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Lesson Info

Troubleshooting in Adobe Photoshop

1 If you use Photoshop for any length of time, 2 you're gonna run into problems, just random issues 3 that pop up where you attempt to access a feature 4 and it's grayed out or you attempt 5 to use a keyboard shortcut and it just doesn't work. 6 Or you attempt 7 to view your picture just in your operating system 8 and it looks odd. 9 So let's look at various techniques we can use 10 to troubleshoot issues that you'll likely encounter, 11 and that way you'll have fewer issues working in Photoshop. 12 Let's say I go to a menu 13 and I try to access something that I've used before 14 and I know usually works, like going to the adjustments, 15 and I noticed that pretty much all of 'em are not available. 16 Well, it doesn't matter that it's that particular choice, 17 it could be any feature that you're attempting to use. 18 The first thing I would do 19 is take a look in your layers panel. 20 First, what if no layer is active? 21 Well, the layer that is active is the one 22 that's gonna c...

hange when you use a filter or anything else. 23 So filters will be grayed out, 24 adjustments will be grayed out, 25 all sorts of things will be grayed out 26 if Photoshop doesn't know which layer you'd like it 27 to work on. 28 Then if the layer that you want 29 to work on has its eyeball turned off, if it's hidden, 30 then there's a whole bunch of things you can't do 31 because it assumes you need to be able to see 32 what the result of that change would be. 33 And if the layer's hidden, then you might have an issue. 34 Then what if multiple layers are active? 35 Well, if you're gonna paint, 36 how is it gonna know which layer to put the paint on? 37 Or if you're gonna apply a filter, they can only apply 38 to one layer at a time, 39 so make sure you don't have multiple layers active 40 at the same time. 41 But then not all layers are created equal. 42 We have layers that can be full of pixels, 43 which means just a picture, 44 and then we have specialty layers. 45 This layer here is what's known as a solid color layer. 46 You create it by coming down here and choosing solid color. 47 Well, the only thing it can contain 48 is literally a solid color, 49 and other than adding a layer mask to it, 50 there's not a lot you can do with it. 51 And therefore, when you come up here, 52 you're gonna find a lot 53 of these choices aren't available. 54 Or if you attempt to use one, like a filter, 55 it will usually warn you, like, let's come down here 56 and attempt to blur this layer. 57 Well, you can't blur one of those kinds of layers, 58 so it's gonna tell you 59 that it has to be what's known as rasterized. 60 Now, rasterized means turn this into a pixel-based layer 61 as if it's a photo of whatever its content is. 62 And so if I were to choose rasterize, 63 then this would no longer be what's known 64 as a solid color layer 65 and I'd no longer be able to double click on his thumbnail 66 to change its color, 67 but it would still look the same when it comes 68 to what the Photoshop document looks like. 69 But oftentimes, all you need to do 70 is to create an empty layer for some things 71 or use a different thing, like instead of trying 72 to adjust a layer directly, use an adjustment layer 73 because then it would be separate from the layer itself 74 and therefore, it can still apply 75 even when you have a specialty layer. 76 This layer up here is a shape layer, which is another kind 77 of layer that you're limiting what you can do with. 78 Other kinds of specialty layers would be adjustment layers 79 and type layers. 80 So think about if whatever you're trying to do is trying 81 to act on one of those. 82 Now, if I wanna keep all these layers 83 and still be able to, let's say, apply a filter to it 84 or something else, then consider taking these layers 85 and converting them into a smart object. 86 If you select all the layers, you go to the layer menu 87 and choose convert to smart object. 88 Now a lot of features 89 that would usually not be available, like filters 90 and adjustments suddenly will be available 91 because it cannot see what kind of layer that is. 92 It can't see inside of it to see 93 what the original layers were. 94 And there'll be all sorts of things 95 that you can do when you've converted it to a smart object. 96 That is, unless you're trying to paint on 97 or retouch directly on that layer. 98 You can't change the contents 99 of that layer using paint or your retouching tool. 100 So you'd have to create a brand new empty layer above it. 101 Then let's choose undo there 102 and a few of the other things 103 that can happen in the layers panel. 104 Up at the top, there are some icons. 105 Right here, you can lock various things. 106 You can lock the transparency of a layer 107 so you can't paint on areas that are empty. 108 You can lock the pixels that make up a layer 109 and therefore, you wouldn't be able 110 to do retouching directly on it or paint directly on it. 111 You can lock the position of that layer 112 and you can even go out here and lock everything. 