Elements Bug .......Crop Issue?

Since upgrading from Elements 7, my Elements 9 version cannot crop correctly. The horizontal and vertical will not directly work. All adjustments are diagonal enlargements. I have Windows 7. How can I fix this?
Thanks

Select the crop tool then click on the small triangle under the word File on the top menu. Choose reset tool.

Similar Messages

My Elements 9 cropping tool just stopped working...crops the entire photo.

My Elements 9 cropping tool just started cropping the entire image away today. Just got an Adobe air update last night. This is nothing I have done. All that's left after using my crop tool is a .jpg symbol. Please help.

First try resetting the tool. If that doesn't work delete the settings file by holding down Ctrl+Alt+Shift as you start PSE and answering the prompt to delete.
Cheers,
Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children
If this post or another user's post resolves the original issue, please mark the posts as correct and/or helpful accordingly. This helps other users with similar trouble get answers to their questions quicker. Thanks.

Odd number (pixel) artboard (CS4) crop issue

I have been doing some tests and this is a rather odd issue I seem to be getting and I can't believe this is an Adobe oversight as it's a bit major and must be something I am missing.
I am going to explain exactly what I am doing to simulate this simple test, although please be aware this is appearing in my normal work flow and causing me some headaches.
I create a new RGB 72dpi 1000x1000 pixel artboard.
I draw a blue box 1000x10 pixels exactly at the top of the artboard.
I then export for web (ctrl+alt+shift+s) and select "crop to artboard" and have it set to 100% quality jpeg.
What I have is a big white box with a blue box going from left to right across the top. All is as expected.
Now I drop back to the artboard, select the artboard tool and click on the blue box, this creates a secondry artboard exactly to the dimensions of the blue box.
Again export to web and this time I have just the blue box being displayed. No problems at all.
Right now back to illustrator and I delete my second artboard and increase the size of the blue box to 1000x11 px.
I move the box down half a pixel so it's again back on the top of the box.
I now select the artboard tool and click on the blue box again, I notice that the artboard dimensions and position again exactly matches the blue box.
I click export for web again and again only the blue box is selected, BUT this time I have a 50% (seemingly) transparant pixel line on the top of the blue box, which in JPEG mode makes a light blue line. If I switch to transparant PNG instead of JPEG I have a semi transparant blue line at the top.
If I switch back to the artboard and move the blue box down 0.5 of a pixel and then move the artboard as well it's fine. The artboards although seperate from each other seem to still be taking what is in them relative to everything else. In CS3 if you drew a crop box around an object, no matter where it was on the screen ("artboard") as long as it was in full pixels (as in not 0.5 etc) you didn't get this problem.
Now let me explain why this is a real pain in my work flow: I design websites in Illy. It's effectivly the tool I use to bring all my elements together, I use PS for advanced image editing, Word for writing my text etc and Illy for putting the pages together, formatting the text, creating the graphics etc. Now all this worked fine in CS3 because I could have something 11px high and have it start on a full pixel (as it works in HTML) and just create a crop box for it when I was exporting. It all worked wonderfully. So what I want to know is am I missing some option in Illy that makes it as good as it was? I love the idea of the artboards but this cropping issue seems like a step backwards and is giving me substandard output like I used to get from ImageReady years ago. If I draw a crisp edge, that is what I want comming out the other end.
Hope someone can help.
Regards
Paul

I am going to reply o this if you make a circle and you make an artboard for that page and save it for the web you will crop half a pixel off the bottom and right sides if you increase the art board by a little over one third pixel all will be fine you get the whole circle.
This was happening to you as well but since it was a rectangle you did not notice it, Now to the problem you mention I would say it was related and that why you don't see it until you move it down is related to the problem that is happening at he bottom and you only see it when it is brought into view as you did.
So what can be done about it?
Adjust it manually make notes of the adjustment and write a script to adjust any artwork to accommodate the discrepancy.
As to you disbelief that Adobe would allow this to get by I am with you we all are hence the reason no one else answered we accept this and wait for a fix and by then we will probably never even notice that the save for the web is fixed.
Everyone will be back on this thread with "Hey when they did they fixed this? Huh?
But until then Happy Trails To Us.

