Question for someone with Photoshop CS4 Extended

[Lin Evans]

Could anyone tell me if it's possible with CS4 Extended to output a 3D video with transparent background or with a solid background like white, green, etc...??

Thanks,

Lin

UPDATE:

It's definitely possible to output individual PNG files with alpha transparency (transparent backgrounds) so I assume it's possible to also output 3D video with the same. I haven't yet tried doing this but I see no logical reason why it wouldn't work.

It's also possible to output a solid background of your choice!

Lin

[bjc]

Hi Lin,

You can output 3D video, although so far I have only experimented with 3D animated GIF's myself. As for transparent backgrounds ~ I very much doubt it,,, you can of course have black, white, and/or any other colour you wish.

Hope that helps.

bjc

[Lin Evans]

Thanks, that's kind of what I suspected. Having that alpha layer might be too much to expect. I'm download the 30 day trial version - can't afford to purchase it yet - and maybe will learn more tomorrow.

Even being able to output a single color background will be a big help. What I have in mind is to be able to create the video with transparency as a background. With a solid color I can always write a Photoshop action to subtract the background from individual frames which is what I eventually need to plug into my template to simulate the video but have much greater control over size, placement, etc.

08/09/09

Install failed twice - will have to give up on CS4 Extended until I talk to Adobe.... sigh...

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Total frustration with Adobe "support"....

Just a rant about current practices at Adobe......

Adobe's new flagship Photoshop CS4 Extended is hyped as the "Cat's Meow" of photo editing and graphics software. It has some of the most advanced features available including 3D, hardware rendering, advanced stacking, HDR, etc., etc., etc. It actually may be the most fantastic editing software anywhere! But, you can't prove it by me.... Not yet, and maybe not ever....

I can't install it! I have attempted to put it on two of my systems. One a Dell, the other a Gateway. Each has Win XP Home edition. After over six hours of install, uninstall, upgrade video drivers, download 814 megabyte files "twice," install Windows Service Pack 3, etc., etc., I finally called Adobe Support only to be totally disappointed with the non-support.

First, I am subjected to a lengthy wait listening to loud, bad, music loops. Next I'm connected to a "support" person, apparently in India or Pakistan with a stong accent making it very difficult to understand. He wasn't at all interested in learning about "where" the installation had failed, but just wanted to shovel me off to download a "Windows Cleaner" and "CS4 Cleanup Script." He informed me that I may have to uninstall "ALL ADOBE PRODUCTS" before installing the CS4 Extended Trial.

Now the above statement is just plain stupid, especially from an Adobe representative! Try Adobe Flash, Photoshop versions 5, 7 and CS each complete with dozens of plug-ins, hundreds of actions, specialized settings, etc. How about Adobe Frame Maker with hundreds of projects, Adobe Quick Time, Adobe Encore, Adobe Premier, etc., etc., all with myriad data, plugins, etc. We're talking weeks of reinstall or a complete reinstall of the disk which would, of course, wipe out CS4 EXtended (if it were ever installed - LOL).

So after once again uninstalling the remnants of CS4, installing and running the Win cleanup and CS4 cleanup and reinstall of CS4 Extended - guess what? Yep, failed at exactly the same point - the installation of "Adobe Media Player."

I've wasted two days on simply trying to evaluate CS4 Extended. I've installed a service pack I didn't want or need. I've completely lost Flash thanks to the CS4 Cleanup script and still have no CS4 trial installation. I'm writing this while again listening to bad, loud music loops (for the past hour and 10 minutes).

Listen up Adobe - I've spend many, many thousands of dollars with your company and deserve better treatment. Will I purchase CS4 Extended? It's not likely and becoming less likely with every bar of bad, loud, music loop. Do you actually want to sell your products? Then get some knowledgeable technical support people who can help sort out issues like this and make them available. Don't have some 1st level "support" person who speaks the native language of the country where the support is to be given with an accent so strong that it's impossible for a native speaker to understand. Don't have someone who insults the intelligence of the potential customer with silly statements. In addition to the statement about possibly removing "all Adobe" software before the install, he make the mistake of telling me that this was only "Trial Software" an therefore not necessarily a "stable" and trouble free version. I had to remind him that Adobe states that you simply pay for then receive the unlock code and this "unstable" trial version becomes the "real" and "very expensive" CS4 release version! Give me a break already!!