113 And the background layer is one layer 114 that is automatically locked in some ways. 115 You can't move the background layer, 116 you can't poke a hole in it, that kind of stuff. 117 But if you want to do something to the background layer, 118 all you need to do is either click the lock symbol, 119 that'll unlock it and it's no longer a background 120 or I'll choose undo, just double click 121 and change its name. 122 Whatever you wanna call it, 123 and that will make it so it's no longer a background layer. 124 If for some reason you need a background layer, 125 there's some technique that requires it, which is rare, 126 you can go to the layer menu. 127 There's a choice called new, 128 and if you choose background from layer, 129 that will convert whatever layer is currently active 130 into the background layer, 131 if you happen to have needed one. 132 Can't really think of why you'd need one, 133 but just so you know, you can always convert one. 134 And let's say I wanted to grab a paintbrush tool 135 and maybe I'd create a brand new layer. 136 I'll put it on top so it should be very easy to work with. 137 Got my paint, got everything set up normally, 138 and I go to paint and it just doesn't work. 139 If you're ever trying to do something to the image 140 and it's just not working, doesn't matter if it's a filter, 141 if it's an adjustment 142 or something else, whatever you do, nothing happens. 143 There's a couple things that it could be. 144 The first thing I would check is go to the select menu. 145 If the choice called deselect is available, 146 that means somewhere on your screen, 147 there is an active selection limiting 148 where you can affect the image. 149 And sometimes you might be zoomed in on your image 150 where you just don't realize, you don't remember 151 that an area was selected and you might only see it 152 after zooming out. 153 And even then, it might be hard to see. 154 In this particular case, there is a selection 155 that is one pixel or so in size in the lower right corner. 156 I can see that little lower right corner flashing, 157 but I wouldn't have to look for it. 158 All I'd have to do is come up here 159 and if deselect is active, go ahead and choose it. 160 Then any active selection will disappear. 161 Another thing that can easily happen 162 is if you accidentally bump the letter Q on your keyboard. 163 Oftentimes I have my finger positioned over the letter Q 164 because I use quick mask mode a lot. 165 Well, quick mask mode, 166 if you have a selection active, it's obvious when you type Q 167 because it turns into a red overlay, 168 but if you don't have a selection active 169 and you accidentally bump the letter Q, 170 you'll be in quick mask mode and you won't know it. 171 And therefore, when you attempt to come up here 172 and use certain adjustments, none of the adjustments 173 that would work on colors will work. 174 And if you try to use certain tools 175 or filters, you'll find 176 that they might also not be available. 177 And so on occasion, 178 I will glance over here in my tools panel 179 at this icon right here. 180 And if it's got a dark background, 181 then you're in quick mask mode 182 and you might need to click that 183 because you just might not realize 184 that you're in quick mask. 185 Then let's say I wanna change 186 what tool I'm working on to the brush tool. 187 So I type the letter B and it doesn't work 188 and then I wanna like manually go to the brush tool. 189 Fine, and it tells me some weird message. 190 Or if I try to change my brush size, it might not work 191 or when I'm done, you might get a weird message. 192 Why would it happen? 193 Well, what can happen is if the last thing you did 194 before switching to the brush tool 195 and trying to change your brush size 196 was to click on a number up here in the options bar 197 or anywhere else in Photoshop, then that particular field 198 where you could type in a number is active. 199 And I can see I had the angle field active up here 200 a moment ago and when I was hitting the bracket key, 201 it was thinking I wanted to type it in up there. 202 So if you ever find 203 that keyboard shortcuts just aren't working 204 and you're not sure why, 205 you can just press the return key on your keyboard 206 and that means finish the typing that I'm typing in 207 to whatever field is active. 208 And if it was a weird key, like the bracket key 209 that wouldn't work in that field, it will tell ya 210 and it will substitute a acceptable value. 211 But pressing return can be a good thing 212 to make it so whatever field was active, it's committed 213 and therefore, the keyboard shortcut might work again. 214 Another thing that can be useful 215 is sometimes you might not realize, 216 especially if you have more than one monitor, 217 that some dialog box is active, 218 it just might be on a separate screen of yours. 219 So pressing the escape key can also be useful. 220 Escape will cancel whatever dialog box you happen to be in. 221 If your brush ever looks like a crosshair, 222 there are a couple reasons why it can happen. 