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limey

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I scanned a photo into PS and then tried to work with it but find my cursor changes to a round circle with a line through it. I can't use any tools on it but I can bring up another photo and everything is normal with that photo.
I notice there is a padlock shown on the layer for the picture but don't know how it got there.
Would appreciate any suggestions. [confused]
 
Hi limey. Is the layer also named 'Background layer'? If so it is normal to have a lock on it. The background layer can't support transparency so many tools don't work on it. In that case, double click on the layer to make it a floating layer and totally editable.

If it isn't named Background layer, it might well be locked. At the top of the layers palette are four icons beneath the Blend Mode menu. One of them is a Lock. Is that icon darkened and the other three icons which are Lock Transparency, Lock Movement, and Lock Pixels are lighter, click on the Lock all icon to unlock the image.

There is one more issue which can crop up in Macs, and that is that the permissions on the file are set to read only. In that case you need to use Get Info and change the permissions to Read and Write... it's a UNIX thing. I don't know if Windows has anything similar.

Does that help any?
 
Hehe to add to that if its PS 7 {not sure about the CS tools] make sure youre using 8 bit and not 16 bit as well.
 
I've had this 'apparent' problem too.
It's because when you use the TWAIN function in PS to scan a photo, you have to close the scanning software before PS can take sole control of the document. Until then, the scanner is still in 'control' of things.

Once you shut down the scanning app PS will give you access to the tools and whatnot.

Hopefully anyway... :D
 
Well guys I went down the list of suggestions,
Welles I first tried to double click on the Background Layer but that didn't do anything.
Next I tried clicking on the padlock icon but all four icons were dimmed and the Get Info thing wasn't an issue.
Joe couldn't click on the padlock as it was not available.

Keeper the scanner was turned off so that wasn't the issue either.
It looks like Kiwi wins the kewpie doll, it was set on 16 bit and as soon as I changed it to 8 everything worked ok.

Thanks to all of you guys for your great suggestions I always know I can count on you to come up with the right answer .
Happy Thanksgiving to all that celebrate it. :}
 
hahaha excellent! See what can be done with an endless supply of help?!

Good stuff people! Another problem thwarted! :perfect: :} 8))
 
I don't have a scanner, but couldn't sending it to IR, then saving it as a .psd -- then sending back over to PS do the trick?
 
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