Settings are stored under your Windows user account (not in the program files). Photoshop needs to access these settings to operate properly, and needs full read/write privileges to every relevant folder.   ... View more

Yes, I posted an old screenshot, the panel is slightly changed now. Anyway, I retested and it still works without issue on a7r v raw files.   What is your GPU status  in ACR preferences > performance? ... View more

@john sanderl65775692  Does it look like this in ACR? Or is it grayed out?   Also, double-check the raw file type. That's the only thing I know of that will prevent reflection removal from working. ... View more

As long as you don't open and save directly to the external drive. That is not recommended: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/networks-removable-media-photoshop.html    Copy to your local drive to work on them, then copy the finished file back.   One or two drives doesn't matter - but it makes maintenance a lot simpler if you have one system drive for OS and applications, and another for your image files and documents. Put the Photoshop scrach disk on your system drive.     ... View more

It still sounds like permissions - but one other possibility, assuming you're saving to the desktop:   As far as I know, it is now possible to have your desktop in the Microsoft/Apple cloud. This is something you set up when you install the operating system (and I always make sure to avoid that). The marketing fluff is that you can then access your desktop from any unit.   If you're saving big files to the desktop, it's easy to see how that could fail.   Unfortunately, the Photoshop Save dialog will just identify "Desktop" as the save path, it doesn't give the full path. So try to save a small file to the desktop, and then look for it in Windows Explorer, under your user account. If the desktop is on your local physical drive it should look like this: ... View more

These are totally different processing engines, so this is an impossible and unrealistic ask. Camera matching profiles is already stretching it (and I never use them for this reason).   Keep in mind that anything you see on the camera screen is the result of raw processing. The raw sensor data are exactly the same in both.   If you prefer the Sony rendering, you just need to use Sony's raw processor. As long as you use Lightroom/ACR, you need to accept that this is different raw processor. It's up to you to weigh the pros and cons of each processor. In principle, anything you see on the camera can be replicated in LrC/ACR.     ... View more

I don't think this is about color management. The way the OP describes it is entirely consistent with preview rendering at less than 100% view, on a very noisy image. This effect is well defined and well documented. ... View more

That looks like the red channel, with a gradient map on top.   The effect at the bottom is probably just a drop shadow and reduced opacity. ... View more

It has always been like this. But as I said, you only notice it on a certain type of images.   BTW - this isn't a bug, it's normal behavior (irrespective of whether one thinks it's desirable). Can a moderator move this to "Discussions"? ... View more

You get this dialog if you hold shift as you launch Photoshop. Perhaps your shift key is stuck? ... View more

Yes, you do have a point - but to be realistic, there is no such thing as "accurate" below 100%. Pixels have to be resampled on screen, there is no avoiding that. A group of pixels have to be reduced to 1 single pixel.   Where I do agree with you, and this has been requested many times, is to give us an option to do all preview calculations on the full pixel data instead of the screen sample. The answer we usually get is that this would slow Photoshop down unacceptably. That is probably true, it most likely would - but if it was an option with all implications clearly stated, and it was a one-off, non-sticky setting, I don't see why not.   Many versions ago it was possible to do this by setting cache levels to 1 in Preferences. That is no longer possible.   In a "normal" photograph this isn't a problem. This happens with very noisy or binary data where you have sharp pixel-level transitions. It's these transitions that are averaged out to middle values that aren't really there in the data.   In practice, I live quite well with this, but it's important to understand what's happening and why it's happening. ... View more

Whenever something seems to change when merging layers, it's because you are not viewing at 100%. The merged result is correct. The preview is misleading and incorrect. 100% has nothing to do with size. It means one image pixel is represented by exactly one physical screen pixel. For performance reasons, all blending and adjustment previews are calculated on the on-screen version of the image. When you are zoomed out, that means a resampled and softened version of the image. Pixel levels are averaged out. You get a lot of intermediate values that aren't there in the full original data. When you merge, commit an adjustment etc, the numbers are re-calculated on the full original data, pixel for pixel. Viewing at 100% avoids all this and renders the whole issue moot. You see every pixel before and after, and so nothing changes. ... View more