223 The first thing is if you zoom up on your image 224 and you get a brush that's bigger than your screen, 225 if it's larger than your screen, 226 it can't show it to you at all. 227 Here I'll zoom in more so it becomes that way 228 and if so, it's only gonna show you the center of the brush. 229 So what I would do when I see it looking like a cross here 230 and I don't expect it to, 231 first thing I would do is glance right up here 232 and see if this number is some huge value 233 and if it is, make your brush smaller 234 and you should eventually be able to see it. 235 But there are other reasons why it can happen. 236 The primary one that messes people up is the caps lock key 237 on your keyboard. 238 If you press to enable caps lock, 239 this brush will change into a crosshair. 240 I'm not gonna do it here 241 because I have repurposed my caps lock key 242 to do other functions using some utility 243 because I would never use that feature in Photoshop, 244 but I've had people run into it, 245 they even re-install Photoshop, reset their preferences 246 and it's still messed up 247 because their caps lock key is still on. 248 Then if a tool is acting odd, most of the time, 249 it's because of the settings that are found up here 250 in the options bar. 251 And the most common issue is you used a blending mode 252 at one time when you're doing retouching let's say, 253 and you just forgot about it 254 and then you went on to do a different task 255 other than retouching 256 and now you don't need that blending mode 257 but it's still in there. 258 Well, if you ever find that you just cannot figure out 259 why a tool is acting oddly, what you can do is go over here. 260 You're gonna see the icon for the tool 261 and if you right click on this, you're gonna get a menu 262 and you could reset that tool. 263 That means reset all the settings 264 that are found up here in the options bar 265 to their default settings and then try the tool again 266 and it will most likely work. 267 You can also come up here and reset all tools. 268 Just be careful if you do that 269 because you're retouching tools. 270 I usually need to turn on current and below 271 or all layers to get them to work the way I want to 272 and if you reset all your tools, you have to go back 273 and set those once again. 274 Then sometimes you're gonna find 275 that your image looks weird in certain respects. 276 For instance, this document is full of a normal grid, 277 meaning a grid where every single square looks the same 278 and I see some grid lines that are lighter than others 279 and it doesn't look like I expect it to be. 280 Another thing that can happen that's similar 281 to this is right after stitching a panorama, 282 you might find little squiggly lines 283 going down certain areas of the image 284 and if that's the case, the most common cause 285 is that you are viewing the image at an odd magnification. 286 Do you see the number in the lower left corner? 287 The only time you're truly seeing the contents 288 of your image, all the detail, 289 is when that number says 100 or above. 290 And so here you can see the actual contents of this document 291 and it's a normal grid, it's consistent. 292 There's nothing where anything is different 293 in any other areas. 294 But the moment I zoom out so that I have less than 100%, 295 it starts to act odd 296 and the more I zoom out, it might be looking better, 297 mainly when this is an even percentage. 298 If we're at 100, 50, 25, 299 you know, evenly divisible 300 or you're above 100 is when it's gonna look the best. 301 But when you're at an odd percentage, then your image, 302 you're not able to see all the details. 303 That's just because your screen is made out 304 of a certain number of pixels. 305 In here, you're asking for it 306 to render more information than your screen has available. 307 And so it has to do something. 308 So zoom up to 100% view if you see anything odd 309 in your image and confirm that you see it 310 in that particular view. 311 If you only see it when zoomed out 312 and it's a panorama, then it's most likely a panorama 313 that you did not stitch using Adobe Camera Raw. 314 Instead, you stitched it using Photoshop's features 315 and you'll have individual layers. 316 Just take the individual layers, select them all 317 and choose merge layers. 318 When you do, it will combine the layers together 319 and those odd little lines 320 that look almost like a little worm going down your screen 321 should disappear. 322 If you find that just certain filters are not available, 323 like filter gallery is just grayed out, but most filters are 324 and you get to a few though like tiles and wind 325 and a few others and they're just not there 326 and you need them. 327 Well, then look at the name 328 of your document up here in the tab that it's in 329 and see if on the end it has the number 16. 330 That means your image is in 16-bit mode, 331 which is fine for most features, 332 but there are certain older filters, like filter gallery 333 that were not designed to work on 16-bit images. 