shipley tools to get them to work - but I can't remember whether I did this on the unzipped version as well as on the unstuffed version (where it didn't help) ...it's a bit of a mystery this one...
Susan S.

[Richard_Lynch]

It seems like the 10.3 saga discussed by dave_m confirms Susan's experience...10.3 must do something in preferences to retain information from the effects cache (though that seems unlikely). My bet is that the change to 10.2.8 saw the cache was deleted and re-wrote it -- like it should have. There is a missing link there somewhere. It may have to do with users and ... administration. However, the solution for 10.3 users would seem to be:

1. DOWNLOAD the zip file (instead of using native stuffit to unzip). It doesn't matter that the file has no apparent extension. It may be a preference whether you see it or not.

2. Unzip using maczipit (which must use a slightly different algorythm, or as I have stated elsewhere, some utilities may only unzip one level of files -- someone might try dropping the once-unzipped folder on unstuff a second time...).

3. Delete the cache for effects. Find this in the Elements program folder:
Applications>Adobe Photoshop Elements 2>Previews>Cache

4. Delete the Elements preferences. Find this in the USER PREFERENCES:
System>Users>[your user name]>Library>Preferences>Photoshop Elements 2 Prefs. You can delete the entire preferences folder either physically moving it to the trash, or by restarting Elements and holding down Command+Option+Shift when you restart Elements. Keep holding down the keys until you get the confirmation for deleting all preferences, and accept that. Preferences will be rebuilt to factory defaults.

I'll add the delete Preferences for Mac users to the instructions.

The only thing I am noticing here is that there is a Paths file for Elements, and I am not at all sure what that does. Someone might try removing that before the preferences to see if it is the culprit...not having the problem I can't test it.

I would assume the problem may be that Adobe will need an update for 10.3 (which was not around when Elements 2 was created). I would be surprised if Adobe bothered to put out any type of fix before releasing PE3 (whenever that comes out...if it does). One of the reasons I DON'T update my OS as they come out (and sometimes a hidden cost) is there is always lag time between an OS release and programs catching up to it (or bugs being washed out). I'm pretty happy with 10.2.8, and Elements seems to play nice with it.

Please Please let me know of success and/or failure with the instruction change -- especially if you are an OS 10.3 user having the problem...I will have other things coming out and want to know if I should find yet another installation solution before I bother. Thank you all for your interest and dilligence in working around the problem. I hope we can turn to discussing USE of the tool.

[Susan S.]

Richard - I'm still not sure whether or not I did delete prefs the second time - but it's still worth a try. I'm still not convinced it's a 10.3 issue as I had exactly the same problem with 10.1.5 installing Paul Shipley's add-ins into the effects menu. I've not had any problems with 10.3.2 installing anythig else into Elements (and as I reformatted my harddrive before installing 10.3, I have reinstalled Elements and both the book tools and HPA3 with no problems under that OS). The problem seems to be unique to installing through the effects menu and occurs in various flavours of OSX.

Susan S..

[Richard_Lynch]

As I had no issues using 10.2, and have not had reports of issues from those on OS 10.2, I have to assume it is a 10.3 related problem. In any case if someone follows the suggestions (use the right zip utility, delete cache, delete prefs), I would be surprised if they came back with install problems...it really can't get much easier than unzipping a file and placing it in a folder. That is not to say people aren't having genuine problems, but the issues are not related to the tool or the distribution. I can only do so much from my side of the computer terminal. As to OS10.3, it may be something as simple as there is a node missing on some code tree that needs to be created and is initiated by removing the preferences and once there it knows to check -- who knows. All I know is I can't reproduce the problem. Doing all these things should take care of it. If not, I look for something else.

[Mark 7]

I believe that I've finally gotten it to work. In Effects the three crosses appear and they respond to clicking. I must say, using MacZip is not a slam dunk. I had to approach the unzipping in several different ways and finally one of these approaches worked. Unfortunately I don't remember my steps should someone else have the same difficulty. I will try to find my approach should someone else have the same problems.

Well, now I'm going on to the next step and trying out Mend.


Upon reading your discussion regarding 10.3 problems, I must say, that did not seem to be the issue for me and so I don't think it is OS X.3 related. It sounds like Wendy, Dave and I have resolved our problems in three entirely different ways. I'm puzzled.

Richard, I have not had any problems ( except email won't work with PSE 2) with my upgrade from 10.1.5 to 10.3. I would highly recommend it.



BTW: Richard or anyone, do you have an image that I can practice on to use the Mend tool? Richard mentioned that he was going to put up an example on his web site. Maybe this would give me something to learn on. Otherwise, I'll have to tear a photo and scan it. Let's see, any old photos of ex girlfriends laying around here?

[WendyW]

Well ... I'm still using 10.2.6 and not too sure if I should upgrade on the iMac or not. However we have just ordered an iBook so that will come complete with 10.3 ... will let you know how I go on with that.

