Workaround for Photoshop/Leopard inaccuracy problems

Wednesday, January 23rd

As previously reported, there exists a significant issue in Photoshop CS3 when running under Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) where various tools are wildly inaccurate, using values different than those expressed by the tool or otherwise entered by the user. When you enter values in numerical fields to set sizes for the brush, crop, marquee, lasso, type, and other Photoshop CS3 tools, those values revert to previously entered values when you try to apply them.

MacFixIt reader Larry Kraft has discovered a somewhat kludgy workaround that actually results in the tools correctly applying the entered values:

"When using the Rectangular Marquee tool in Fixed Ration mode, first decide what you want the height to be. Put that value in the width box instead of the height box.

"Then click on the two arrows between the width and height boxes. That places the value you put in the width box into the height box.

"Now put the value you want for the width into the width box."

Other workarounds from Adobe include:

• "Workaround for tools with sliders: Instead of typing in a number, use the sliders to change the value."
• "Workaround for tools with pop-up menus: Enter a value for the size but don?t press Return/Enter to apply the value. Instead, choose it from the top of the Size pop-up menu to commit it."
• "Workaround for tools which do not have sliders or pop-up menus: For certain tools, such as the Line tool, you may want to set up presets that you can load to set common sizes. Alternatively, you can restart Photoshop CS3 to clear the problem. You will then be able to enter values again. However, the issue typically re-surfaces quick

This problem is expected to be resolved in the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.5.2.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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