Java PDK Bugs and Issues

Here are some bugs and issues I've run across using the JPDK that I thought other
developers should be aware of. The following information comes from using JPDK
1.1 with Oracle Portal Version 3.0.6.3.3 Early Adopter on Windows 2000.
1) Do not use a colon character (':') in the String value returned by the method getTitle( Locale l ) in the class Portlet. Registering the provider will appear to succeed, but when you view the Portlet Repository you will get the following error message:
An Unhandled Exception has occurred. ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error:
character to number conversion error
Your provider and its portlets will not appear in the Portlet Repository when this error occurs.
Perhaps other characters will cause this error as well.
2) The Provider class method initSession() is supposed to propagate the array of returned Cookies back to the browser. The Cookies are never propagated to the browser. This is a huge road-block for our application and we need to have this problem fixed as there is no workaround.
3) There is a limit to the number of portlets you can have per provider. I initially wrote a provider class that managed 19 portlet classes. However, after registering the provider only 17 portlet classes were loaded by the provider and/or displayed by the Portlet Repository. I had to create a second provider to manage additional portlets. The second provider worked out fine for me because I have 5 portlets that are for "administrator" users only. Moving these portlets left 14 portlets for the first provider to manage.
Note: I don't know if this error occurs using the provider.xml method of implementing a provider and its portlets. My provider and portlets are implemented directly using the Java class API's.
4) Sometimes I will receive the error "Meta data missing for portlet ID=<number>" when a portlet is rendered for the first time. This error does not occur often but when the error happens two conditions are met:
a) The portlet is being rendered for the first time
b) The HTTP and Web Assistant NT services have recently been started.
This error is obviously caused by some timeout but increasing the timeout values
for both the provider and the portlet has no effect. This error may be restricted to the NT platform.
The following notes are not bugs but issues to be aware of:
1) Make sure you have the "sessiontimeout" parameter defined when declaring the initArgs of a servlet in the zone.properties file and you intend to register your provider with a "Login Frequency" of "Once per User Session". For example:
servlet.urlservlet.initArgs=debuglevel=1,sessiontimeout=1800000
If you leave off the session timeout, Oracle Portal will call your provider's initSession() method for every request constantly generating new a session ID.
2) Currently there is no means to check whether a ProviderUser has administrative
privileges. This feature would be extremely helpful for restricting which portlets a user has access to when the provider's getPortlets() method is called.
3) Currently there is no Java API for storing user and global preferences in the
Oracle database. The JPDK provides a PersonalizationManager class but the method
of storing the preferences needs to be implemented by the developer.
The default Personalization Manager persists user preferences as a file
to disk. However, this method opens up security holes and hinders scaleability.
We got around the security and scalability issues by using Oracle's JDBC
driver to persist user and global preferences to custom tables in the underlying Oracle database.
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has run across the cookie propagation issue and has any further insights.
Thanks...
Dave White
null

