Help needed for a real novice! (1 Viewer)

Jon Taverner · Aug 29, 2004

I would be very grateful for some advice - I feel extremely stupid but I don't seem able to get the most basic thing right. I have just bought a Nikon 8700 with Photoshop Elements 2 provided - my first attempt at digital photography. No problem when tranferring pictures and using simple editing tools - zoom, sharpening, brightness etc but when I try to save my new 'enhanced' image and/or print it, I just end up with the original camera shot. I have used 'save as' and re-named it but it does not solve the problem. No doubt I am doing something wrong - please help.

digi-birder · Aug 29, 2004

Jon, on behalf of admin and all the moderators, welcome to Bird Forum.

I can't imagine what is causing your problem - I don't use Elements myself, even though I received it with my 10D - but I'm sure someone will be able to help.

We hope you enjoy participating in the discussions, and I hope you get your photos sorted out so that you can post some in the Gallery.

KC Foggin · Aug 29, 2004

Hi Jon and welcome aboard. Sometimes you don't get the whole package when they are bundled with a product like that. That might be your problem. I know I had that problem with another imaging program that came with a camera.

Bruce B · Aug 30, 2004

It sounds like a demo version that will let you use all the tools but won't let you save anything.

KC Foggin · Aug 30, 2004

Bruce B said:
It sounds like a demo version that will let you use all the tools but won't let you save anything.

I think I just found away to get around that and save your work. After you have made all your adjustments, do a screen capture - cntrl/print screen and then bring up another image program and paste. I just did it with elements and pasted it into PSP and was able to see my work with the changes done and then saved in PSP.

scampo · Aug 30, 2004

Jon Taverner said:
I would be very grateful for some advice - I feel extremely stupid but I don't seem able to get the most basic thing right. I have just bought a Nikon 8700 with Photoshop Elements 2 provided - my first attempt at digital photography. No problem when tranferring pictures and using simple editing tools - zoom, sharpening, brightness etc but when I try to save my new 'enhanced' image and/or print it, I just end up with the original camera shot. I have used 'save as' and re-named it but it does not solve the problem. No doubt I am doing something wrong - please help.

I think you do get the full version with Nikon digital cameras. I have PSE v.2 as well - it came with my Nikon CP4500, I think. I wasn't aware that there were any other versions of PSE2 available, although trial versions of certain software do indeed prevent you saving the files, just as you are finding. The idea is that you then go on to buy the full product.

If yours looks as if it is the full product, then I would uninstall the software and reinstall it. Then write back if things have not changed. PSE and PSE2 should, when you click "Save", offer you the option to save the file as different types and qualities (i.e. "Low" for web publishing, such as here, "High" for printing). The "save for web" option is very useful as it easily allows you to resize the document, to fit a PC screen or the like (say to 800x600 pixels).

Jon Taverner · Aug 30, 2004

Many thanks for your advice. Finally, around 1am this morning I managed to save an altered image - an eclipse red crested pochard on Pennington Flash, Leigh. Lancs which was not that difficult to photograph as it swims about with the mallard and comes close to the shore when visitors give them bread!. By using the cropping tool first, selecting the area I want and then zoom, sharpen etc, I can then save it with a new name. Next problem - why does photoshop suddenly crash every time I use it. I've uninstalled and reinstalled twice but it still does it.

RAH · Sep 3, 2004

KCFoggin said:
I think I just found away to get around that and save your work. After you have made all your adjustments, do a screen capture - cntrl/print screen and then bring up another image program and paste. I just did it with elements and pasted it into PSP and was able to see my work with the changes done and then saved in PSP.

Don't you mean do a COPY (i.e. select the whole image and then do a Ctrl-C)? This copies the entire image to the clipboard. On the other hand, using a screen capture copies a snapshot of the screen to the clipboard, which seldom matches what your image truly contains. For example, if you are working on a 2048x1536 image from a 3.2 MP camera, and have the view set at about 25% (so the whole image will fit on the screen), if you do a screen capture, you'll wind up with an image MUCH smaller than the original. Plus, you get included all the toolbars, etc of the application you are working in. Huh?

scampo · Sep 3, 2004

Jon Taverner said:
Many thanks for your advice. Finally, around 1am this morning I managed to save an altered image - an eclipse red crested pochard on Pennington Flash, Leigh. Lancs which was not that difficult to photograph as it swims about with the mallard and comes close to the shore when visitors give them bread!. By using the cropping tool first, selecting the area I want and then zoom, sharpen etc, I can then save it with a new name. Next problem - why does photoshop suddenly crash every time I use it. I've uninstalled and reinstalled twice but it still does it.

It might crash for the same reason it won't save. It needs a fast PC, but especially needs a lot of RAM memory, and not too much running alongside it. So...

(if you're running WinXP)

...Increase RAM to 512mb
...Try to run as few programs as possible while running PS, esp. programs that run "in the background".

It might also be that some small system aspect of Windows is faulty (that is used by PS) - try reinstalling Windows "over the top of itself". This is safe and sometimes / often clears an issue. It keeps all your settings, too.

Jon Taverner · Sep 15, 2004

Solved!

Thank you for all your advice. Although I still have not a clue about the technicalities and the reasons, I ran Norton's WinDoctor which found over a 100 problems with windows. Having used the 'fix it' option, everything has worked perfectly since.

Help needed for a real novice! (1 Viewer)

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