Templates don't work with Vista..

Dear Designers of Clothes, Skins, and the like with rise of the Vista O/S comes a change in how it understands the templates. Chip yours downloaded but was all full of computer language in alpha and alpha/numeric form as opposed to the skirt itself or which ever one a Vista user downloads. Some helpful hints please....

Em, did you switch versions of PS? which paint program are you trying to load them in?

I've been using Vista for nigh on 9 months now with no problems with any of the templates. Did you try re-downloading them? Maybe they got corrupted in the download.

I'll agree with Dante that it's not a Vista issue. I've used Photoshop under many different operating systems over the years, including Vista. With the exception of the occasional corrupted file here and there, I've never met a PSD that Photoshop couldn't read properly, regardless of the OS.

I'd be willing to be that what you're experiencing, Em, is just that, data corruption. If so, it could be the result of a botched download, as Dante suggested, or perhaps you've got hard drive troubles.

It's also possible that your paint program is not fully Vista compliant. If the paint program is old, this is likely.

Or perhaps your paint program isn't fully capable of reading PSD files. If it's something other than Photoshop, or a relatively recent version of Paintshop Pro or GIMP, then that could very well be the problem.

Another possibility is that this could be yet another Photoshop 7.0 issue. I'm having a little trouble understanding your description of the problem, but your wording seems to suggest the problem is manifesting itself in the alpha channel. If that is what you meant (hard to tell since you used the words "alpha" and "alphanumeric" so closely together), then 7.0 is a likely culprit.

If you're using 7.0, upgrade to 7.0.1 via the free patch from Adobe.com. For best results, you'll obviously want to upgrade to a new version of PS that actually includes Vista support, but if 7.0 was working under Vista, then 7.0.1 should too. You'll find that 7.0.1 solves a ton of problems that were in 7.0, including 7.0's improper implementation of alpha channels. If you're not actually using 7.0, but you ever at any time installed the TGA plugin from it into your version of Photoshop, or any other automated alpha channel generator plugin, then chances are you've borked your Photoshop, and you'll need to reinstall it.


To summarize, the key things here are:

1. Make sure your paint program fully suports Vista.

2. Make sure your paint program is fully capable of reading PSD files. All versions of Photoshop, and nearly all versions of PSP and GIMP fit that description. If you're using something else, then there may be no guarantees.

3. Don't use Photoshop 7.0. Use 7.0.1 or newer.

4. Make sure your paint program hasn't been corrupted. Uninstall and reinstall it to be sure.

5. It could be just a botched download. Re-download the templates, and see if the new ones look any better.

6. Perform basic hard drive maintenance. Defragment, sweep for viruses, run chkdsk to look for errors, etc. Actually, this should probably be done before anything else. (And done regularly from this point on if you don't do it regularly already. Basic maintenance MUST be performed at least once a week to keep any computer in optimum working condition.)


If none of the above solves the problem, then I'm out of ideas. For now, my money's on botched download, but do everything else, just the same.

Photoshop 7 works fine with Vista. I believe the templates were originally created with an unpatched PS7, so there's a possibility that a later version of PS might incorrectly read the alpha and fill in the transparent areas with blocky smears and other oddities, but I really don't think that's it since there's no real alpha. The layers with transparency don't include the background layer, and no one has ever reported any issues with the guide layer transparencies. It's very likely corrupt downloads, or drive problems. You might try downloading from a different mirror site.

Thanks for all the tips. Had to get new paint program when got pc 7 months ago. Will see what happens after i try these tips. Who knows might have to get someone to email them to me if thats possible.