I suspect that now it is unzipped there should be no problems.

I hope

Glad to hear that we now all have it installed

Wendy

[jdhagin]

Mend Tool v. 1.0 really works very well on my iMac OS 10.1.5. First, as Richard had to remind me to follow the instructions in the Readme.html. First, Stuffit would not expanded the Mind + .zip correctly, yes I tried it and it would not work in PE2. Downloaded zipit, to expand it, but it would only work in the "classic", but it expanded it too "Mend+.zi0" folder. Then it worked in PE2. At first I could not figure out what I was doing, as I thought the Mend tool was about the same as the Clone tool. I should have know better, with what Richard has put together in HPPE 2 and his newsletters. Again not following the instructions in Readme.html III. TO APPLY 1 - 11. You must double-click the Mend_Setup icon, which sets up the clone layer and clone tool. Make repairs, then I double-click the Mend icon and it does the magic and allows me to make settings. The final repair is to good to be true. I have never used the healing brush in Photoshop, but this Mend Tool is FANTASTIC. Thank you Richard Lynch.

[WendyW]

Mark,

Just notice the last section of your message ... if you want to practice on something then just load any image and using the brush tool simply make a mark on it. One you have done that you can practice removing it.

Wendy

[WendyW]

Richard,

It is now working fine and I am "healing" everything in sight!. Just a quick question .....

When I have finished an area and wish to "heal" another area in the same image ... I need then to flatten the image ... is there any workaround I could use so that I could keep the original layers open in case I want to do more adjustments?.

Additionally, by accident I merged just the colour and tone layers and doing that changes the colour etc ... what is happening that causes this? ... Just curious really!

Wendy

[Richard_Lynch]

jdhagin: Thank you for emphasizing the instructions. I realize many are impatient to get to the result, but the basic steps are certainly important as you note here. I am glad you like the tool -- that's the first real reaction to what it does, I think!

>> When I have finished an area and wish to "heal" another
>> area in the same image ... I need then to flatten the image ...
>> is there any workaround I could use so that I could keep
>> the original layers open in case I want to do more adjustments?

Well, I never thought to try that, only because the goal of the correction would be to commit it...You see, once you make some changes, you will sometimes want to sample from the Mended spot. There might be a way to change this up to do what you want, but it wasn't designed for it (at least not in this version). Additional applications will flatten the image -- it was just a better way of dealing with all the potential layers.

>> Additionally, by accident I merged just the colour and tone
>> layers and doing that changes the colour etc ... what is
>> happening that causes this? ... Just curious really!

The adjustment layers are Luminosity and Color modes, and when you merge them they switch to Normal mode (which is 'normal'). It isn't really possible to achieve the same effect using one layer, unless, perhaps, you copy the background under the Mend, paste to a new base layer, and merge those three...you'll then have the right result on a separate layer -- and I guess you can make changes by duping the layer, changing to the appropriate mode, and making a grouped adjustment.

So, in other words, what i just said you couldn't do, you probably can...but the image will still flatten between applications if you use the Set-Up. There is potentially the option of manually creating the clone layer and running the mend (as you would using the 'patch' instructions at the end of the readme). If you test that out, I'd be curious if it works!

[Susan S.]

Richard - From Wendy's and your comments the final version must be a little different from the beta that I have....my copy finishes the action by merging everything up into one layer and I don't have the option of playing with things in that way - if there is a significant difference I need to buy the final version, I think!
I really like the tool - it's very good in particualr at wrinkle removal and lightening of dark shadows under the eyes, which are harder to do with the clone tool alone

Susan S.

[WendyW]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for all the information it has helped me understand some of background.

I did a try out by:

Using the mend set up & mend for the first "heal" then manually created the clone layer above the tone and colour layers. Then used mend and it worked fine until it gave the message:

The command group is not currently available.

Am I right that this command simply links the three layers? ... if so it is easy enough to do that manually and it leaves all the layers intact !!

Thanks for all the help

Wendy

[overlock]

I had the same problem as Wendy, but was able to correct it by using MacZip crypt downloaded from the url in Richard's email for installing mend.
I first copied the enclosed zip (intact) to the desktop and then dragged it into the MacZip icon.
MY original attempt to unzip with default Stuffit would not install. Stuffit must do something to the files to corrupt them. I hope this is of some help.
Aloha, Bob

[Richard_Lynch]

>>Am I right that this command simply links the three layers? ... if so it is easy enough to do that manually and it leaves all the layers intact !!

That would be what it does. If you don't link them, you can't just hit Command/Ctrl+E to merge at the end...so that would be up to you. Thanks for testing!