334 So choose image, mode, eight bit per channel, 335 then you'll see the number eight up there 336 and then when you visit the filter menu, 337 filter gallery will be available, 338 as will all those other filters that get grayed out 339 when you're working on a 16-bit image. 340 Let's close that image and go to this one. 341 Sometimes you're gonna try 342 to do things like retouch on an image 343 and you'll get a no symbol or paint 344 and when you do, 345 it might look odd, like this looks jaggy on the edge. 346 It just doesn't look smooth. 347 Or if I try to filter, nothing. 348 Try to adjust, only a few. 349 Even though it's a color image, 350 I should be able to use something like vibrance, 351 that's like a normal adjustment. 352 Well, look at the name of your document 353 and just like before, 354 when we look for the number 16 on the end of it, 355 if you ever see the word index, that means most likely 356 that image came from the internet 357 and it is something where it's in indexed color mode. 358 And you'll need to come up here to the image menu, 359 choose mode, set it to RGB instead. 360 What the heck is index color mode? 361 Well, index color mode 362 is where you end up reducing the number 363 of colors in your image in order to get a smaller file size. 364 Images like that 365 that come in index color mode usually were created 366 by somebody that went to the file menu. 367 They went here to export 368 and they used this thing called save for web. 369 And when they went in there, they chose a file format 370 that can't save as many colors 371 as the original image contained. 372 And that would be a file format like either GIF 373 or PNG8, and let's say I used GIF. 374 Then over here, you can choose 375 how many colors should it reduce the image down to. 376 And 256 will usually make it look a lot 377 like a photograph, but I could reduce it down to only 16. 378 And then you're probably gonna start noticing 379 that this image is made out of fewer colors. 380 If I bring it down to just four, it would be very obvious. 381 And then there is a choice in here called dithering, 382 and if that is turned on, 383 then it's going to look a little better. 384 If it's turned off, you'll just see the solid colors. 385 But this down here is what's known as the color table. 386 That's the colors the image is actually made out of. 387 And if I'm in index color mode, 388 so it has the word index on the end of the file name, 389 that means I'm not in a mode 390 where Photoshop is used to working. 391 Photoshop is used to working where if I go 392 to the channels panel, I would see a red, a green, 393 and a blue channel, and in this case, I won't. 394 So the way you solve it is image mode, RGB color. 395 Once you've chosen that, 396 then all your filters will be available, 397 all your adjustments will be available 398 and other features as well. 399 So I don't expect you to create that problem, 400 but if you download images from the internet, 401 especially logos and graphics, 402 they're often in index color mode. 403 Now let's talk about the most common reason 404 why colors in a picture sometimes look odd 405 if you save an image out 406 and you either deliver it to somebody else 407 or you open another piece of software, 408 or it might even be just reopening it in Photoshop. 409 I'm gonna come up here and choose save a copy. 410 So I can leave this version on my screen 411 and I'll save this out as, let's just say a JPEG file, 412 like I'm gonna send it to a friend, 413 I'll put it on my desktop so it's easy to find 414 and I'm gonna just call it No Profile 415 and I'll save it as a JPEG. 416 Well, the most common reason 417 for colors looking odd 418 is not having this checkbox turned on. 419 If that's not turned on, 420 you're not including enough information with your image 421 so that other programs will know 422 what the colors is supposed to be. 423 So when I choose save 424 and I already had a file there, so I'm gonna record over it, 425 then let's see what happens when I reopen that file. 426 I'm just gonna take it off my desktop here 427 and I'm gonna open it in Photoshop. 428 Notice, the colors look really dull. 429 here,, I'll show you the original 430 and here is the end result. 431 That's because when you save the image, 432 you did not include a color profile. 433 So you can tell when that happens. 434 If you open a picture 435 and you're not sure if the colors are looking right 436 or not, you just have some sort of idea 437 that they might not be, 438 go to the bottom left of your image 439 where you're gonna see some text, 440 click on the little triangle that's to the right of it 441 and choose document profile. 442 Down there, you should find a familiar name like sRGB, 443 Adobe RGB or ProPhoto or some other name. 444 It should not say untagged. 445 Untagged means somebody saved this picture 446 and they did not turn on that color profile checkbox. 447 Well, if that's the case, here's what you wanna do about it. 448 Go to the edit menu 449 and choose assign profile. 450 That means this image didn't have a profile, 451 so we're gonna assign one 452 and guess what should be the right one. 453 When you get in here, all you need 454 to do is choose this bottom choice 455 and switch between three choices. 