Help! I broke my Photoshop.

[Redcrown]

Photoshop CC version 20.0.0 (one version back) on Windows 10 version 1803 build 17134.376.

Suddenly, Photoshop color blends are wacky. Not sure when it started, but I suspect recently.

Example 1: I add a solid color fill layer in color mode over a monochrome image. Then I cycle through some colors. A solid blue color gives a magenta image. Solid red gives a mostly monochrome image. Solid green gives a (correct) green color. Colors in between are all wrong depending on the RGB mix.

Example 2: I create a new white document. Then add a solid color fill layer in Normal mode. Then I add a second solid color fill layer but set the mode to Color in the create dialogue. Photoshop crashes and asks me to send a report. Does not crash if I add the solid color layer in Normal mode and then change to color in the Layers pallet. But it also crashes trying to fill a blank layer with 50% gray.

I've tried the usual suspects. I have trashed preferences and turned the GPU on and off. Neither make any difference. I still have an old copy of Photoshop CC 2018 version 19.0 installed. It works OK, no color blend problems. So it looks like something inside Photoshop CC 2019. I'm out of guesses. Any suggestions of what to look at or try?

I have not changed anything Photoshop in a long time (months). I did update Lightroom a month ago. Dropbox updated itself a week ago. Chrome last updated itself 3 weeks ago. Nothing else since last May.

[Redcrown]

Nevermind and disregard. Found that this is a known problem and invoking "legacy compositing" in Preferences fixes it. I have a vague "deja vu" about that, and needing to turn on legacy compositing way back when I first upgraded to CC. I suspect now that legacy compositing mysteriously got turned off on my system after being on for months. All is OK again.

[fdisilvestro]

That issue has been solved in the latest version (at least for me). Is there any particular reason you have not updated to 20.0.5?

[Redcrown]

Thanks. It's just that I suffered too many BSODs in my youth, so I avoid all software updates until absolutely necessary. Google "Microsoft Update Breaks..."

Also, I'm a long term Bridge user, not Lightroom. Every one of the last 5 Adobe updates of Camera Raw forced Bridge to re-cache its entire library. There is a long history of that problem in threads on the Adobe forum. Over 30,000 images in my case, means hours of processing to rebuild the Bridge cache. The only feature of merit in the latest PS update is the Texture adjustment. I can use Lightroom in the rare case I want Texture. I hope to wait for the next update to install.

[nirpat89]

Also, I'm a long term Bridge user, not Lightroom. Every one of the last 5 Adobe updates of Camera Raw forced Bridge to re-cache its entire library. There is a long history of that problem in threads on the Adobe forum. Over 30,000 images in my case, means hours of processing to rebuild the Bridge cache.

Couldn't you simply move the old cache away before upgrading and then move it back to place of the new location. 

[Redcrown]

Couldn't you simply move the old cache away before upgrading and then move it back to place of the new location.

No, that does not work. The issue is not caused by the upgrade itself. It happens during operation.

You upgrade, the old cache is left in tact, but when you navigate Bridge to a folder the first time, it compares the full images in the folder to the existing (old) cache and decides that all the cache data is out of date. So it re-caches.

It is definitely caused by ACR. After an upgrade I can "roll back" the Camera Raw.8bi file only and no re-caching occurs. With the upgrade to CC 20.0, Adobe changed the structure of the cache files (and actually made it worse), so re-caching was unfortunately necessary.

There are probably not many Bridge users left, so I doubt Adobe is giving the issue any attention.

[nirpat89]

No, that does not work. The issue is not caused by the upgrade itself. It happens during operation.

You upgrade, the old cache is left in tact, but when you navigate Bridge to a folder the first time, it compares the full images in the folder to the existing (old) cache and decides that all the cache data is out of date. So it re-caches.

It is definitely caused by ACR. After an upgrade I can "roll back" the Camera Raw.8bi file only and no re-caching occurs. With the upgrade to CC 20.0, Adobe changed the structure of the cache files (and actually made it worse), so re-caching was unfortunately necessary.

There are probably not many Bridge users left, so I doubt Adobe is giving the issue any attention.

I must be the other guy who still uses Bridge.  No LR for me yet.  I am set in my ways and hate to change.  You don't know what new quirk lurks in the so-called latest and the greatest.  I am still using 2014 version of Ps.  (So thankfully not aware of the issues with the 20.x version.)  Just recently upgraded to the new Bridge (from 6.x to the latest 9.x) that also upgraded to the new ACR automatically.  My folders are usually small, typically 10-20 files, so re-caching is not that time consuming and I may not have noticed that as a problem.  In my case, the upgrade seems to have created a new location for the cache from the one I was using in the older version.  Of course, if the format changes with the newer version, then the old cache becomes incompatible even if you copy that one to the new location.

Speaking of the new Bridge version, as far as I could tell there was not much new in the 9.x version compared to my older version, except may be being able to customize background colors separately for various panels.  The way it displays the star/label system, something I rely on quite a bit, is horrible (though it improved a bit in the latest update.)  It also takes much longer time to load once you open it unlike the older version where it is instantaneous.  I am also finding that when I am adding key words to several files at the same time, it gives an error (no such error in the older version.)  In addition, they have not fixed this indexing error (I think it is) that drives me up the wall when using smart collections which is my primary way of keeping track of files under development.  All in all a disappointment - so I recently reverted back to using the the 5+ year old version.  Go figure!

:Niranjan.

[fdisilvestro]

It is not that there are no Bridge users left. The nature of a "Cache" is of a temporary storage to improve performance of the application, so there is no expectation of keeping it forever as in a database, even if in the case of Bridge it is based on a SQLite database (the same used by LR). The data structure may change with each Bridge version and it has to be reconstructed.

If you need a stable database or catalog that would be updated (not re-created) and can be maintained, you should seriously consider LR.