Sweet mother of Cthulhu!

[Caenwyr]

Hey all,

This is a little story about a horrible Photoshop experience I just had, and how Dropbox saved the day.

So I was working on this map, slaving away at a variable scale, when something utterly weird and terribly catastrophic happened. "Photoshop crashing?" I hear you think, but noooo, it was far worse than that. Suddenly, and without ANY provocation, some of my text labels started appearing all over the image. Which was actually a smart object within the main map PSD file. I try to select them with the text tool: no succes. I try to single them out by deactivating all layers one by one, and discover they are merged to the background layer. So I think "right, I just need to delete that and replace it with a new layer", but that failed completely! Even removing the layer didn't change a thing. As soon as I re-added a background layer, the text labels re-appeared as well.

So I think: "okay, let's save this thing, close it down and reopen it." But the minute I close the smart object, Photoshop takes me back to the full map... and there the random text labels are as well. Just many, many more of them. I try to single them out again, and horror slowly starts creeping up on me. They're everywhere. In every large group, on several layers. Hardcopied, and un-erasable. delete the layer, create another one, and there they are again.

Now don't go thinking it's just a mask or something. I checked that. I even copied some of the layers to a new image (with no masks, weird channels or whatnot present), and still those damn labels were there.

So I save the document and close Photoshop. I even restart my computer. I even open up the document on another machine. The labels are still there. "Maybe it's just a display thing", I think, so I save the image to JPG, and this is what I get:

Krastvin_20.jpg

Notice that damn grid of roman numerals? Yeah, those originally came from the "variable scale" smart object (in the bottom right). And now they're everywhere! Saving has made it all permanent. I should never have saved it!

And then it hits me. Of course! I do all of this in a Dropbox folder! So I close down Photoshop, go to the Dropbox website, open up the history of my PSD file and restore the most recent version, the save I did right before everything went crazy. And there everything is, taken back to a clean map... All I had to do was redo the work of the last few minutes, and I was back in business.

So this is the lesson of today, sweet children:

save often and do it religiously, but do it in a folder that keeps all older versions as well. Dropbox does that, but so do several others (OneDrive, Google Drive etc etc). If ever you do something terribly stupid AND save your mistake, Dropbox or its alternatives are there to come to the rescue.

The more you know

[Voolf]

Good you could recovered the file. I think all of us had at least once simillar situation.
Doesn't PS have a function when you save on hard drive to atuamaticly make backup file from current one?

This is set as default in Krita and saved me already 2 times. One time i messed around with the map to try new things and just thought i will close file and reopen without saving later. Unfortunately i accidently hit save shortcut and overwrite the file. I was about to panic but when i opened folder with the file i realized there is a backup file made automaticly (which is alway the previously saved file).

Second time after 30 minuted of work i saved the file and THEN realized i was drawing on the wrong layer. Again i could recoved file from the backup. It is so neat function. I would probably went mad already if i would not have a backup files, which are created atutamaticly every time i save.

[Caenwyr]

Oh, I didn't know that! Must definitely check that out.

Also, how weird is it to have those text labels pop up all over the place, all the way through your stack of layers? This must be a PS bug of some kind, but I'm not even able to explain exactly what it was!

[Voolf]

I have no clue, it indeed sounds bizzare, never seen something like this.

[Josiah VE]

Wow, that sounds bizarre. But wow, good thing you had that backup.

[Jaxilon]

One of those moments of ever increasing stressful anxiety as you gradually realize how wrecked you are. I hate that horrible feeling you get in your gut where you feel like you might throw up.
Then to find a backup or (on one of mine, PS automatically asked if I wanted to recover after a system crash) you are SAVED!!! It's like the clouds parting to reveal a lovely sun after a rainstorm.

Whew! Happy for you.

[ladiestorm]

I started doing this with cc3+ a while back. For those of you who use cc3+ is to put a .# are the end of your fcw name, and raise the # each time you save.

cc3+ crashes every once in a while, plus I've been know to really screw up a map once in a while. It's good to know that if there is a problem, I have an earlier save to.go back to.

[Runninghead]

Hey all,

This is a little story about a horrible Photoshop experience I just had, and how Dropbox saved the day.

So I was working on this map, slaving away at a variable scale, when something utterly weird and terribly catastrophic happened. "Photoshop crashing?" I hear you think, but noooo, it was far worse than that. Suddenly, and without ANY provocation, some of my text labels started appearing all over the image. Which was actually a smart object within the main map PSD file. I try to select them with the text tool: no succes. I try to single them out by deactivating all layers one by one, and discover they are merged to the background layer. So I think "right, I just need to delete that and replace it with a new layer", but that failed completely! Even removing the layer didn't change a thing. As soon as I re-added a background layer, the text labels re-appeared as well.

So I think: "okay, let's save this thing, close it down and reopen it." But the minute I close the smart object, Photoshop takes me back to the full map... and there the random text labels are as well. Just many, many more of them. I try to single them out again, and horror slowly starts creeping up on me. They're everywhere. In every large group, on several layers. Hardcopied, and un-erasable. delete the layer, create another one, and there they are again.

Now don't go thinking it's just a mask or something. I checked that. I even copied some of the layers to a new image (with no masks, weird channels or whatnot present), and still those damn labels were there.

So I save the document and close Photoshop. I even restart my computer. I even open up the document on another machine. The labels are still there. "Maybe it's just a display thing", I think, so I save the image to JPG, and this is what I get:

Krastvin_20.jpg

Notice that damn grid of roman numerals? Yeah, those originally came from the "variable scale" smart object (in the bottom right). And now they're everywhere! Saving has made it all permanent. I should never have saved it!

And then it hits me. Of course! I do all of this in a Dropbox folder! So I close down Photoshop, go to the Dropbox website, open up the history of my PSD file and restore the most recent version, the save I did right before everything went crazy. And there everything is, taken back to a clean map... All I had to do was redo the work of the last few minutes, and I was back in business.

So this is the lesson of today, sweet children:

save often and do it religiously, but do it in a folder that keeps all older versions as well. Dropbox does that, but so do several others (OneDrive, Google Drive etc etc). If ever you do something terribly stupid AND save your mistake, Dropbox or its alternatives are there to come to the rescue.

The more you know

That's another great looking map Caenwyr. I love stories like this- it's good to know you're far from alone when Photoshop horrors crop up. Ia ia ftagn!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk