Expert: LizaL - 12/9/2004

Question
Just returned from two months of travel and find that I'm unable to use 'Create Photomerge' on my Sony VAIO with built-in PS Elements 2.0

I did have a house guest with access to my PC but it is unlikely that she used this program.

I did try 'killing' preferences as a web post suggested but that did not help.

When I open two or more pix, the text atop the pictures say:   name.jpg@100%(RGB*) others pix say (RGB) without the asterisk if that means anything.

When I last regularly used PS I simply openned
a couple of pix and Create Photomerge was highlighted and ready to use.
Thanks.  

Answer
Hi Steve,

Do you get any kind of error message with this problem? I know Photomerge will tell you if you don't have enough memory to perform the merge.

But as long as you don't get any error messages, make sure you're following the steps you always follow in order to create a merged photo. Once you're satisfied that you're doing this, and it's truly not working -- and it sounds like you've already done this -- you might want to try uninstalling and then reinstalling the program.

Normally I wouldn't say do this, right off the bat, but what you describe sounds like some sort of corruption has occurred, for whatever reason. And it also sounds like you might never know the reason, since you were away and came back to find this happening.

My first inclination would be to trash the preferences, just as the Web post suggested. But if this hasn't worked, and you're not getting any error messages, there's not a lot left to do.

By the way, I know some programs will append the asterisk after the file name to let you know that your file has had changes made to it, and you haven't yet saved those changes. Freehand, for example, behaves this way.

I'm sure you know how to use Photomerge, but here's a little tutorial in case you want some instructions to follow, before you uninstall and reinstall:
http://www.ephotozine.com/techniques/viewtechnique.cfm?recid=140

Hope this helps! Let me know if it doesn't and we'll keep on looking for a solution.


Lisa