456 Choose sRGB, try Adobe RGB, 457 and then try the one called ProPhoto 458 and see which one you think looks the best. 459 Because the person who saved the picture did not have 460 that checkbox on, they didn't let you know 461 what the colors were supposed to be. 462 You could always talk to them 463 and ask them what it should be. 464 But if they are not versed enough in Photoshop to leave 465 that checkbox turned on, 466 then I doubt they're gonna be versed enough to know 467 what you're talking about. 468 So you wanna come in here 469 and figure out which one of these looks its best 470 and click on OK and then go and resave the picture. 471 I would choose save as 472 and save right over the original file, 473 making sure this checkbox is turned on. 474 Then in the lower left, 475 it's no longer gonna say untag the next time you open it 476 and the colors should look right every time you open it. 477 Let's switch to another image. 478 And if you ever need a converted image to CMYK mode, 479 which is usually done 480 because an image will be printed under a printing press, 481 then you're gonna find if your image has layers 482 that it's gonna ask you 483 if you wanna flatten your image or not. 484 And there's a good reason why it asks 485 because I hear a lot of people complain to say 486 that their images, the colors look duller when they convert 487 to CMYK mode, especially when they work with graphics. 488 Well, let's see if we can get this to not be the case. 489 To give you some idea as to why, 490 let's take a look at this image. 491 What I have here is just some text 492 and that text has an effect applied known as an outer glow. 493 If I double click on the word outer glow, 494 I'll see the settings for it 495 and right here's the color that's being used. 496 And if I click on this, I'll get a color picker. 497 And the way that I chose the color 498 that's here is I typed in the most vivid green 499 you could possibly create when you're in CMYK mode. 500 And that's usually done by using 100% cyan 501 and 100% yellow put together. 502 I'll click OK and click OK again. 503 But when I look at this, the color looks dull. 504 Well, the reason why that color looks dull 505 is because you're using layers in CMYK mode. 506 Photoshop is generally designed 507 for working in RGB mode 508 and the layers are optimized for that. 509 And if you end up using layers in CMYK mode 510 and you have anything fading out where it has to blend in 511 with something else, the blending of layers does not work 512 as well in CMYK mode. 513 Well, let me show you. 514 I'm just gonna convert this image 515 to RGB mode and when I do, watch the green glow that's there 516 and look at the color of green we get. 517 I'm not gonna flatten the image 518 'cause I want the layers 519 to be combined together in RGB mode. 520 Now, that's the green I actually asked for. 521 It looks exactly what I expected, 522 not like what I saw in CMYK mode, 523 but a lot of people think 524 that you can't have more vivid colors like this in CMYK mode 525 and that's because they've come over here 526 and converted to CMYK mode 527 'cause they needed to do that to print on a printing press. 528 And when they did, this comes up 529 and there's good reason it asks you every time. 530 And that's because if you have layers 531 and any of those layers have soft edges 532 and especially any vivid colors that fade out, 533 then it's gonna look better if the layers 534 are combined together when the image is still in RGB mode. 535 If you choose don't flatten, 536 then the colors suddenly might look bad. 537 Lemme choose undo so we're back in RGB mode 538 and let's convert one more time to CMYK 539 and this time, I'm gonna choose flatten 540 and therefore, the layers will be combined in RGB mode 541 before it gets to CMYK. 542 Look, it looks exactly the same as what I saw in RGB mode. 543 It's exactly what I wanted. 544 And even though I created the original in CMYK mode 545 and I tried to spec the most vivid green I could get, 546 it didn't look anywhere near this nice and green. 547 If you don't remember, I'll just choose revert 548 and that'll bring this image back to its original, 549 which was made in CMYK mode. 550 All right, then let's say you went 551 to look at your image using your computer, not Photoshop, 552 and you decided you wanted to click on an image 553 and at least on the Mac, 554 you can press this space bar to view it. 555 And this is not what this image looks like. 556 Sure, it does have an iguana like that, 557 but let me open it up in Photoshop, 558 I'll just double click on it. 559 That's the image. And let's go back. 560 And when I hit the space bar, that's what I see 561 for what's known as quick look. 562 I think I have another one right here. Also looks weird. 563 Let's open that one up. 564 When I open it in Photoshop though, it looks normal. 565 Why the heck does that happen? 566 Well, you're gonna find that that might happen 567 if you use Photoshop file format. 568 That's what these were saved in. 569 And you've saved something into your channels panel. 