I can't sleep, I can't dream

[venta]

Well, tonight on my "nice quiet evening sitting doing nothing", I have:

Been to Tesco
Roasted some vegetables, and made roasted vegetable and feta pasties.
Fried lots of pig, and made bacon and sausage meat pasties.
Eaten my tea.
Tidied up the bombsite I'd made of the kitchen.
Installed Potatoshop on my laptop.

Now Potatoshop, my old enemy, and I are about to sit down to try and do what an experienced graphics-package user called "fifteen minutes work".

Start the clock :)

21:51 - Score so far: Photoshop 2, Windows 1, Venta 0

Photoshop: Ctrl-Z doesn't undo in a chain, it toggles between the last undo state and the current state. So, having munged it up, I had to close it and start again.
Windows: Complete, no-warning crash.
Photoshop: The brush tool draws grey, even though it says white is the selected colour. And it now won't use the brush tool at all, or save, because "the scratch pads are full".

?? Off to read the help :(

22:10 - Score so far: Photoshop 3, Windows 2, Venta 1

Photoshop: Descended into disk thrashing, refused to respond, and I wasn't even trying to do anything :(
Windows: Crashed again. My machine hasn't crashed in ages, so I reckon Photoshop encouraged it.
Venta: Have actually successfully edited something! I wouldn't say I'm cooking on classical gas yet, but I am at least in the same room as the stove.

23:20 - Stop the clock!

A plausible finished version. It's not perfect, but I think it's as good as me, my lack of co-ordinated sinistry and dexterity, and my strokey-mouse are going to get it.

Comments

[taimatsu]

I am available on MSN (as [my first name]@photonhunter.co.uk) for live assistance if necessary. If you get desperate I could even give it a go myself.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I'm going to continue growling at it though, until it does what I want, dammit. I'm bigger than it, and have opposable thumbs. I refuse to be beaten.

Grrr.

[taimatsu]

Re your problems above, the Undo thing may be solved by looking for a 'History' option (probably under the Window menu). You can then click the individual steps to go back to them.

The 'scratch disk' problem *might* mean that you have not enough disk space available on your machine for the program to store all its temporary thingies. If you have to re-start, try saving regularly. This can be hard to solve if that doesn't help.

There are various possibilities for the colour problem and it's hard to suggest any solutions long-distance.

[venta.livejournal.com]

According to the 'help', to solve the scratch disk problem I need to shift the scratch disk to be a separate disk by itself. I only have one disk, so that was out.

A more plausible solution seemed to be saving the .ai file as a .psd file and then editing it, rather than editing the .ai file. I don't know if that was a real solution of just a coincidental happening.

The colour problem was actually just that when blowing the picture up to massive, pixels act a bit weird and sometimes you have to go over the same bit twice to make it properly white. Or something like that.

Thank you very much for the suggestions and offers of assistance, though :)

[davefish.livejournal.com]

When you beat it into submission, can I request a download of the knowhow...

(On the plus side, it means that I have to concentrate on taking good pics in the first place, as I can't jazz then up later.)

What I Learned From Venta's Photo Competition

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

Never _obviously_ use Photoshop to jazz up your photos.

And, while we're on the subject, isn't it time for another of those contests?

Re: What I Learned From Venta's Photo Competition

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aye. Steps are in the pipeline for another one.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

It used to keep doing that to me as well, I'm not sure if it still does because I stick to Paint now, being more of a 'just change the pixels' type person. I think it used to stop if I restarted the computer between using anything else and Photoshop, the lovely little bundle of software conflicts.

I have the Gimp now, but I haven't figured out how to use it yet. Paint is still my friend :)

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

On my version option+command+z takes you back through a series of previous states. This would be alt+control+z on a PC I think.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks - I'll try that in future. I couldn't quite get the hang of the history list thing.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry, clearly not 15 minutes.

Photoshop: Ctrl-Z doesn't undo in a chain

Correct, but as taimatsu points out, you can undo multiple actions by selecting the state you want from the history list. (It's a separate little pop-up palette...)

Photoshop: The brush tool draws grey, even though it says white is the selected colour.

That would be because the opacity is set to less than 100%. The 'options' palette for the brush will allow you to set that.

(Also, what were you using a brush for ? Copying and pasting existing sections of stick would seem more natural to me. I suppose it must be your unquenchable passion for creativity !)

[venta.livejournal.com]

(Also, what were you using a brush for ? Copying and pasting existing sections of stick would seem more natural to me.

The one thing I've repeated a lot here is that I'm not graphics-minded at all. I simply didn't think of doing it like that.

Besides, I fear that selecting non-rectangular regions (as I think would be required for the sections where neither of the rappers was horiztonal or vertical) is completely beyond me.

I have a copy of Sonic Foundry, which is basically Photoshop for audio, and I can play happily with that for hours. But pictures ? Bleh. We don't get on :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

And, of course, there is the chance the if I'd just cut-and-pasted bits competently instead of faffing on brushing the black bits out and drawing in new black bits[*], it might actually have only taken 15 minutes!

[*] On at least two occasions I whited out the relevant black bits, drew the new black bits in, admired my handiwork... then realised I drawn the same bits back in that I took out, thus achieving a net total of absolutely nothing.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's not only me that does things like that. Not typically with Photoshop, admittedly. My favourite is getting changed for bed and then immediately changing back into my day clothes. Hours of fun !

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Ctrl-Z doesn't undo in a chain

Gah. I hate Adobe. They must read a lot of usability guides, because they somehow manage to break every single convention they get their grubby little paws on.

e.g. I fire up Adobe Acrobat Reader to do nothing more complex than read a pdf file, and my cursor turns into a cute little hand that clasps shut when I left click. To quote from the performing arts, "What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fucking fucking fuck?".

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's not just me. I've never understood the little hand.

Last night, I was mouse-hovering over the Photoshop buttons, to see whay they did. "Brush tool", yup. "Cut tool", yup can probably work that out. "Dodge tool", er, no idea, but the GIMP has one too, so it's probably just a graphics term I don't know. "Hand tool", er... I guess it hands, then.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I've never understood the little hand.

I think it's supposed to indicate that by left-clicking you can then drag up or down to scroll. Because what we really need in this world is for each application to decide its own scrolling semantics. Oh yes.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that non-stolen copies of Photoshop come with a huge, fat manual which is quite helpful.

(I'm not prepared to similarly defend the built-in help, which is inexcusably poor.)