End rant.....

Beware. If you order CS4 maybe you should download the trial version first and be certain it will install and run on your system. I hope you have better luck than I've had.

By the way, I posted a duplicate of this on the Adobe Photoshop forum at Adobe....

EDIT: as of 2:44 PM Mountain Time Colorado.

As with our forum here, the users of the Adobe forum proved to be quite helpful. The suggestion was made to uninstall the remnants of CS4 and re-install "manually" and omit Adobe Media Player which seemed to be where the installations always crashed. I did this and now have CS4 Extended Trial installed but without the Media Player. How the absence of Media Player might impact the usefulness of CS4 Extended is yet to be determined, but at least I can evaluate the portions which I'm interested in (3D Object output). I'm thankful for the support of the Adobe forum readers to resolve what Adobe's "non-technical" support people couldn't.

Best regards,

Lin

[Nikonos]

Total frustration with Adobe "support"....

Just a rant about current practices at Adobe......

Adobe's new flagship Photoshop CS4 Extended is hyped as the "Cat's Meow" of photo editing and graphics software. It has some of the most advanced features available including 3D, hardware rendering, advanced stacking, HDR, etc., etc., etc. It actually may be the most fantastic editing software anywhere! But, you can't prove it by me.... Not yet, and maybe not ever....

I can't install it! I have attempted to put it on two of my systems. One a Dell, the other a Gateway. Each has Win XP Home edition. After over six hours of install, uninstall, upgrade video drivers, download 814 megabyte files "twice," install Windows Service Pack 3, etc., etc., I finally called Adobe Support only to be totally disappointed with the non-support.

First, I am subjected to a lengthy wait listening to loud, bad, music loops. Next I'm connected to a "support" person, apparently in India or Pakistan with a stong accent making it very difficult to understand. He wasn't at all interested in learning about "where" the installation had failed, but just wanted to shovel me off to download a "Windows Cleaner" and "CS4 Cleanup Script." He informed me that I may have to uninstall "ALL ADOBE PRODUCTS" before installing the CS4 Extended Trial.

Now the above statement is just plain stupid, especially from an Adobe representative! Try Adobe Flash, Photoshop versions 5, 7 and CS each complete with dozens of plug-ins, hundreds of actions, specialized settings, etc. How about Adobe Frame Maker with hundreds of projects, Adobe Quick Time, Adobe Encore, Adobe Premier, etc., etc., all with myriad data, plugins, etc. We're talking weeks of reinstall or a complete reinstall of the disk which would, of course, wipe out CS4 EXtended (if it were ever installed - LOL).

So after once again uninstalling the remnants of CS4, installing and running the Win cleanup and CS4 cleanup and reinstall of CS4 Extended - guess what? Yep, failed at exactly the same point - the installation of "Adobe Media Player."

I've wasted two days on simply trying to evaluate CS4 Extended. I've installed a service pack I didn't want or need. I've completely lost Flash thanks to the CS4 Cleanup script and still have no CS4 trial installation. I'm writing this while again listening to bad, loud music loops (for the past hour and 10 minutes).

Listen up Adobe - I've spend many, many thousands of dollars with your company and deserve better treatment. Will I purchase CS4 Extended? It's not likely and becoming less likely with every bar of bad, loud, music loop. Do you actually want to sell your products? Then get some knowledgeable technical support people who can help sort out issues like this and make them available. Don't have some 1st level "support" person who speaks the native language of the country where the support is to be given with an accent so strong that it's impossible for a native speaker to understand. Don't have someone who insults the intelligence of the potential customer with silly statements. In addition to the statement about possibly removing "all Adobe" software before the install, he make the mistake of telling me that this was only "Trial Software" an therefore not necessarily a "stable" and trouble free version. I had to remind him that Adobe states that you simply pay for then receive the unlock code and this "unstable" trial version becomes the "real" and "very expensive" CS4 release version! Give me a break already!!

End rant.....

