Photoshop CS4 Freezes when opening PDFs

[billy_mit...@adobeforums.com]

When I drag two, 2-page PDFs onto Photoshop CS4 to open them, PS opens one page of one PDF and then freezes. I can replicate this every time I try.

Once PS freezes it takes a little patience to get it to force quit.

Any advice?

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

billy,

Is it only these two PDFs? Or any? If just these two, I would suspect corrupted or improperly formed PDFs or perhaps corrupted embedded fonts.

Neil

[billy_mit...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the quick inquiry.

It appears to be ANY two PDFs of more than one page.

These are PDFS created thru InDesign (both CS3 and CS4), from fairly straightforward files. It's been part of our workflow for years, and no other version of Photoshop has had this problem.

Thanks for any help!
b

[Buko]

CS4 opens PDFs made with ID just fine.

can you open PDFs in a New User?

[billy_mit...@adobeforums.com]

It opens one PDF at a time just fine.

If I try opening more than one multi-page PDF at the same time, Photoshop stalls. There are 4 of us here who have been upgraded from CS3 and it happens to all of us, on different PDFs.

[billy_mit...@adobeforums.com]

I just tried opening a 2-page user manual from online and a 5-page report from another office. If I drag both PDFs onto PS in the dock, it opens one page of one PDF and then dies.

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

billy,

Do you get prompted to select which page in the multipage PDF you wish to open?

Hmmmmmmm.......

Tell us about your computer. OS, RAM, free hard drive space, amount of memory allocated to Photoshop...

Neil

[billy_mit...@adobeforums.com]

We all have OS X 10.5.6, my mac is a 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 10 Gb RAM .. the other machines are similar, although one of them is not Intel .. with plenty of memory (22GB+) dedicated to PS.

We get the page-selection prompt, and one page of one PDF will open, and that's when PS freezes. The other page and the second PDF will not open.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

with plenty of memory (22GB+)

Could you clarify? If that is really 22 GB of RAM, you obviously have more than enough. But if you really mean 22GB of available disk space, that would be inadequate for Photoshop's scratch disk. Sometimes, folks refer to disk space as memory, which it is not.

[billy_mit...@adobeforums.com]

10GB of RAM, 22GB dedicated scratch space, with more room to grow if needed.

If anyone tries duplicating the problem, please let me know how it goes. If we try to open multi-page PDFs one at a time they are fine, but dragging & dropping more than one multi-page PDF onto PS in the dock causes the crash.

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

billy,

22GB dedicated scratch space,

Physical RAM is certainly OK. But, with this little scratch disk space, all bets are off. Free up about 100 GB and try again.

Neil

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

billy,

22GB dedicated scratch space,

Physical RAM is certainly OK. But, with this little scratch disk space, all bets are off. Free up about 100 GB or greater and try again.

Neil

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Billy,

Glad I asked. My scrtach drive is a dedicated 160GB physically separate hard drive, others have a lot more, even six times the amount I run.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Billy,

If anyone tries duplicating the problem, please let me know how it goes.
If we try to open multi-page PDFs one at a time they are fine, but dragging
& dropping more than one multi-page PDF onto PS in the dock causes the
crash

Not trying to be flippant, but I sure don't picture myself ever doing that. As a matter of fact, I don't think I have ever have a need to open even a single multi-page PDF in Photoshop. I'd be curious to know what workflow requires it.

However, with your very limited disk space, I'm not surprised Photoshop crashes on you. :/

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Ramón,

I don't think I have ever have a need to open even a single multi-page
PDF in Photoshop.

We've occasionally opened PDFs in Photoshop to incorporate them or parts of them as components of other Photoshop art.

But, short of image extraction, I'd consider it a destructive workflow for most purposes.

Neil

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Neil,

Why not open them in Acrobat? Just curious.

[Buko]

Because They are being used as part of another piece of art work.

or if you want a small Jpeg of a magazine cover.

