Problem w/ PS 7 Actions & Brushes Pallete

[rnbluvva]

Hi there,

I have just been trying to load in some Actions that I downloaded from the web.

For some strange reason the Arrow on the Actions pallet will not do anything. I press it and it just does nothing, so I can't load in the action that I want to load in.

I also noticed this with my Brushes pallet. The arrow does not bring up the sub-menus.

There are no other pallets that this happens to. I tried them all and the sub-menus work fine.

I have already uninstalled and re-installed PS7 to see if that would fix it and it did nothing.

The only other thing I am wondering is if I have too many .abr or .atn files in the Preset folder?

I actually have several folders in the Preset folder.

I have one for Brushes that are 'In Use' and Brushes that are 'Not In Use' (25 Objects in Folder: all brushes categorized by type, not sure how many files in total). I also have the same set up for Actions: 'Photoshop Actions' (11 files) and 'Photoshop Actions Not In Use' (there are 96 actions in this folder).

Has anyone else run into this kind of thing.

I deleted all the brushes from the Preset Manager manually and tried to shut down and restart to see what would happen. Now the brushes pallet is empty.

Is there a way to get back all the default brushes again? I don't know what they are called.

Thanks for your help.

Natalie

[Flora]

Hi Natalie,

I had similar problems several times .... (like, I think, nearly everybody using Photoshop )

In my case, deleting the Photoshop Preferences File always solved the problem ... You can find a very clear article about the 'Why' and 'How to' here

Photoshop creates the 'several Folders' in the Preset Folder when installed... but loads the 'Default' only at startup, enabling you to start working immediately, but decreasing, this way, the loading time.... The rest, is there to be loaded, appended, used on necessity...

Usually, once you load something in addition to the Default Presets, Photoshop asks you the to 'Append' the new set to the one you are currently using (otherwise you won't be able to use any of its content).... If you click OK, it will be added to it ..... the new combination will be saved in the Preferences File when you close PS .... and .... loaded (as saved) next time you start PS.

If your Presets get too 'crowded' and you'd like to go back to the Default Settings, in the current Preset Menu, click on Reset (Brushes...Actions....Tools...whatever) and you'll be brought back to the initial Photoshop Default Preset ....

Now (talking from personal experience here... ).... having deleted all the Brushes, your Brushes Preset is 'Empty' .... sooo .... unless you saved the original Presets folder somewhere else before experimenting ..... so you can copy it back .... you'll have to start from scratch .... meaning re-installing Photoshop!

Hope this could help...

[rnbluvva]

Hi Flora,

Thanks for that article on resetting the preferences file.

I will try that.

When I noticed this strange behavior, the first thing I did was to uninstall PS7 and then I reinstalled it. It didn't fix the problem though and the default brushes never came back.

I didn't delete the whole folder though and left all the presets etc., in there. Maybe that is the problem.

I actually noticed this issue a while back (last October) when I first upgraded from PS6 to PS7. I had a whole ton of brushes in the brushes folder in PS6 and I copied them over to 7's folder. That's when the arrow thing started. I have never played with Actions before, so this is the first time I noticed the issue with the action pallette. I tested all the other pallettes and they work fine.

It sure is strange.

I'll poke around and try a few things and report back.

Thanks for the advice.

Nat

[rnbluvva]

Fixed the issues:

1.) Tried deleting preferences and that did not work to make the Pallettes function, but it DID bring back the default brushes.

2.) Tried this and it worked:
-Made a 'Brushes and Actions Not In Use' Folder in the Main Photoshop 7 folder (outside the Presets folder)

-Went to the Presets -> Actions In Use Folder -> Cut all but one action and placed those in the seperate 'Actions Not In Use' Folder -> Cut the 'Entire Actions Not In Use' Folder and pasted it in the 'Brushes and Actions Not In Use' Folder

Did the exact same thing for the 'Brushes Not In Use' Folder (cut the folder out of Presets and pasted it in the 'Brushes and Actions Not In Use' Folder in the Main Photoshop 7 folder)

This seems to have made the pallette options arrow work and bring up the options. I can now load in actions and brushes from that outside folder with no problems.

I think what happened is that I had way to many folders/files in the Presets folder. Even though the files were not in the main Brushes or Photoshop Actions Folders, it seems that even having them in the Presets Main folder was clogging the system.

Well, that was a fun technical lesson. Hope this helps someone down the road...

If what I have explained still doesn't make sense, let me know and I will try my best to clarify it for you.

Nat

[Flora]

Hi Natalie,

so glad you solved your problem!!!!

....For an 'experiment junkie' like me ....your explanation is absolutely clear ..... (I went through the Cut-Paste-Delete-Copy-Rename Procedure thousands of times already!!! )

I'm sure your experience will come in very handy sooner or later!

Thank you for taking the trouble to write all down.

[rnbluvva]

Flora,

Glad you could understand! I hope this helps someone in the future.

Thanks again for the info on the Preferences file. That really helped

Nat

[sPECtre]

This is where the action manager that Danny linked to the other day might come handy, no?

http://www.picstobits.com/adex_intro.php

(BTW, I'm not affiliated with that company)