570 Whenever you use the Photoshop file format, 571 it looks at the very first what's known as alpha channel, 572 which means the one that's not called red, green, 573 and blue, anything below that. 574 The very first one, it thinks that 575 that should define the transparency 576 of that image in only the areas that are white 577 in here will appear. 578 And if I go to the other image, 579 it's the same thing right here. 580 That's what's causing it to happen. So how do you fix it? 581 Well, if you're gonna save stuff down here 582 in your channels panel, that's perfectly fine. 583 Just add an extra one 584 and make sure that that extra one is full of white. 585 Here I'll invert this one 'cause it started out as black 586 and just put it so it's the very first one 587 because that very first one is the one that is used 588 by the Mac operating system 589 when you end up having a Photoshop file format image 590 to determine if anything should look transparent. 591 So now I can take this image 592 and I'll choose save 593 to save it right back into the original file. 594 Let's close that one up and let's do the same for here. 595 Just go to channels 596 and I'll end up creating a brand new channel, 597 if I don't bump things. 598 I'll type Command + I 'cause that's a shortcut for Invert. 599 And I'll just put it as the very first channel that's there 600 and then I'll type Command + S to save it. 601 And when it's done, we'll close it 602 and go inspect those two files. 603 All right, here is our first image looking just fine. 604 And here is our second image. 605 On occasion, you might get a message 606 that comes up when you're working on a complex huge document 607 that says your scratch disks are full. 608 What that means is that image takes up a lot of memory 609 to be able to contain it within Photoshop 610 and you don't have enough memory installed in your computer 611 where it could hold the entirety of that picture 612 in that limited memory. 613 So what it's doing is it's starting to use your hard drive 614 as a substitute from memory. 615 A hard drive is much slower, so Photoshop will run slower 616 at that point, but it might start using up a good amount 617 of space on your drive. 618 And if your drive is close to full, suddenly, 619 that's gonna fill the drive 620 and that's when it says your scratch disks are full. 621 So you could go empty your trash 622 and throw away any files you don't need 623 and then it would have more space to work with. 624 But if you have more than one hard drive connected 625 to your machine, we can make it 626 so if it uses one drive 627 and it creates that little scratch disk file 628 and it balloons to fill up that drive, instead of giving you 629 that error message, it could switch over 630 and use your second drive. 631 So lemme show you how to do that. 632 I'm gonna come up here and choose settings. 633 This would be found under the edit menu 634 if I was in Windows. 635 I'm gonna choose scratch disks. 636 And here if you have more than one drive available, 637 it will list all your drives. 638 And notice, there's a checkbox 639 that'll usually be the hard drive that you booted from. 640 And you might find that here where it says free space, 641 that this might be a really low number. 642 And if that's the case, then turn on this other checkbox. 643 And that means when this drive fills up, 644 start using the second drive. 645 The other thing you can do is if one 646 of those two drives is faster than the other, 647 then click on whichever drive is faster. 648 And over here you have an up and down arrow. 649 Put it so that the fastest drive is at the top 650 because it's gonna slow down Photoshop 651 when it starts substituting your hard drive for memory. 652 And so you'd rather have it start with the fastest drive. 653 Well, this is not my fastest drive, 654 so I'm gonna put it back down at the bottom. 655 After doing so, click OK and then quit 656 and restart Photoshop. 657 And then it will be able to utilize both of those drives. 658 Then my final tip is if something is acting odd in Photoshop 659 and you can't figure any setting that will fix it, 660 and you just have done all you can 661 and whatever it is just hasn't resolved the issue, 662 then consider coming up here to your settings. 663 Choose general, 664 and you're gonna find a choice right here 665 called reset preferences on quit. 666 Click that button 667 and then click OK and quit Photoshop. 668 Start Photoshop back up again 669 and it will start off with a fresh preferences file. 670 And oftentimes, that ends up fixing really odd issues. 671 So there you go. 672 That's my general advice for how to think 673 about troubleshooting in Photoshop. 674 The first thing is to look at what's active 675 in the Layers panel to make sure that you've targeted 676 what you really think you need to work on. 677 See if there's any selections active, 678 see what mode the picture's in, 679 because sometimes that's going to limit what you can do. 680 And then there's all sorts 681 of those other tips that we went through. 682 And if you can't figure it out still after that, 683 reset your preferences, 684 it will most likely fix an issue.