PS CC 2014 Photomerge broken

[Wayne Fox]

PS cc 2014 merge to pano on my MacBook Pro is completely broken.  Basically it just gives me slices, pretty much vertical, with a little warp to try and match things up.  No effort at all to blend density differences together. Tried to make the same pano on my Mac Pro, works no problem. Then tried with PS CC on the laptop, no problem.

So I uninstalled/re-installed PS CC 2014, same results.  Completely stumped.  Is there something stashed away in a library that doesn't get deleted with I uninstall?  Any ideas welcome ...

[howardm]

I will have to give that a try.  I'm currently in Maine and have a number of candidate pano source files; CS6 and PTgui9 have been good (although CS6 leaves some visual artifacts at certain viewing %s)

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

PS cc 2014 merge to pano on my MacBook Pro is completely broken.  Basically it just gives me slices, pretty much vertical, with a little warp to try and match things up.  No effort at all to blend density differences together. Tried to make the same pano on my Mac Pro, works no problem. Then tried with PS CC on the laptop, no problem.

So I uninstalled/re-installed PS CC 2014, same results.  Completely stumped.  Is there something stashed away in a library that doesn't get deleted with I uninstall?  Any ideas welcome ...

Wayne.  I have had some what might be described as “interesting” merge results on my MacBook Pro.  You've probably tried this but, I found I needed to tinker with the ‘Layout’ method in the opening dialogue box.  I also found that sometimes the laptop needed a restart and, in a hot climate, to cool-off before behaving correctly.  I have no idea why, and no idea why the MacBook seems to behave differently from my desktop Mac; nor why it only does this from time to time.  I put it down to ‘processor overload’ (?!).  I have found this has been the case on iterations of Photoshop since CS5.1.  BTW my laptop is only a modest 13 inch mid-2009.

I hope this is not a red herring.  Best wishes and good luck !

[Mark D Segal]

PS cc 2014 merge to pano on my MacBook Pro is completely broken.  Basically it just gives me slices, pretty much vertical, with a little warp to try and match things up.  No effort at all to blend density differences together. Tried to make the same pano on my Mac Pro, works no problem. Then tried with PS CC on the laptop, no problem.

So I uninstalled/re-installed PS CC 2014, same results.  Completely stumped.  Is there something stashed away in a library that doesn't get deleted with I uninstall?  Any ideas welcome ...

Hi Wayne,

The fact that the very same application works properly on your desktop but not your laptop, and knowing you are completely savvy in dealing with software etc., leads one to strongly suspect you are facing a hardware constraint with the laptop. I believe some of the algorithms we now use are very RAM-intensive, so the thought crossed my mind that perhaps your laptop is RAM-constrained, or needs more parallel processing power than the number of virtual processors you have in the laptop. It may be worthwhile consulting with one of Adobe's relevant engineers on this issue, as often the stated hardware specs for software is the minimum and not the practically useful. Sorry I can't be more specifically helpful as I have not tried to process panos on my laptop.

[mcbroomf]

Is this the issue you're seeing?

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1543491

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Hi Wayne,

The fact that the very same application works properly on your desktop but not your laptop, and knowing you are completely savvy in dealing with software etc., leads one to strongly suspect you are facing a hardware constraint with the laptop. I believe some of the algorithms we now use are very RAM-intensive, so the thought crossed my mind that perhaps your laptop is RAM-constrained, or needs more parallel processing power than the number of virtual processors you have in the laptop. It may be worthwhile consulting with one of Adobe's relevant engineers on this issue, as often the stated hardware specs for software is the minimum and not the practically useful. Sorry I can't be more specifically helpful as I have not tried to process panos on my laptop.

+1

This would seem to be confirmed by my experience with my MacBook Pro Mid-2009, which lacks the bells and whistles processing power of the desktop Mac.

[Paul2660]

The fact it ran OK with CC on the same laptop, to points to CC 2014.  As far as I can tell there is no difference in the photomerge function in CC and CC 2014.  I use both extensively and can't see any differences, in fact no differences between CS6 and CC 2014.  The feature and options are all the same.  This function doesn't seem to have been improved much over the various versions. 

Paul

[Wayne Fox]

thanks for the feedback, especially the link.  It does sound related.  As far as the MacBook being underpowered, this is the most recent Macbook (well, I guess a week ago they updated them again), with max ram (which isn't as much as I'd like) so more power than most others on a Mac,  and normally things just run slower, they don't quit working.  the issues in the link definitely sound related, although it doesn't explain why it works just fine on the MacPro.

that being said, it turns out I haven't updated PS CC 2014 on the MacPro, so it's still version 2014.0.0 where as the MacBook Pro is running 2014.1.0.  At this point I'm guessing something broke as mentioned by Adobe. This was as it relates to focus stacking but guessing the same engine drives the merge option in pano's as well.

Wish I could figure out how to downgrade my Laptop back to 2014.0.0 ... for now guess I'll have to make tiffs and then merge them in PS CC or PTgui.  Not a big deal since I have to make tiffs from C1 most of the time anyway since I moved to the technical camera for capture. 

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Thanks for this Wayne.

It does sound like a CC 2014 related issue, then.  I'll try mine (2014 latest) on the laggardly laptop and see what I get.

Apologies, therefore, for what seems to be a red herring.

[Paul2660]

Wayne, with the latest version on win7 64 same issues.  I get a basically 3 parts with very poor blending image.  Definitely can see all the edges from a 3 image stitch from a 105mm Rod and IQ160.  Same 3 files in CC (not updated) rendered perfectly, as did Ptjui. 

Hopefully Adobe will address soon with a fix.

Paul

[Mark D Segal]

I agree with Simon - latest info suggests an Adobe CC-2014 issue. Reading those linked Forum postings does not give one confidence in the state of QC at Adobe - so many bugs reported. While a bit OT, if valid it does make one wonder why. Once they have us on the subscription tread-mill, it would seem a win-win for them and for us to make sure the changed features work properly before releasing updates.

[Paul2660]

I agree with Simon - latest info suggests an Adobe CC-2014 issue. Reading those linked Forum postings does not give one confidence in the state of QC at Adobe - so many bugs reported. While a bit OT, if valid it does make one wonder why. Once they have us on the subscription tread-mill, it would seem a win-win for them and for us to make sure the changed features work properly before releasing updates.

Yes, they have a QC issues and their "tech" support" also has issues.  I pointed out 2 weeks ago, that once you updated Adobe CC 2014, bridge no longer would open images into photoshop layers in CC anymore.   It still opens files and browses them fine.  If you try, it just que's them up waiting for you to open CC 2014, unless you reboot.  Adobe's answer was "just uninstall Adobe 2014 CC".  IMO stupid answer as bridge should see the open version and go from there, not que up waiting on CC 2014 to open. 

One answer I received from this forum was "I can't understand why you still need CC", this is exactly why.  Things like this, that can totally stop a workflow.  I use adobe's photomerge often if not daily and had not seen this issue on CC 2014, but I also only updated it last Friday.  Like Wayne points out, there is no way to get a earlier release of CC 2014, once you update.  I have a image of this drive I can fall back to where I still have 2014 CC non updated, and I guess I will fall back to that.   Currently CC 2014 has trouble with even the most basic photomerges, ones from a tech camera where the back is moved, so the files basically just line up, besides the need for exposure blending, which is where it's failing on my system.

As I stated before I don't think they changed anything at all in the photomerge function as they are the same as in CC, but they obviously changed something in 2014 CC that effects it. 

I also realize it's hard to test all features etc on a new release and how the effect current features, but this is par for the course with current practice. 

Paul

[kirkt]

If it makes you feel any better, I cannot even quit PS CC 2014 on my Mac running Mavericks without the application crashing on exit.  This is apparently a known problem that supposedly has something to do with Style presets or something completely inane like that.  I have tried some of the suggested remedies and they do not prevent the crash at exit, leading me to believe that the problem is currently unknown.

I am currently treating PS CC 2014 as a beta product at this point and see no reason to use it until Adobe gets it worked out.

Sorry to hear of your frustration.

kirk

[Wayne Fox]

If it makes you feel any better, I cannot even quit PS CC 2014 on my Mac running Mavericks without the application crashing on exit.  This is apparently a known problem that supposedly has something to do with Style presets or something completely inane like that.  I have tried some of the suggested remedies and they do not prevent the crash at exit, leading me to believe that the problem is currently unknown.

I am currently treating PS CC 2014 as a beta product at this point and see no reason to use it until Adobe gets it worked out.

Sorry to hear of your frustration.

kirk

I had that problem with CS 6.  Only on one computer.  Tried everything, couldn't fix it, but didn't really care because it only happened when I was quitting anyway, so I didn't care i it "crashed to quit" or quit gracefully.  Never was an issue when I relaunched it.  Howerver, it for me I probably something wrong somewhere on my Mac, because when I started fresh with new software installs for everything with my last powerbook, the problem went away.  I'm not sure what the problem is, but I wouldn't rule out something unique as the issue.

And just to clarify this thread a little, this is not a PS cc 2014 issue, it's a PS CC 2014.1 issue.  Unfortunately you can't install the original 2014 anymore, so if you haven't updated yet and want to use any photo merge functions, don't update.  The only other option is to use PS CC, which works fine other than you can't send the merge job straight from lightroom, forcing you to make tiff files.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Wayne.  I tried a 15 image merge (PS CC 2014.1) to panorama on my laptop (one I had done previously and successfully with PS CS 5.1).  It took about 40 minutes(!), the temperature of the processor reaching 94ºC at one point despite having the aircon on and the laptop lifted on a bar to effect cooling.

The result was a perfectly acceptable panorama with no peculiar shapes nor sections not joining.  I used "Auto" in the dialogue.

Two differences that may have nothing to do with this.  I used Bridge to launch into the Photoshop merge script (having not yet discovered how to make Lightroom do this); and I am still on OSX Lion 10.7.5.

My recollection is that PS CS 5.1 accomplished this task rather quicker than PS CC 2014.1 but it was a few years ago that I first made this panorama and my memory may be dulled by the passing of time.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

OK.  Just found out how to do this with Lightroom (simple really).

I tried three images from the same series and the panorama was accomplished in just a few minutes.  No untoward effects.  Laptop refrained from melting.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I tried three images from the same series and the panorama was accomplished in just a few minutes.  No untoward effects.  Laptop refrained from melting.

Hi Simon,

I do have my doubts about the efficiency of the merging operation in Photoshop (besides potential bugs) when you use more (and large) image tiles. Have you also tried to compare the performance on the same 15 image stitch out of Lightroom, instead of just 3 images?

Photoshop seems to require loads of memory for its stacking/merging operations (getting progressively worse/slower with each additional image tile), where as e.g. dedicated programs like PTGUI only use a modest RAM memory footprint, and are still blazing fast given the amount of data that needs to be processed. In addition PTGUI and similar programs offer lots of control over the process, which can be very useful in less straightforward scenarios.

Cheers,
Bart

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

Thanks Bart.

I will take a look at you two suggestions.

Simon