Expert: Scott Valentine - 4/21/2009

Question
Hi Scott, my wife is going NUTS on her PC (Dell) with Photoshop CS3 extended.  When she's editing an image, and she selects dodge or burn, things work okay for a while.  Then, at some point, as she holds down the mouse and drags to lighten or darken that part of the image, there is a sudden replication of a SEGMENT of the image (where she originally clicked to begin the drag) and, as she moves the mouse, there is a repetitive pasting of thousands of tiny copies of the square region of the image that exactly circumscribes the circular brush shape/size she's using for dodge or burn.  As I said, this happens partway THROUGH an edit.  Maybe ten dodge/burns WORK, even dragging the mouse, and then, at some point, the replication BEGINS, and she has stopped editing photos out of frustration.  Thoughts?
Scott Speck


Answer
Thanks for your question, Scott (all the cool guys are named Scott).

Well, I've not encountered this specific behavior, so the best I can do is take a guess. The big thing that comes to mind is a problem with your graphics card - either memory on the card itself, or how Photoshop sends information to the card.

First thing to try would be to update everything you can; video card driver, Photoshop updates, mouse driver if you use a custom setup, and even the Dell updates. Go get some refreshments for this exercise, then reboot and try out the application again.

Next thing to try is deleting the preferences file in Photoshop. While Photoshop is launching, hold down the Shift key, and you'll eventually get a box asking if you want to reset the preferences. This solves a lot of problems right away, but also removes any preferences you have set up unless you back them up - shortcuts, layouts, some presets, etc. Check the help files or search online for more detail about backing up your Photoshop customizations.

You may want to try resetting the preferences first, since it's much quicker, but I don't think that will solve the issue.

And just to eliminate the obvious, which you've probably already done, make sure your wife isn't inadvertently hitting another tool key. It's not likely, but we want to get rid of the basics.

Now, if these don't work, you may have to uninstall and reinstall Photoshop. That's never fun, so save it for when you're having a good day.

On a related note, I highly recommend that you use a slightly different dodge and burn technique. Above the photo layer, fill a new layer with 50% gray. Set it to Overlay blend mode, and use the Dodge and Burn tools on the gray layer, with the tools set to affect Midtones. Alternatively, you can use a low-opacity brush and simply paint with white and black, but I prefer using Dodge and Burn.

The nice thing about this approach is that it's non-destructive, so you can go back and correct or change it at any time.

While this technique doesn't address the problem you mention, it may be a good alternative if you can't solve the issue (unless you are seeing other effects elsewhere).

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions :)

-Scott