Well, this is relative, I suppose. I have a lot of custom settings in Photoshop, and it takes me perhaps ten minutes at most to set it up. But it must be said that I'm very familiar with all those settings and know where to go.   Still, I think that's ten minutes well spent.   Just me. ... View more

It also goes into detail about how to completely disable the integrated GPU when necessary. That's basically only applicable with laptops where the screen is hardwired to the motherboard, and the GPU configuration set by the laptop manufacturer, inaccessible to the user. On a desktop it's not an issue. ... View more

Do not move files from one machine to another. You can copy files as backup on the same machine, but don't bring them into a completely new environment. That's inviting problems. The same setting may have a different meaning in the new context. I suspect that's the reason this was removed.   Things that can be saved out and reloaded, like actions and brushes (.atn and .abr files) are safe.   There's another very good reason you should not migrate preferences. The preferences contain a lot more than your own user settings. It's the entire application configuration, including lots of hidden parameters and system-dependent parameters. Crucially, they are rewritten on every application exit - as opposed to read-only program files. If the shutdown sequence is disturbed or disrupted in any way, this can corrupt settings in subtle or not-so-subtle ways. Errors will accumulate, and with new application code that could cause latent problems to surface.   Corrupt preferences can cause weird and inexplicable behavior that is often misinterpreted as application bugs.   Take this opportunity to start with clean sheets. ... View more

My solution is to continue to create artboards at 144dpi By @7billionbuddhas   That's irrelevant in this context. The ppi value isn't used on screen. It could be 1 ppi or 1000 ppi and it would display identically.   Pixels per inch, ppi (not dpi!) is a simple formula to translate pixels to a physical size where that's needed. It's not needed on screen. It's needed for print, and a few other things that involve physical units like font sizes. But not screen.   Do not upsize your images. The browser will do it atomatically anyway. If you send 2x, it will ultimately display as 4x.   There are ways to code websites to allow for high resolution images to display at native size on high resolution displays - in other words, they are coded to override the automatic scaling. But that's not something you can rely on. ... View more

It would be nice if you could separate the pathways like this, but unfortunately that's not how it works. In reality, two GPUs will only cause conflicts - they do that all the time in laptops where this configuration is common.   But there's no reason to use the integrated GPU at all. An RTX will handle all of this without any problems.   I'm assuming this is a desktop machine? Then this is really simple. Just install the RTX into the motherboard PCIe slot, and connect your display to the back connector on the GPU itself. Don't use the connector on the motherboard back panel. Then the RTX runs everything and the integrated GPU is out of the equation. ... View more

When I view at 200% the dimensions are correct By @7billionbuddhas   The dimensions aren't actually "correct" - they just agree with the automatic scaling to 200% that all web browsers and consumer-grade photo viewers do when they detect a high density display. This uses four screen pixels to display one image pixel.   This automatic scaling is the industry standard workaround to ensure that the same material can be used regardless of what screen technology the user happens to have. Without this scaling, we'd need two separate internets.   Photoshop can't do any automatic scaling - it's used for a whole lot of other purposes than web. But you can call that scaling if you want to see it the same way as web browsers/photo viewers display it.   As I'm sure you know, a digital image doesn't have a "size". It only has pixels. The correct way to display an image is one image pixel represented by exactly one physical screen pixel.   I'm reposting the screenshot I posted earlier in this thread: ... View more

DirectX12 is an API, application programming interface. Your GPU is able to communicate through that API, that's what "DirectX12 support" means.   However, the feature level is the actual, physical capabilities of the GPU. The feature level is what the GPU can do. That's a hard physical limitation, not something that can be updated. ... View more