David,
Thank you for your feedback on the JPDK. The information you provide helps us understand how customers are using 9iAS
Portal and its development kits. I apologize for the delay in getting back with you. Since you are using the Early Adopters
release, we wanted to test a few of the bugs and issues on the production release of 9iAS Portal.
1) Using a colon character (:) in the String value returned by the method getTitle(Locale l) returned the ORA-06502 error is a
known issue. This issue actually occurs within 9iAS Portal and should be resolved in the first maintenance release scheduled
for 9iAS Portal.
Waiting on reply from Nilay on #1
2) The Provider class method initSession() not propagating the array of returned cookies back to the browser is an issue that we are currently working on. This bug has been fixed for most cases in the first maintenance release. A 100% fix of this issue is still being worked on.
3) The limit to the number of portlets you can have per provider was an issue in the Early Adopter release, but is no longer an issue with 9iAS Portal production. Upgrade to the production release and you should no longer see this problem.
4) The error "Meta data missing for portlet ID=<number>". I have not seen or heard about others receiving this same message. For this error, can you upgrade to the production version and let me know if you still receive this error message. At that time we can check for differences within the configuration.
Not bug, but issues......
1) You have made a good point with the sessiontimeout parameter. The JPDK uses servlet 2.0 APIs which does not provide access to the sessiontimeout. Currently, you will need to specify the sessiontimeout parameter in the zone.properties file.
2) This is true. Currently there is no means to check whether a ProviderUser has administrative privileges. This is on our features list for future enhancements.
3) This is also true. The DefaultPortletPersonalizationManager was created as a default runtime for developers not used to writing portlet code. It allows developers to write portlet code without concentrating on the underlying framework. Once a developer becomes more experienced with the JPDK and portlet environment, we encourage them to create their own
customization manager. This includes changing how the portlet repository is stored or changing how the user customization is
handled and where it is stored. You have no limitations as long as you follow the guidelines of the PortletPersonalizationManager interface.
I hope this information helped. Again, we appreciate and welcome this type of feedback, it helps us not only locate bugs and issues, but also helps prioritize our enhancement list.
Sue

Is There a Public "Bug and Issue Management System" for Strobe Media Playback?

HI all,
Is there a public "Bug and Issue Management System" for Strobe Media Playback? Or is this forum the only officially supported public mechanism for SMP bug reporting and feature requests?
(fyi, I ask in part because SMP is built on top of OSMF, and both projects are led by development teams at Adobe. The OSMF project, however, has fuller level of support including "Bug and Issue Management System" here:
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FM )
Thank you to all of the SMP team for this great player!
Best regards,
g

Hi Greg,
Here is our public bug and issue management page:
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/ST
Thanks for your interest in Strobe Media Playback and for your great articles!
-Andrian

PhotoShop Elements 9 Crop Tool is a total failure!

I do a fair amount of work that involves a lot of croping, mainly for animation sequencing. The Crop tool Custom Height and Width settings do NOT WORK.
I usually have a test image of the exact size that I work in. Example: 500 x100 pixels. This converts to 13.23cm x 2.65 cm at 96dpi. When I type these Crop Size requirements into the Crop tool settings box, I get a crop size way outside the size of the image that I want to crop. There is no way to set that size up yourself by using a test image as a template. In fact there is no way to set up custom sizes in the menu at all! I find this to be very upsetting as I have only just purchased this product. This limitation is something that I would expext to find in freeware, but not in a program like PhotoShop Elements 9. I have tried every conceivable way to try to get the Crop Tool to work to a Pre Set size with no success.
Why is it that a graphics program will not allow you to put in a pixel x pixel measurement? That is pure stupidity on the part of the programmers and very poor work on the part of the testing team. No wonder the program itself crashes from time to time. It just stops running - ppffft! I have a state of the art 64 bit system running Win 7 with plenty of RAM and a High end Graphics Card, so I know that my system is not at fault - it's PhotoShop 9. I cannot believe the primative workspace and the lack of the ability to custom predefine tools. All in all I'm extremely unhappy with PE9.
If anyone has had this or similar issues and has found a solution please tell me what it is.

