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scottmosher
scottmosher
Inspiring
October 5, 2021
Answered

"Documents must be saved before they can be merged."

  • October 5, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 3547 views

I use Photo-Merge pretty often, and I just recently updated to Photoshop 2021 - 22.5.1 - and now I'm getting the "Documents must be saved before they can be merged." warning with almost every photo. Never had this issue previously. Any assistance on what the problem is or how to fix this or ger around it? It seems to be popping up with EVERY photo I'm trying to merge.

    Correct answer Stephen Marsh

    Good thought. After checking “Ignore Rotation Metadata” the portrait-orientated photos now open cleanly. They're sidewise, of course, but that's what I'd expect.

    The OP was running 22.5.1; I'm on 24.1.0. I directly upgraded from CS 5.5, so I don't have any insights as to what happened in between.

     

    For now I'm going to script stripping the EXIF orientation tag and rotating the JPEG as part of my transfer-from-SD-Card workflow. Would still appreciate the bug being fixed. Can someone point me to where I can do that? (Sorry for the N00b question, but like I said, I was on CS 5.5 forever.)


    I think that you have identified that this is not a bug.

     

    You may not like the behaviour, but that doesn't make it a bug.

     

    @CShubert stated that the file needs to be saved if modified.

    3 replies

    angier7073538
    angier7073538
    Participant
    June 20, 2023

    I had this problem too and I couldn't get around it. I even tried just saving all the images again, but it still was a no go. So I made an action just saving an image. I put the photos I wanted to stack in a separate folder and within that folder I made a folder in which to put the images in; once saved again. I did a batch edit, running the save as action I made, choosing to add an extention (letters) to the files when saved so they would then have a different file name as the original. Bingo, it worked and didn't take much time to run 218 images. Hope this helps someone else work around the problem.

      W
      Webtique-IS
      Participant
      July 15, 2024

      Hi, I'm new to photoshop.  Merging 2 images to one file should be easy, right?  I'm stuck.  I tried your work around creating a new folder and putting my 2 images in it.  When I drag the one file to the other, I'm still getting that Save As pop up.  Any guidance would be appreciated! 

      CShubert
      Community Manager
      CShubertCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      October 6, 2021

      Hi,

      Ok, please share your process, what are the steps you did before updating to use the Photomerge action, and now after the update how you are doing it.  Also, please go to Help/System Info and copy/paste the info here so we can see if anything else is happening with your configuration.

      Thank you,

       

      shaun5FEA
      shaun5FEA
      Participant
      July 27, 2022

      I am having exactly the same issues and it seems to be only images taken in Portrait? 

      L
      looney_8619
      Participant
      October 28, 2025

      Portrait only - well spotted and thankyou. Tell settings to ignore rotation flags and related exif and bingo! Back in business 😍

      CShubert
      Community Manager
      CShubertCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      October 5, 2021

      Hi,

      If you open multiple files and select Automation/Photomerge, you will be shown multiple options for the merge. If you are working on a file that you have made changes to and then open other files and attempt to do Photomerge, the file that was worked on will make Photoshop ask you to save this file before it continues with the Photomerge action.

      Please open your images and make sure you don't do anything to them before you select Photomerge and see if that solves this issue.

      Thank you,

      scottmosher
      scottmosherAuthor
      Inspiring
      October 6, 2021

      Unfortunately, that's not the issue. I have no made any changes to the photos. They are directly download from iCloud, no changes. I've been using Photomerge for years and I just seem to run into this problem more with the current version of PS.

        D
        Doris_Rogers
        Participating Frequently
        March 11, 2022

        Same with me.  Sometimes it does it, sometimes it doesn't.  Right now, jpg files in Bridge, opening in PS, getting the message.  Nothing done to the photos at all.  Yesterday, I didn't have the issues.  Photos came from the same camera and same folder.  Nothing edited.  Kind of a PITA.  Sad.

         

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