White Square Appears and can't gid rid of it.

[lesnicole]

A white square has appeared on my file and I can't get rid of it. Stays when I zoom in or out. Still there when I open and close. I tried to saving a copy in a different format (Tiff) and it's still there. I spent many hours retouching this scan. I can rescan that area and align and match the color - but it's a hassle. Wondering if there is an explaination for why this happened or how to fix it?

I'm on an iMac, IOS 12.4, Photoshop 23.4.2 (just updated. Was using the release just before this one when the problem occurred.)

[MarekMularczyk]

Is this white square only showing on this image?

Does it show on other images you open in Photoshop?

[lesnicole]

Just that one file.

[MarekMularczyk]

Hmmm.

I assume you have a layered document. Have you checked the layers? Maybe it's a part of one of the layers so it could be removed?

[Derek Cross]

Just to check the obvious, you looked in the Layers panel to see if you've inadvertently added a white square on top of the image?

[lesnicole]

Yes. 🙂 There is no layer with a white square on it. It's a 1 layer file.

[davescm]

Hi

It looks like it has been a glitch during the edit (Photoshop works in 'tiles'). If something like that appears during editing, do not Save (Ctrl/Cmd+S). By all means Save As with a new name to try and preserve your edits and, if it is just in the preview, it would vanish on re-opening. However if it is in the edit, rather than just the on screen preview, then saving over the original makes the change permanent.

 If you have saved it into the original, then you are indeed left with scanning and replacing the area.

Dave

[Jumpenjax]

I like the guidance that Dave has given .When working in photoshop you should always duplicate the original. If you have saved the file already, just in case it is a glitch. Close photoshop and reboot the computer . If none of the above checked off and you still have the problem, Do you still have the original graphic? That you can try to replace the background? Or in worse cas senecio start a new file all together.

[lesnicole]

I tried doing a Save As and it was still there. I finally gave up and rescanned that area, placed and redid the retouching in that area. Every once in a great while, a file gets a glitch. I can often save it by saving a copy, but didn't work this time. Thanks for the input.

[lesnicole]

Oops meant that to be an answer to Dave, but I guess it is an answer to both. 🙂

[jane-e]

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@lesnicole wrote:

I tried doing a Save As and it was still there.

---

If you did a "Save As" after doing a "Save", it won't fix the problem. What Dave had said was that if something like this happens, do not "Save". 

"If something like that appears during editing, do not Save (Ctrl/Cmd+S)"

Using "Save As" instead of "Save" leaves the original file untouched, which is what Dave was saying.

You say that this happens "every once in a while". You might use Save As every so often and give the versions slightly different names, such as adding 001, 002, 003, etc., so you can return to a previous version.

Also, when you scan the image, copy it and work on a copy so you have the original untouched if you need to go back to it (or part of it).

"iMac, IOS 12.4"

If it's an issue with your graphics card, macOS updates that for you. I just looked and see that there is a macOS 12.5. 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201260

MacWorld lists what is in the update.

https://www.macworld.com/article/702808/macos-monterey-12-5-beta-features-install.html

This is very, very small, but iOS is only for mobile devices. 🙂

Jane

[lesnicole]

Thank you for your time looking into this @jane-e . Thanks for clarifying the Save / Save As. I actually don't remember now what the sequence for saving was. I had been editing the photo and everything was fine. Left it overnight and the next morning found it like that. It could be that as I was editing zoomed in at 200%, I didn't even notice that one square until I zoomed out and noticed.

I know it's a good practice to work on a copy of a file and leave the master, but as I scan tons of very high resolution files and then edit them, it's just impractical to do this. Even with storage being relatively inexpensive, a library of over a decade of scans just gets too big to have everything duplicated. (For my photography, I do have the .dng files to get back to.) I very rarely need to rescan something and rarely have need of the unretouched version. With that said, on this job where it needs a LOT of retouching - I'm doing multiple copies so I can get back to a good copy if something goes wrong!

I'll update my MacOS tonight. Thanks for pointing out the iOS - in the back of my mind as I was writing, it tickled that it was the wrong usage. 😉