In answer to your remark I will go through the whole process again at a later date and re-post. It does not make any difference to the resultant Crop size whether you input cm or pixels. Here's a point for you though since you mentioned it. Check out the Ruler - does it look like the Crop is anywhere near 500cm x 100cm? Maybe you were so busy trying to find fault that you failed to see the forest for the trees?
I only find fault where it exists - not where it doesn't. As far as Forums go, I am a member of a few Forums and have not had this sort of problem with answers before where the reply posts tend toward trying to pretend a problem doesn't exist or trying to prove fault with the poster. Hmmm. Again I wonder how many of these reply's are from people with some affiliation with Adobe?
I will finish by saying that just for you I will go through the whole pointless exercise again and make sure that the Pixels are indeed input.
1. Opening File
2. File Open.
3. Resetting Crop Tool.
4. Crop Tool reset and Measurement Boxes clear.
5.First Measurement Input. PLEASE NOTE 500 Pixels Input!
6. Second Measurement Input. PLEASE NOTE 100 Pixels Input!
7. Third Criteria Input. PLEASE NOTE 96dpi Input!
8. All Input Data correct and ready to Crop to preset Width/Height/Dpi restrictions.
9. OH DEAR IT DOESN'T WORK! Again it fails to give me a simple 500x100 pixel at 96dpi Crop Box!
After this reply post you may just get some idea of the frustration I am experiencing. As you can plainly see the Crop Box drawn goes to the very edges of the Image to be Cropped. Can you see the problem now? Maybe I should just go with my friend's suggestions and take a video of the process and post it on YouTube? Then go to my local Consumer Affairs Department! If you can find what I am supposedly doing wrong - please elucidate as I have followed both the prescribed steps in the somewhat Shoddy Online Help and also the suggested remedies posted on the Forum. All to no avail. It just Won't Work!

Web gallery export bug: Crop ratio change doesn't update correctly

I've just submitted this as a bug to the Aperture feedback site, but then realized that maybe I should have asked around to find out if it was just me or if it's an actual bug.
Try this: Export a web gallery to your site. Now change the cropped aspect ratio of one or more images in the gallery. Now export the gallery again and when Aperture asks if you want to Update or Replace the existing gallery, select Update. (This option is supposed to save time by only sending the changed files to the site.) The image that was cropped differently will still show up in the Index and Detail view with the old ratio, but the new dimensions will be stretched to fit the old ratio.
I've done this repeatedly and it's completely reproducible. The only way to get the gallery to display correctly is to select Replace when exporting the gallery. Obviously, if your gallery is larger than a handful of images this will take a while and it defeats the purpose of the Update option.
Does anyone find this same issue or am I the only one?

Yeah, that makes sense.
I'm thinking now that if I create a new version in the web gallery and crop it just for the web export the app will probably re-send that image out to the web site because it treats the new version as a different image. Since the new version really doesn't take up any meaningful hard drive space this wouldn't be a deal-breaker, but I would have to remember to NOT delete that version or change the crop ratio before uploading the gallery again.

Nikon D2Xs / RAW(NEF) / High Speed Crop issue

I have a problem with my D2Xs when shooting in RAW with High Speed Crop enabled.
When importing into iPhoto (08 - Version 7.1.4 (371))the imported image shows a Green and Purple line down the right hand side of the frame.
It doesn't show when exporting the original file from iPhoto to another program (CS3 / Preview).
It could be the one reason that I finally have to say goodbye to iPhoto, and look at alternatives.
It was reported last year in this thread http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1260989, with no replies. Any ideas or response on this Apple?
Cheers

I doubt that it's the camera, as the issue doesn't arise on exported pics. That said, as there are only two posts on the forums (yours and the one you refer to on the Aperture forum) it's possible that a: this only arises in very limited circumstances or b: it's local to your computer rather than a bug proper.
Create a new account (systempreferences -> accounts) and make a library there. Import a few pics and see if the problem is repeated there.
Regards
TD