The plus sign is the name you have given the layer. You have apparently done this by double-clicking the layer and typing + in the highlighted field. That's how you name a layer.   Aside from that - for a beginner, this seems like an extremely complex layer setup, and it's not even clear what they're supposed to do. Why do you need to clip standard pixel layers to an underlying empty layer?   I would strongly advise you to start with a much simpler layer structure to get a feel for what they do, before starting to build up these towers of layers.   In any case, if you need to add/subtract/intersect masks on the same image, it's easier to do with grouped layers or smart objects, instead of stacking them on top of each other. ... View more

This has nothing to do with "single core". Denoise runs exclusively in the GPU, it doesn't even touch the CPU.   Denoise is a complex AI based operation, it takes a bit of time even on high end systems. It will never be instant. 10 seconds sounds about normal, depending on the size of your raw files. The timing is directly proportional to the megapixel count. ... View more

The Lightroom catalog is a file, completely separate from the Lightroom application. You can store the catalog file wherever you want, and make as many backup copies as you want and store them wherever you want. It will be there even if you uninstall Lightroom, ready for when you reinstall. ... View more

Precisely. It really is as simple as that. If you want to see accurate color on screen, you need to profile your display with a calibrator. A Mac needs that too.   The exact same principles apply, irrespective of platform. ... View more

@Ricardo CGI  We need to get into how this actually works. Functionally, color management is very simple. There's a source profile (document), and there's a destination profile (display). As you work, the former is converted into the latter, in a perfectly standard profile conversion, and these corrected numbers are sent to screen. That's all.   If both profiles are correct and accurate, and the conversion executed correctly, the image has to display correctly, by definition. There is either a conversion, or there is no conversion - depending on whether the application supports color management or not. There is nothing in between.   Historically, the difference between Mac and Windows is that on Mac, the conversion is called by the application, but the execution is sent out to the OS. On Windows, the application handles everything - the OS just makes the profiles available when requested.   The downside with the Mac model is that there's an extra layer where bugs can happen. And they do - e.g. https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/photoshop-not-showing-correct-colors-update-after-3-weeks-of-troubleshooting/m-p/15126107/page/2#M851090 which is still unresolved.   I have worked as a photographer at an art museum for, oh, seventeen years now, using wide gamut Eizos all the time on Windows. Obviously, in this line of work, color accuracy needs to be absolutely perfect. Color management on Windows is rock solid and never fails as long as the application gets it right.   (edited and rewritten for clarity). ... View more

  Everything that isn't color-managed on Windows gets oversaturated By @Ricardo CGI   That is actually true for MacOS as well. But more of the OS-native apps are color managed on Mac. On Windows, Photos and Edge are fully and reliably color managed. Explorer and the desktop are not, and that's the one that trips people up.   The application still has to support it. You have applications that don't do color management on a Mac too - but if you have a false sense of security just because it's a Mac, you're going to get into trouble.   Especially now, as Display P3 is more and more used in the Mac community as a universal profile for everything, from document to screen. In fact, that's the definition of a non-color managed process (source and destination profiles are identical) - which won't be noticeable inside the Apple bubble, because everybody does it. But it creates problems out in the rest of the world.   There is no problem using a wide gamut monitor on Windows as long as you understand which of your apps are color managed and which are not. ... View more

@DoubleSupercool  No, that's not what I'm saying. The interface isn't the problem.   The problem is the image window. A vector image can be scaled indefinitely and still always be rendered at full screen resolution. So it can just scale with the UI.   A raster image is different. It still needs one image pixel to be represented by exactly one physical screen pixel. So it cannot scale when the UI scales. It has to stay unscaled. If the image scales with the UI, a 4K screen is wasted in Photoshop, you're not getting the high resolution you paid for. ... View more

Premiere Pro and Bridge will create huge caches over time unless kept in check. You need to keep an eye on them. Haven't used After Effects so don't know about that.   You manage the caches from the apps' preferences, and if you have other (internal) drives you can redirect them. By default they are in your user account on the system drive. ... View more