ram prob. photoshop cs4

[NCC-2893 (John)]

Hi all. A wee problem . I'm learning up on ap,using dss etc. and I'm finding that after saving the final image to file as a tiff the resulting autosave file can be opened in faststone viewer no problem but photoshop can't open it as it says there isn't enough ram. I have a new system with 4 gig ram ,no other programs running. Any ideas? Also, theres a master dark file saved as well. Do I need to do something with that or have they already been utilised in the original stacking. many thanks.

[naskies (Dave)]

Which version of Photoshop are you running?

Have you tried telling Photoshop to use more memory (under Preferences -> Performance -> Memory Usage)?

[NCC-2893 (John)]

Ah thank you dave. All fixed. Absolute beginner at this carry on but loving it none the less. But anyway if you could guide me with the dark file situation that would be great. I realise I prob dont need to worry about darks with just a few widefield lights but it's just practise. Cheers.

[naskies (Dave)]

Good stuff

No need to worry about the master dark file. DSS creates it so that you can re-use it as part of a dark library, and so that it doesn't have to keep it open in memory all the time (so that it uses less of it).

With DSLRs, I find that I get better results re-shooting darks every time so that I can get a better match to the temperature.

[NCC-2893 (John)]

Got ya. It was pretty much zero degrees at 5 this morning so if I keep the master dark file for other sessions at about the same temp. Is it worth using darks if you aren't imaging lots of pics. Like if I'm only doing say 7 or 8 shots of a minute each on the milky way for example.

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

Darks are still needed. If you are using DSS, make sure to tick the Dark Opimisation box on the Darks tab. This will give you a bit more flexibility on the temp variance (read the help piece on it)

[NCC-2893 (John)]

Dark Opimisation box., got it .Cheers. Oh, buy the way, you just put the lens cap on and take your pic for darks right?