Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with cs2

Upgrading to Adobe CS3

niles — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:16:51 -0800

I currently own the educational version (no real difference beyond the price) of Adobe CS2 Premium Web Bundle which includes Macromedia Studio 8. I need to upgrade to CS3 for school, but I can't find the "bundle" that has the programs I need. So the bundle I have comes with the CS2 versions Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, and Acrobat Professional, along with Dreamweaver 8, Flash Professional 8, Fireworks 8, Contribute 8, and FlashPaper 8. I'll be needing the CS3 versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Flash, and Dreamweaver, though I wouldn't mind upgrading the other programs as well.
My problem is that the CS3 web bundle doesn't have InDesign and I don't need all of the video and audio programs sold in the Premium and Master bundles. Is there some bundle similar to mine that's sold by Adobe? I paid a little over $500 for the educational version, but all of the non-educational upgrades seem to cost at least that much, and it looks like you can't upgrade to the educational version - am I missing something?

Bonus: I'll need Illustrator for the spring semester, but won't need the rest of the programs until next school year. I can maybe hold of on Illustrator as well. Is it worth holding out for CS4? I've heard the developer beta is out, but haven't heard a solid release date.

Thanks!

What is this mysterious process that hijacked my shortcut?

Optimus Chyme — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:11:20 -0800

What is this mysterious process that hijacked my shortcut? I was using Photoshop CS2 and entered the shortcut key for "Save for Web" (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S) and instead of getting the Save for Web dialog, a very minimalist login box appeared. Intrigued, I brought up the Task manager, right-clicked on the "Login" entry in the list, and selected "Go To Process." The process turned out to be C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\vidifker.exe. This is on Windows XP Pro 2002 SP2.

All web searches for vidifker turn up nothing; if this is a virus or trojan, it's probably trivial for it to generate different names for itself. But then why was it so easy to find? Is it a keylogger? Commercial monitoring software? Is anyone familiar with any of this?

Will CS2 run on intel processor?

nicknd23 — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 06:36:44 -0800

will creative suite cs2 with system requirements of powerbook g4 or 5 processor run on my new macbook pro (which has an intel-based processor)?

blankerblanking file errors!

kidsleepy — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:56:08 -0800

Why are my Adobe Illustrator files coming up blank? I'm having a frustrating error occur more and more frequently when saving files created in Illustrator. For my job, I work on files in Illustrator and Photoshop, and often need to save them as pdf's. Sometimes (not always), when I try to open an .ai file in Photoshop, and whether I open it as pixels, path, smart object, or whatever, it will be blank. If I save it as a pdf, it will show up blank in Adobe Reader. It will still show up if I open it in Illustrator.

Here's the kicker: if I copy and paste my design from a "non-working" file to a different file that DOES show up in all programs, then "save as" a new file, it will work! Why?! How do I make it work ALL the time?

This first started about a month ago, and has happened maybe 5 or 6 times since. Creative Suite CS2, Microsoft Windows 2000. Help me, big green!

Photoshop CS2 Thinks Its Helping, but its not.

sandra_s — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 10:58:54 -0800

Why does Photoshop CS2 automatically rotate my photos when it opens them, and how can I get it to stop. I just upgraded from Photoshop 7 to CS2.

I do extensive amounts of batch processing, consisting of taking groups of photos, changing the resolution and the pixel dimensions and adding a text tag in a particular place.

I have actions that I set up years ago to make this happen, and they imported from 7 to CS2 easily.

The problem is that all of my actions rely on the photo being horizontal on the screen.

CS2 takes it upon itself to automatically rotate the images it feels should be vertical when it is opened. 7 didnt do that. This is wreaking havoc on my actions. Is there a setting in CS2 that I can turn off so it will stop automatically rotating?

The nature of my photography isn't limited to the camera being horizontal or vertical. Frequently it is pointing straight down or straight up, and I use photos from a wide range of cameras and photographers (so changing an auto-rotating setting on a camera isn't going to solve this problem).

Anyone know how to make CS2 stop "thinking" it knows what I want?

TIA!

P.S. Are there any other things CS2 does like this that I should be aware of?