Beware. If you order CS4 maybe you should download the trial version first and be certain it will install and run on your system. I hope you have better luck than I've had.

By the way, I posted a duplicate of this on the Adobe Photoshop forum at Adobe....

EDIT: as of 2:44 PM Mountain Time Colorado.

As with our forum here, the users of the Adobe forum proved to be quite helpful. The suggestion was made to uninstall the remnants of CS4 and re-install "manually" and omit Adobe Media Player which seemed to be where the installations always crashed. I did this and now have CS4 Extended Trial installed but without the Media Player. How the absence of Media Player might impact the usefulness of CS4 Extended is yet to be determined, but at least I can evaluate the portions which I'm interested in (3D Object output). I'm thankful for the support of the Adobe forum readers to resolve what Adobe's "non-technical" support people couldn't.

Best regards,

Lin

Hello Lin,

I too have had problems myself in getting Photoshop installed - particularly with Dell machines. For a long time I was unable to get CS3 up and running successfully despite numerous attempts - installing, re-installing etc etc. It would seemingly install correctly and then crash when attempting to run it. After a very long period of 'research' (during which Adobe proved less than helpful), I found a solution on a forum somewhere. It seems that a batch of Dell machines were set up with the Welsh language as a keyboard default - this caused the crash on loading up. I would never have thought of that possibility in a million years! However, saying that, Adobe Bridge still crashes quite often despite numerous updates.

These days I use an Apple Mac for my photo editing with either CS3/CS4 with no problems at all. The PC must remain (Windows XP) of course for PTE. The Dell machine will be upgraded eventually when the dust has settled regarding Windows 7. I abhor Vista and would not touch it with a baregepole... :-)

My other issue with Adobe is the way they drop RAW support for older cameras with each new versions of Photoshop - even though the cameras affected are relatively recent or still in production. Thus forcing users to upgrade whether they wish to or not. And I know you can workaround this by using the DNG converter - but it's still a pain in the butt and shows Adobe's total disregard for the loyal users of earlier versions of this very expensive software...

Malcolm

[Lin Evans]

Hi Malcolm,

It is a shame that the Adobe Photoshop support can't be handled by people who have a clue. I too have been unhappy with the RAW converter issues. When Adobe first put out their ARC product I bought it as a stand-alone product for $99 U.S. They then left me high and dry with any upgrade when they elected to "bundle" it with Photoshop. Finally, I elected to purchase Elements just to get the converter because it was much less expensive than upgrading to each new version of Photoshop. Of course that left me with yet one more software product on my system which I didn't really want or ever use except for the RAW converter.

The DNG path also leaves me dissatisfied. It's an extra step outside of Photoshop which results in additional storage requirements and yet more clutter on the hard drive. Also, DNG doesn't support every camera I use (it doesn't support all my Sigma Foveon based cameras) so not a perfect solution either.

I've since discovered a bug with CS4 where using the 3D "tool" to rotate an object doesn't result in the proper numbers in the keyframe log making it virtually impossible to rotate a 3D object on one axis plane smoothly without introducing "wobble" on the other. Adobe has been no help at either resolving or even admitting the problem. No one on the Adobe forum has a clue either so it will probably not be addressed at all. I suspect that the 3D portion of Photoshop is more of a last minute "add-on" to try to bolster the "features" adds rather than a true and completely useful tool addition. Maybe they will work out the kinks by the time CS5 is released.

I've run out of "evaluation" time with CS4 so will probably skip the upgrade since I've not been able to get any answers from Adobe support. It's too bad that an otherwise excellent product is flawed by mediocre support.

Best regards,

Lin

[Fernlea]

Hi Lin I have CS4 extended which would not load on my HP machine, which has XP sp3, and I had bought it on a CD.I do not have much Adobe software so I removed it all from my computer, after 3 days of trying to load it.CS4 then loaded without any problem!I did not try to get any help from Adobe as I have found that the problems you have with Adobe aply to many other companys,and it is not worth the effort trying.When you have bought these item you are on your own.This also aplys to insurance I bought cover from a Company in the U.S.and they refused to cover the cost of the repair. the cover still had 3 month to go. I will only buy insurance cover from a UK company now and if they wont pay I can take them to court!That is my curent Rant!