[photobugjb]

Originally Posted by Richard_Lynch

The file comes as an email attachment. It is automatically compressed by AOL and you should be able to both automatically uncompress and save the file for compression later. As there are a bunch of different ways to access email, I can't post instructions for all of them, you will have to consult your mail program help to find out how they work. However, I can give suggestions...what are you using to open mail?

Richard,

I am still having problems. I have tried everything the other people here have tried and no go.
I use OSX 10.3.2 Mac Mail. Mail un-compresses the file automatically, I never see the compressed file.
How can I get a compressed file to un-zip?

Thanks for the help
Jack

[Richard_Lynch]

You need to be able to isolate the zip file. As I've suggested, depending on your email client, the means of doing this will be different. You might try saving the email, dragging the attachment file to the desktop, or looking in the help files for the program you use to read the email. A search of your hard drive may also reveal the file stored in some temporary area or download folder.

Once you have the file isolated, you need to use an unzip utility. There are a bunch around, and I will list some of the options here for Mac:

Maczipit:
http://www.maczipit.com/

Stuffit Expander (OS X users choose .dmg version 8):
http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/download.html

MacZip (you need Classic/OS 9 installed):
http://download.com.com/3000-2254-50...ml?tag=lst-0-1

ANY of these programs should work...however, they may, conversely, not all work on the first try.What you need to do is:

1. Choose a utility
2. Download the utility
3. Install the utility (um, this may actually require some type of expanding!)
4. Drag the zip file to the utility icon.

At this point the utility should expand the files. HOWEVER, the utility may also not expand the different levels of the zip. You can take care of this by;

1. Note where the 'expanded' files are -- these are the resulting files from the previous steps. It should be a readme.html file and the Mend folder.
2. Drag the mend folder to the unzip utility a second time.

This really should take care of the problem, no matter what utility you are using. I have tried all of them and they all work. A really radical approach might be to download AOL's software, create an account, forward the email to that account and download the file from there. You may already have (and likely you do) unzip utilities in your system as part of browser and email software 'helpers'. You may be able to change the preferences for the utility that gets used.

Unzipping a file SHOULD be the easy part of this, but regretfully, due to various reasons (mostly the plethora of ways that email is handled) it can be a little troublesome. You need to get the latest download and unzip utilities for OS X, and will, most likely, have trouble using older versions. You may have to learn to use your email software, which will, most likely, allow download of a file without unzipping; read the help files, or turn off automated decompression in the software preferences. It would be impossible for me to list instructions for every email package in use.

Please let me know if you have continued trouble. Please name the email software and let me know the steps you are taking.

[photobugjb]

OK Richard I got it to work.

I use mail, the one that comes with OSX 10.3.2, there is on way, that I can find, to change the settings for compressed files.

I moved the un-compressed folder to the desktop, then using MacZip 1.0.6 zipped the folder them un-zipped it. This gave me a Mend folder with a extension name of Mend.ziO, did all the rest of the stuff in the instructions for installing and presto... it works.

Thanks for all your help and I hope this helps others.

Jack

[Richard_Lynch]

I suspect that many OS X users use the mail program, but i am not one of them. Can you please let us know how you achieved saving the file to the desktop?

About the saved file, it may not matter at all that it is Mend+ or Mend+.zip. My suspicion is that you can drop the saved folder into the Utility for unzipping and skip the zipping step.

let me know, and thanks for keeping at it! I sure a few people will benefit from your effort.

[photobugjb]

Originally Posted by Richard_Lynch

I suspect that many OS X users use the mail program, but i am not one of them. Can you please let us know how you achieved saving the file to the desktop?

About the saved file, it may not matter at all that it is Mend+ or Mend+.zip. My suspicion is that you can drop the saved folder into the Utility for unzipping and skip the zipping step.

let me know, and thanks for keeping at it! I sure a few people will benefit from your effort.

I tried many programs to just drop the folder on but until I zipped and unzipped it again it would not work.

Just dragging the folder off mail places it on the desktop however it’s unzipped at that time.

This method also worked on my iBook, it too had the same problems as my G4.

[Richard_Lynch]

Well, sounds cludgy, but if it works I guess it'll have to do. Thanks for taking the time to respond, and perhaps it is enough of a solution for other people with the problem to go on!

Richard

[jamesk8752]

I too was initially unable to get the Mend tool to install properly into PSE 2 running on my iMac 17" G4. I believe that the problem was with Mail's automatic decompressing of the Mend+.zip file. My workaround was to forward the email from Richard containing the Mend+.zip file to a friend with a PC. I was then able to detach the Mend+.zip file, save the file on a disk, load it onto my Mac, decompress using Zipit, and install it following Richard's directions. Voila! The missing icons appeared in the Mend dropdown under Effects and it works just fine.

Regards, Jim

[Richard_Lynch]

A new solution for mac users that I heard was as simple as this: Open the Mend.psd with Elements and resave, then restart elements...

I can't test as i can't get it to NOT work...but perhaps someone else can?