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Ramón,

Buko nailed it, like he's looking over my shoulder....a tad scary! <LOL>

We've used resized or configured PDFs of package art, magazine covers, brochures, ads, etc. (originally created in Illustrator or page layout apps) as components of Web portfolio pages and client catalog pages. We've also used PDFs of flat art of packages to make 3-D "beauty shots" from them. PDF/X-1a files are small, high-res, and very easy to repurpose this way.

Neil

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Ramón,

Buko nailed it, like he's looking over my shoulder....a tad scary! <LOL>

We've rasterized resized or configured PDFs in Photoshop of package art, magazine covers, brochures, ads, etc. as components of Web portfolio pages and client catalog pages. We've also used PDFs of flat art of packages to make 3-D "beauty shots" from them. PDF/X-1a files are small, high-res, and very easy to repurpose this way -- easier than working directly with Illustrator or page layout pages.

Neil

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, Buko and Neil.

[Buko]

easier than working directly with Illustrator or page layout pages.

Yup.

[billy_mit...@adobeforums.com]

I appreciate everyone's input & time -- but I am wondering if any of you have tried replicating the process? I know my dedicated RAM & scratch is apparently insufficient (although I successfully open very large, multi-layer PS files without incident) .. What would really help me out is if any of you try it and succeed, or if you try it and crash like we're all doing.

If it crashes those of you with significantly more operating power, then I would consider it a fairly obvious bug.

Please let me know if you try it.

In the meantime, I will increase my RAM & scratch space to see if it makes a difference.

Also, thanks to those who explained the need for this step as part of a workflow .. although I think that got all of us sidetracked, my department sends out links for client approval all day, and InDesign's direct-export jpegs are not always rasterized smoothly on complicated files, so we export PDFs and open them to save for web.

All day.

So this is really something I need to solve.

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

billy,

I just simultaneously opened two multi-page PDFs (each PDF page was product packaging art containing text plus vector and pixel-based graphics) in Photoshop CS4. All I had to do was choose which page I wanted opened for each file. It was quick and painless.

This was on a G5 Dual 1.8 GHz with just 4 GB RAM and about 80 GB scratch disk space, running Mac OS 10.4.11.

Neil

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

billy,

I just simultaneously opened two multi-page PDFs (each PDF page was product packaging art containing text plus vector and pixel-based graphics) in Photoshop CS4. All I had to do was choose which page I wanted opened for each file. It was quick and painless.

This was on a G5 Dual 1.8 GHz with just 4 GB RAM and about 120 GB scratch disk space, running Mac OS 10.4.11.

Neil

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

my department sends out links for client approval all day, and InDesign's
direct-export jpegs are not always rasterized smoothly on complicated
files, so we export PDFs and open them to save for web.

Not that it addresses the problem, but I don't understand why these PDFs have to be opened in Photoshop. Why can't the PDFs simply be available on line as PDFs?

Neil

[billy_mit...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the report, Neil!

To answer your question, we send links to our clients because we (unfortunately) have to cater to the lowest common denominator. Some of our approvals come from clients checking links on their Blackberries or iPhones, and there are also some who seem never to be able to open or view PDFs (despite no one else having any trouble!).

Unfortunately, I have increased my scratch space (to nearly 300GB) and I am still having the freeze problem. This time more than one page of the first PDF opened, but I was unable to select any tab other than the frontmost, and the second PDF never opened at all. And I'm testing it with the simplest possible PDFs (simple text, 20-40k, 2 pages).

I see that you're on a G5, and I have an Intel. Also, you are on OS X 10.4.11, and I am on 10.5.6, so possibly it's a hardware or OS issue.

Insert head-scratching sound here.

[Pau...@adobeforums.com]

You could try my PDF Processor and see if that helps..
<http://www.ps-scripts.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1882>

[Buko]

Does CS4 crash in a new user?

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

billy,

Don't recall offhand, but did you try to reset Photoshop preferences?

Neil