Kind Regards

David Evans

[davegee]

Lin,

This probably will not be much consolation to you but CS4 Extended loaded on both my desktop machine and my laptop in under an hour when I first got it.

I had to first install SP3 and afterwards on both machines update my graphics drivers.

I have CS3 running alongside CS4 on both machines.

Regarding the RAW discussion, if all camera manufacturers brought out a DECENT RAW converter for their products you/we would not have to rely on ADOBE / BIBBLE etc.

The camera manufacturers should have a better insight into their own products to allow this.

One manufacturer went down this road and produced a product which is more than just a RAW converter and leaves very little processing of the image which HAS to be done in either CS4 or E7 etc.

I could manage quite easily without E7 or CS4 but I couldn't manage without my manufacturer's dedicated RAW converter.

DG

[fh1805]

...but I couldn't manage without my manufacturer's dedicated RAW converter.

NX2?

regards,

Peter

[Lin Evans]

Hi David,

Actually, my report on the cause for the inability to load CS4 may have been lost in the shuffle. The reason it would not load on any of my systems was the Adobe Media Player which is a non-necessary add-on which Adobe elected to install as a default. For whatever reason, on all three systems (all with Windows XP home edition - two with SP3 and one with SP2) the only way to get the program to install was to do it manually and not select Adobe Media Player for installation. After that the installations went smoothly. The graphics drivers were fine on all three systems. Two were nVidia cards (8800 GT, 8600 GT OC) and one was a 3D Labs AGP Wildcat VP880 Pro. The older Wildcat doesn't support Open GL with present drivers and since the company was purchased by Creative Labs and they no longer support it, apparently won't support the 3D functionality of CS4.

Most camera companies actually do have very good RAW converters. Sigma makes an excellent one, Cannon's is excellent as is Olympus and Nikon's. I can't speak for Pentax or Sony, but the ones I have for Sigma, Canon, Olympus and Nikon are all fine.

The reason for the complaint about Adobe and RAW converters and my only reason for actually using the ARC converter is convenience. It's nice to be able to simply click on a RAW file in Photoshop and work from that point through the conversion and various settings to whatever is necessary for the final product without switching from one software to another. Other than convenience, I have no complaints about the RAW converters for my cameras from the manufacturers.

Best regards,

Lin

[davegee]

"Other than convenience, I have no complaints about the RAW converters for my cameras from the manufacturers"

I'm afraid that I look at things from a different perspective - if the conversion from the manufacturer's product gives a better result (as it should do for all cameras) then it is no contest. I look for quality - not convenience - but we are all different and each to his own.

ACR you press a button after conversion and it sends the image to CS4 - mine does exactly the same thing in the same amount of time.

ADOBE MEDIA PLAYER - I did default installations on both my machines (at least I thought I did!) but cannot find Adobe Media Player anywhere.

DG

[Lin Evans]

Hi David,

I see little difference in "most" manufacturer's RAW converters and ARC. Adobe does a pretty good job with the majority, but in some cases such as Sigma, the manufacturer's RAW converter has features which ARC doesn't which can be very useful.

Of course "quality" is most important and where there is a difference, I'll always choose quality over convenience, but when you are converting hundreds of photos and tweaking them in Photoshop as I often must do, convenience becomes fairly important.

The install default on CS4 Extended includes Adobe Media Player, so if you don't have it, undoubtedly you did a "custom install" rather than the default. Adobe Media Player screwed up the installation on all three of my working systems, and it was only after some lengthy Adobe Forum inquiries when someone suggested doing the custom install and omitting Media Player that I was able to get it to install.

Best regards,

Lin

"Other than convenience, I have no complaints about the RAW converters for my cameras from the manufacturers"

I'm afraid that I look at things from a different perspective - if the conversion from the manufacturer's product gives a better result (as it should do for all cameras) then it is no contest. I look for quality - not convenience - but we are all different and each to his own.

ACR you press a button after conversion and it sends the image to CS4 - mine does exactly the same thing in the same amount of time.

ADOBE MEDIA PLAYER - I did default installations on both my machines (at least I thought I did!) but cannot find Adobe Media Player anywhere.

DG