Photoshop layers palette greyed out

[kiski]

I just upgraded from MacOSX 10.5.8 to 10.6 and using Photoshop CS4.

Not sure if this is related to what happened today, but...

"About Photoshop" is greyed out. Can't tell what version I have.

I need to duplicate a layer in a high res RGB image. The LAYER, CHANNELS, PATH palettes have all options greyed out, except "convert to smart object", which I don't know yet what that is. The image is in 8 bits/channel. How do I fix this?

[J453]

Ok. First. Update you Photoshop.

If that doesn't fix it, then troubleshoot your plug-ins. you have a few 3rd party plug-ins (Font Agent Pro, Epson TWAIN, etc) that may be causing havoc.

Instructions for these and other troubleshooting here: http://bit.ly/Troubleshoot_PS

[Nily98A5]

Not sure if this issue has been resolved, especially since it's been ssssooooooo many years since the initial post but I wanted to add something for reference purposes in case something similar happens to someone else as it did to me.

I have Photoshop CS4 and am not a pro on it by all means...mediocre at best.  Well, it's happened a couple of times where my layers went gray on me and would not let me edit them.  I would have to delete the file and recreate it from scratch. 

Well, I noticed one day that the title I'd given to one of my "gray-layered" files had something else as part of the file name.  It said "(file_name)/Quick Mask/8".  I think I may have hit a hotkey by accident at some point that activated the Quick Mask. 

Well, in case this ever happens to anyone, this is how you remove it.  Go to:

Select > Edit in Quick Mask

Make sure that the Edit in Quick Mask is unchecked.  This will turn your layers back to normal IF this is what had happened to you.  If it doesn't work for you then the issue in your case is something else and I suggest you read the rest of this thread and try the other suggestions made.

Anywho, hope this helps at least one other Photoshop lover out there.

Blessings.

Nily