after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

[Modular_Folds]

Hello:
Since I initially joined the forum a few months back I've had little time to enjoy it because my laptop crashes and crashes- and crashes! Hard too! One format, several restores, a couple "refreshes" and a couple "resets". Spending hours tweaking the desktop and removing Windoze bloat.

The worst. The problems all started with Win 8.1 updates believe it or not. Anyway, I'm a colorizing hobbyist just under two years and really love to colorize classic Hollywood and whatever else really catches my eye. I use PS and the Gimp; trying to learn Krita and Inkscape (wooh!).

So, the past two colorizations I've noticed the scrubby sliders for layer opacity in my PS CS6 are not showing opacity changes until I actually stop using the slider. For example, I'm used to watching the opacity change as the slider moves and now I can't; i.e., if I want to see what the opacity of the layer is at 50 I have to set it at 50. I can't watch the opacity change anymore.

I've tried to find help and no soap. It could be I need to reinstall but ugh, I hope there's a setting I'm over-looking...

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? This really interferes with work flow and the end product, albeit it is only for my own enjoyment. I've attached one of my colorizations just to give everyone an idea of my work, I am not the photographer of this delightful image, I colorized it for my own pleasure.

Thanks ahead of time!
Mod Fold

[Doug Nelson]

Re: after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

Check your performance prefs to make sure you're using GPU acceleration (and that your vidcard and driver support it).

A workaround for the meantime would be to start using shortcut keys for opacity, 5 for 50%, 55 (quickly) for 55%, etc.

[klev]

Re: after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

There are a few things that can cause this kind of behavior, but it isn't generally resolved by reinstalling the OS. Here are my suggestions. Some may not be applicable to you.

You probably have a hardware problem or malware. Windows doesn't crash on its own for the most part, especially not Windows 7 or newer. Reinstalling your operating system won't fix that. Formatting your hard drive won't fix that unless it causes bad sectors to be remapped. That would be one type of hardware problem.

Avoid torrenting applications. It's a good way to pick up malware. Anyone with sufficient knowledge to crack a modern application can also learn to inject malware.

If you upgraded your ram at any point, run something like memtest. Crashes are frequently caused by bad ram.

Make sure you have sufficient free space on your disk. Working with a full hard drive is a source of corruption. If it's an HDD, you need a lot of free space. Photoshop will write scratch data to it, and disk thrashing will sometimes result in an application crash.

Other things can cause problems as well, but these are very frequent causes. A failing motherboard is another cause, but it isn't as common as a failing hard drive or ram.

[Modular_Folds]

Re: after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

Thanks for the quick replies-

The crashing thing I can fix- temporarily anyway; it's the scrubby slider problem that is the problem. I do have an integrated video card that can handle some GPU acceleration (set at normal). I'll fool around with that and see what happens. It just started happening so I suspect my PS is corrupt because it's never been a problem before. I'll finish my current project and reinstall. I use almost 1Tb for scratch disk; ram is good; zip malware and torrents.

p.s> torrents- do people bother to use torrent clients anymore?

[skoobey]

Re: after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

I'll give you an advice that you may or may not like... but it's: don't upgrade if it causes you trouble, it's okay to go back.
Meaning if your configuration is doing what you need it to do in Win 7, just keep working in windows 7. Upgrades every few years may bring true innovation to your work, but most of the things changed are just adding unnecessary burden to our systems because a) no one knew they'd be around at the time your computer was built and b) programers spend less time testing things on older machines and rather make sure things work just right for the system they are selling now.
You don't need to get a crazy good machine now in order to accomplish the same tasks your current system can. Meaning you don't have to shell out a ton of money for a top range PC in order for it to work for you(and work better then your current one).

[andrewrodney]

Re: after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

Try trashing your Photoshop preferences. Press and hold Alt+Control+Shift (Windows) or Option+Command+Shift (Mac OS) immediately after launching Photoshop. You will be prompted to delete the current settings.

(Mac OS only) Open the Preferences folder in the Library folder, and drag the Adobe Photoshop CS Settings folder to the Trash.

This fixes lots of PS issues, might fix yours too.

[Modular_Folds]

Re: after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

Ah yes! I wish my computer (3 year old Toshiba) was win 7 based but it's an "out-of-the-box" win8. Yuk. Assuredly, PS did work tip-top on win8 with zero updates! As soon as I started to update to win 8.1 merely for "security" reasons- wham, crashola.

I will definitely try the reset preferences and see if that fixes the issue; I did find that if I open the "blend if" options box the layer opacity changes in real time. Go figure. So it is a bit of inconvenience but it's better than not being able to set that "ah that's good" level of opacity.

Thank you for helping out a hobbyist colorizer!

[Tony W]

Re: after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

TBH, I cannot see any good reason to stick with Windows 8+. It seems vey clear that even MS not interested in you sticking with old OS.

Windows 10 is an overall better OS and currently MS are updating FOC. In fact they are downloading the updates without you knowing silently, presumably they will give you a choice when completed.

I would strongly suggest that you seriously consider opting to Free upgrade unless you have a very strong reason to stick where you are. Your PC problems need addressing first

[klev]

Re: after nine computer crashes PS CS6 acting up

p.s> torrents- do people bother to use torrent clients anymore?

I'm not sure. I only mentioned it because so many people pirate software. I suspect most of them are unaware of disassemblers or that it's possible to inject malicious code into an executable.