Hi all,

I've come upon a problem when preparing an image for web publication with Photoshop CS5 which has me perplexed. It turns out that as soon as I change the pixel dimensions of the image - either with File/Automate/Fit Image or the simple Image Size menu - that the colors shift significantly. In this particular case the image is almost entirely white and after resizing it's more gray. One can clearly see the shift in the histogram.

But more importantly I have cloned out a distraction in the background which after resizing shows up clearly again. Strangely the area cloned doesn't seem to be affected by the color shift. That's actually how I originally noticed it.

Any ideas? Thank you. Joerg

The first thing to do with most bizarre Photoshop behavior is reset preferences and see if the problem goes away. It seems like 95% of odd problems are caused by corrupted preferences info. To reset, launch the app while pressing the Control-Alt-Shift keys. If that doesn't fix it, follow up and other ideas can be tried...

Thanks for the suggestion. But what precautions should I take before resetting the preferences? E.g. does it delete the keywords? the workplace configuration? How about actions? I am a bit worried about not being able to reconfigure everything afterwards.

Of course I can simply write down (or take screen shots of) the settings in the preference menu but I am not sure what else resetting the preferences may affect.

Joerg

Save your workspace configuration before doing this so that you can quickly get back to something familiar. There will still be some things that will be reset and need to be reconfigured but this takes care of most of them.

As E.J. said, create a workspace of your own and that should save the majority of what is salvageable. Things like keywords, custom curves, IPTC metadata defaults, custom soft-proofing conditions, actions and anything that is stored in its own discrete configuration file (i.e. separate from the main Adobe preferences file) will not be affected by resetting preferences.

Unfortunately, Adobe Photoshop configuration & preferences is fairly insane, largely undocumented in a useful way, and has a myriad of ways to get messed up. It would take an entire book to truly understand it; so the question is reasonable but the answer is more difficult...

Dear Royce & EJ,

Thanks for your help. I reset the preferences of PS CS5 as suggested but the problem persists. I've included in this post a screen shot showing the two images within Photoshop. The one on the left is the original whereas the one on the right is the one after File/Automate/Fit Image. 

I think even in this screen shot it is obvious that there is a shift in color between the two images. Further the histogram in the upper right shows the distribution after the image resize. In the original image the peak from the whites is much closer to the right edge without clipping it. And obviously there is the donut in the resized image from the clone layer...

Note, even if I deactivate or delete the clone and hue/saturation layer, or change their respective order, the problem remains. 

Any thoughts are much appreciated. Thanks! Joerg

You are stumping me for the moment. i just tried doing the same thing you are doing with an image and saw no shift whatsoever (using CS6).

Seems to me you have the clone layer active and an adjustment layer on top of that. That can give you strange results when saving a layered stack. Why don't you try making a copy of the image with all the layers flattened before trying to resize that and see if the colour shift remains. Do click on the top layer to make that the active layer before making the copy.

Kim, I had already tried that with the same result. Joerg

Quote from above: "Note, even if I deactivate or delete the clone and hue/saturation layer, or change their respective order, the problem remains."

What happens if you flatten the image first?

You're on the right track. If I flatten the image first and then resize there is no shift in the colors/histogram. But I went one step further and deactivated the smart filters I have before resizing. And it's the shadow/highlight adjustment filter I have which when turned off results in the same color/histogram shift as when resizing.

So, it appears that resizing the image (with the smart filters active) somehow turns off this shadow/highlight adjustment filter. I have been using those two smart filter for almost all of my images and never observed such dramatic effect when resizing the image.

Any ideas? Joerg

That is what I advised you to do in my original post above but you dismissed my suggestion.

Kim, please don't be offended. You pointed out that the presence of the clone and adjustment layer might cause problems. But I had already verified that this is not the case. So, it's not quite I just dismissed your suggestion but it didn't make as much sense given what I already knew. Granted if I had followed your suggestion I might have discovered earlier that one of the smart filters causes the problem...

Also, I verified this with another image with lots of whites. It is indeed the shadow/highlights smart filter which seems to be disregarded in the resizing.

Joerg

Have you tried stamping visable a new layer as a top layer before resizing?

To stamp visable you first create a new blank layer at the top of the layer stack then go to the black arrow on the far top right of the layer pallet and holding down the ALT key as the dialog box opens scroll to 'merge visable'. keep holding the alt key untill you see the new layer suddenly fill with your image.

This new layer will be a combination of all the edits you have done and should override the shadow/highlights effect you are seeing on resizing. It is the same as flattening all the layers except your layers are still intact.

Hi Kim,

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it and it works as you described. Unfortunately, it doesn't accomplish what I intend to do: namely being able to adjust the Smart Filters in the master image, and specifically the Smart Sharpen one, after resizing.

I learned in the meantime that this appears to be a limitation of Smart Filters in Photoshop at the moment. Namely, Smart Filters are ignored when an image is "transformed" and that includes resizing. The first clue in this regard come from this link:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WS41A5B796-6846-4e95-8459-95243441E126.html
"Note: When you transform a Smart Object that has a Smart Filter applied to it, Photoshop turns off filter effects while the transform is being performed. Filter effects are applied again after the transform is complete. See About Smart Filters."

Further investigation lead to the a solution outlined at this link: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4984494

It works as described and one can subsequently edit the original Smart Filters by "Edit Content" of the newly generated Smart Object. To my utter amazement the whole sequence even works when integrated into a Photoshop Action, e.g. for preparing an image for web output.

Best, Joerg