Color Picker keyboard shortcut in Photoshop...?

erinchan — Tue, 29 May 2007 19:05:00 -0800

Is there a keyboard shortcut to open the Color Picker dialog box in Photoshop CS2? Or how can I set such a shortcut? I'm using Photoshop CS2 version 9 on Mac OS 10.8.4. I'm proficient with photoshop, and for a job I'm currently working on it would speed things up to be able to bring up the Color Picker dialog box through a keyboard command.

Normally you bring up the Color Picker dialog by clicking on the Foreground color. There's a good screencap of the menus I'm talking about here:

http://www.espressographics.com/text/colorpicker.html

I've looked into setting a new keyboard shortcut for it and can't find where that would be in Edit -> Keyboard Shortcuts menu. I also can't seem to record an action for this.

Adobe CS2 bundles at academic discount? Or not even worth it?

cadge — Sun, 20 May 2007 20:38:16 -0800

Any sites selling Adobe Creative Suite 2 bundles at academic discount? (Or is this a fruitless quest - should I aim for CS3 instead?) I will be leaving a programming job in academia soon and would like to get some Adobe products for my Win2K machine legally at academic discount before I go.

I am pretty out of touch with Adobe (still running Photoshop 6 and Illustrator 10) so I'd like to get one of the CS design bundles to be more up to date (not to mention to actually freaking use the Creative Suite products, which I haven't done yet). I mostly do web design but also do print design occasionally.

I talked with a designer pal and got the impression that CS3 hasn't been widely adopted yet and that there might be file incompatibility issues with previous CS versions. But all of the academic discount software sites I see offer _only_ CS3 bundles.

Are there any discount sites out there still offering CS2 bundles? Or am I on the wrong track - is CS3 a smarter choice (though it sounds like it'd require an OS upgrade)? I'm especially interested in hearing thoughts from people who use these products in the design industry (one of my wishes is to be more familiar with the software that's actually being used these days and that I might encounter in future jobs).

illustrator live trace: simple outlines

pinto — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:10:55 -0800

livetrace / illustrator cs2: how would I go about tracing only the outline of a complex image (in this case, a cutout of a building) so as to create cut lines for a printer? my only thought would be to create a selection or path in photoshop, stroke it, import that image into illustrator, trace that, and then insert my original, detailed image, inside that tracing. there must be an easier way!

Should we use save our Illustrator files as .ai, or .eps?

iamkimiam — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 13:26:03 -0800

Should we use save our Illustrator files as .ai, or .eps? In our design studio we have a mini-debate going about formats for saving our Illustrator logo files. We all use Adobe CS2 and some of us feel that files should be saved as .ai's (reducing file size and allowing previews in Finder) and others feel we should save as .eps' (for maximum version compatibility and complying with industry standards).

I would like to hear other advantages and disadvantages for either or both sides, so that we can gather info and make an informed decision. Thanks AskMeFites!

How do I get a Background image (watermark) in MS Word 2003 to actually print as B&W (not GREEN)?

criticman — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 07:48:28 -0800

How do I get a Background image (watermark) in MS Word 2003 to actually print as B&W (not GREEN)? I have been going crazy trying to get grayscale image to actually print out as such when set as a Background image in MS Word 2003.

I am trying to produce a template for the employees here to use for when they print to PDF and email a document instead of printing it out directly to letterhead. They want it to look identical to the printed letterhead.

I replicated the dimensions and content of the header and footer without any issues. I even took our logo to the proper dimensions for use as a background.

I did a lot of testing and through adjusting the brightness levels in Photoshop, I got the logo to print (from Photoshop) to match that of the printed letterhead.

I then go into MS Word 2003, select Format -> Background -> Printed Watermark. I click Select Picture, select the image, hit OK, leave the scale at 100% and leave Washout unchecked (I tried with it checked and it does not fix the color issue nor does it take a non-faded logo to a soft enough fade.

When I print it to a color laser printer (the same one I printed to from Photoshop), the background image is a light green, not a faded B&W.

I then realized that even though I took it down to grayscale in Photoshop, when I reopened the .BMP bitmap file, it reverted to Indexed instead of grayscale. I then saved to TIF and JPG. The JPEG holds the grayscale when I reopen it in any other program, including Photoshop, so I selected it in Word as the background. Not surprisingly, when I printed it again from Word, it was green.

So, how can I force Word to maintain the colors of the background image (watermark) instead of taking it to an indexed or RGB color format that results in the green printing?

Where can I buy a cheap copy of Illustrator/Photoshop CS2?

