CS 5.5 upgrade issues

[Sveltepig]

Hello techie-minded people
The company I work for has recently upgraded from PS CS3 to CS5.5 (running on Snow Leopard) and we have a problem I can't figure out. I hope someone here can help...
Problem:
A colleague's machine displays the pasteboard area (outside of the image crop) as transparent for all rgb files. The cmyk and LAB colour files display correctly (with a grey or black pasteboard, as in the previuos version), but as soon as she tries to work in rgb, she can't see where the edges of her file are, as the pasteboard diplays with transparent blocks. HELP? A setting, possibly, but where? We can't find it - her setting seem the same as mine, and I am not having the same problem.
thanks
Sveltepig

[Doug Nelson]

PS has no pasteboard area, so I'm going to assume you have an image area inside a larger canvas. If you have a background layer (ie: the word "background" is in italics and there is a lock icon) then the canvas will appear white. If there is no background layer, or if the image layer is above the background layer and the background layer's visibility is turned off, you'll see the checkerboard.

It is possible you have files saved in 5.5 that aren't readable in CS3 (depending on features used, etc.) and in that case they'll be rendered as a flat "background" layer.

[Sveltepig]

hello Doug
thanks so much for your response.
I used the word "pasteboard" because I didn't know what else to call it, but what I actually mean is the space around the canvas - the area that shows grey or black in full-screen view.
This area is now showing with the checkerboard even though it is not part of the canvas.
???
Sveltepig

[Doug Nelson]

Take a screenshot and post it here (you may need to shrink it a bit).

[Sveltepig]

Hello Doug
Herewith screenshots.
Let me know what you think.
Sveltepig.

[Doug Nelson]

Can you shoot the layer stack of that same image?

[Sveltepig]

here it is:

[mistermonday]

When you create a new image you have options for its Background (see Ctrl New). One of those options is Transparent. If BG is set to transparent and you are in Full Screen mode then any canvas surrounding your image border will be transparent. You can also change screen background color in the Edit>Preferences>Interface
Regards, Murray

[Sveltepig]

hello Murray
thanks for your input, but it is not the canvas being transparent that is the issue. The area around the canvas (non-editable space) shows the transparency blocks, making it impossible to see where the canvas starts and ends.
thanks
Sveltepig

[Doug Nelson]

You have me stumped. I'd try the standard nuclear options (uninstall/reinstall, disabling OpenGL, etc.). You might need to bite the bullet and call Adobe (you should have some free support if you haven't contacted them before).

[mistermonday]

Occasionally PS will do some very strange, unintuitive, and undocumented things when its Preferences file gets corrupted. You may want to try to reset the Prefs file. But before doing so, you should name and save your workspace and any special settings that you do not want to redo from scratch.
Regards, Murray

[Sveltepig]

Hi Doug and Murray
Yes, it's very weird.
We tried replacing the preferences file with another one yesterday, and it worked for half an hour and then reverted to the previous problem. Weird I know!
We will try re-installing the program and let you know if it helps.
thanks
Sveltepig