*lostatsea* — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 13:32:24 -0800

Does anybody know of anyplace I can get a cheap legal copy of Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Photoshop CS2? I would be fine purchasing a used copy if it was completely legal. I do not have the money right now to buy the software at the normal retail price but would like to learn them. Also, if I were to buy a used product from eBay, what should I make sure it includes to make it a legal copy? Cheers!

Font preview in Illustrator CS2

hydrophonic — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 12:21:56 -0800

How can I get Illustrator CS2's font preview to work on my Windows machines? On the Macs I've used, font names in the Type Character window are displayed in their corresponding fonts. I'd love to have this on my two Windows machines.

Adobe Help says to go to Edit/Preferences/Type and turn on the preview feature, but this does nothing--it was already on anyway.

How can I get spot colors to accurately export to PDF from Indesign?

beerbajay — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 01:51:29 -0800

InDesign, Acrobat and spot colors to PDF?! I'm working on an InDesign CS2 document which is to be printed with 2 pantone spot colors. When I export to PDF using the default "Press" output, the spots (which are being used for large sections of the page) change to lighter, brighter, unsubtle versions of themselves.

From this, it appears that the spots are getting converted to CYMK badly, but the same thing happens when I export with the setting "Color: Leave unchanged" (also this puts giant white spaces in my spot-separated tiffs)

So my questions are:
1. Is this happening because spots are being converted to CMYK?
2. If spots are being converted, how can I export without converting them?
3. If the spots are not being converted, which program most accurately represents what the spot color will look like (Indesign or Acrobat)?

I have no pantone book, and don't think I shall have access to one in a useful timeframe. The spots are 1545M and 291M.

cs2

sgt.serenity — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 16:26:02 -0800

Ok , i need to get photoshop cs2 running again..... it was on my hard drive , it still is , i got a new hard drive , motherboard etc and installed a different type of xp than i had , i went from pro to home edition , i now have two hard drives - the previous one being the slave - when cs2 fires up it cant find any code no's and wont proceed - is there a way to find these files and copy them to my new windows on my new hard drive ? i would reinstall it , but i cant find my copy at all , my house can be very shambolic at times.

Adobe Cleanup freezes my apps!

limeonaire — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:43:03 -0800

Recent Windows versions of Adobe apps, specifically programs in the CS2 Suite and Acrobat Pro 7.0, all run some kind of auxiliary program called "Cleanup" not long after they start up. In my experience, "Cleanup" always freezes the Adobe app in question while it does whatever it's doing. So what is this program? Is it necessary? And if not, how can I stop it from running?

Help me work from home on my Mac!

rleamon — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 08:53:38 -0800

Using work apps at home under OS X. How do I make an image of my work hard drive on an external Firewire hard drive, bring it home, boot up my Mac from it, and use the apps to do print production work? I'm using the Adobe CS2 suite, Quark, and Pitstop Pro in Acrobat 7. Plus Font Agent Pro, etc. Using Carbon Copy Cloner I imaged my work hard drive onto an external Firewire hard drive that booted my home Mac successfully. However, the CS2 apps, Quark, and Pitstop didn't retain the registration info. I understand the "transfer activation" process in CS2 but it didn't want to take. Do I need to install the Adobe apps onto the hard drive from the original discs?

Solving this will allow my department to work from home -- thank you all!

The Adobe UI font could not be loaded.

tpl1212 — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 09:48:59 -0800

Photoshop CS2: "The Adobe UI font could not be loaded. For best results, please exit the program and either install it or uninstall other fonts." Randomly, i've started to get that error message when I start up Adobe Photoshop CS2 (on a WinXP SP2 machine). The warning stops PS from loading...but I can click "OK" and use the app fine (so it is seemingly only an annoyance).

I've looked around online, but it seems like the only advice is to uninstall fonts until the message goes away...which seemed silly and frustrating, but it worked...for a while. Now the error message is back AND a whole slew of fonts have been uninstalled.

Anyone had any success with this? I don't even have that many bizarre fonts installed on this machine (and have had many more on other machines with older versions of PS with no problems at all).

Question number 14537

luriete — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:11:40 -0800

I need to make a Photoshop CS action/droplet that I can use to batch convert many dozens of mid-res b&w images. I've tried this a few times but my droplets end up doing 1 file fine and then nothing. [mi]