Assign one complex element from payload issue in 11g BPEL

Upgraded BPEL 10.1.3.4 to 11g (11.1.1.3.0) and I know the compiler is stricter and all, but I haven't been able to get this working. The requirement is loop through the elements of a payload in a while loop and "do something" with each. Here is a sample of the element structure:
- <ns2:costCenter>
<ns2:costCenterNo>683-01-I/4.3.8.8.04/990000</ns2:costCenterNo>
<ns2:costCenterName>683-01-I/4.3.8.8.04/990000</ns2:costCenterName>
<ns2:level1>683-01-I</ns2:level1>
<ns2:level3>990000</ns2:level3>
<ns2:address />
<ns2:city />
<ns2:state />
<ns2:zip />
</ns2:costCenter>
- <ns2:costCenter>
<ns2:costCenterNo>683-01-I/4.3.8.8.06/990000</ns2:costCenterNo>
<ns2:costCenterName>683-01-I/4.3.8.8.06/990000</ns2:costCenterName>
<ns2:level1>683-01-I</ns2:level1>
<ns2:level3>990000</ns2:level3>
<ns2:address />
<ns2:city />
<ns2:state />
<ns2:zip />
</ns2:costCenter>
I want to pick out one "costCenter" structure at a time. Here is the Assign code that worked in 10.1.3.4:
<assign name="GetCurrentCostCenter">
<copy>
<from expression="bpws:getVariableData('GetAsentinelCostCenters_FindCostCenter_OutputVariable','FindCostCenterResponse','/ns1:FindCostCenterResponse/ns1:costCenter')[bpws:getVariableData('LoopInd')]"/>
<to variable="CurrentCostCenter"
part="FindCostCenterResponse"
query="/ns1:FindCostCenterResponse/ns1:costCenter"/>
</copy>
</assign>
I thought I found the solution when I came acorss the 11g samples and in particular "bpel-102-AssignActivities". I tried the CopyList, which ends up copying over ALL the costCenter elements and "ignores" the LoopInd variable. I tried the simple assign, but get the error about result returns too many nodes:
"XPath query string returns multiple nodes. The assign activity part and query are returning multiple nodes. The assign activity part and query named in the error message returned multiple nodes. It should return single node. According to BPEL4WS specification 1.1 section 14.3, the assign activity part and query named in the error message should not return multiple nodes. Verify the part and xpath query named in the error message at line number 160 in the BPEL source."
I think I've tried every combination that I can think of. I've resulted to posting here in case someone has a similar requirement and has it working in 11g.
Thanks!

Thanks for the prompt suggestions. Both gave me a compile error and I couldn't deploy either. I might try rolling back to 11.1.1.2.0, since I found a similar post for this issue with version 11.1.1.3.0. This process has been running on 10.1.3.4 in production for a year now, so this Assign definitely worked before. I don't know what else I can try.
The Assign works when I hard-code the position, however I get the same CostCeter "/1.6.1.0.01/" assigned every time it goes through the loop, as expected. This has to be a bug in 11.1.1.3.0, it isn't picking up/interpreting the LoopInd variable properly.
<assign name="GetCurrentCostCenter">
<copy>
<from expression="bpws:getVariableData('GetAsentinelCostCenters_FindCostCenter_OutputVariable','FindCostCenterResponse','/ns1:FindCostCenterResponse/ns1:costCenter[1]')"/>
<to variable="CurrentCostCenter"
part="FindCostCenterResponse"
query="/ns1:FindCostCenterResponse/ns1:costCenter"/>
</copy>
</assign>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
- <CurrentCostCenter>
- <part name="FindCostCenterResponse" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
- <FindCostCenterResponse xmlns="http://www.asentinel.com/asentinelws/schemas/invord">
- <ns2:costCenter xmlns:ns2="http://www.asentinel.com/asentinelws/schemas/invord">
<ns2:costCenterNo>/1.6.1.0.01/</ns2:costCenterNo>
<ns2:costCenterName>/1.6.1.0.01/</ns2:costCenterName>
<ns2:level1 />
<ns2:level3 />
<ns2:address />
<ns2:city />
<ns2:state />
<ns2:zip />
</ns2:costCenter>
- <ns2:costCenter xmlns:ns2="http://www.asentinel.com/asentinelws/schemas/invord">
<ns2:costCenterNo>/1.6.8.0.01/</ns2:costCenterNo>
<ns2:costCenterName>1.6.8.0.01</ns2:costCenterName>
<ns2:level1 />
<ns2:level3 />
<ns2:address />
<ns2:city />
<ns2:state />
<ns2:zip />
</ns2:costCenter>
....

Text elements being cropped in my swf

Problem with my text
I have a swf
http://www.ltcproduction.com/flash_test/ltcproditems.html
where I keyframed the text elements to make them pop, but
they are being cropped :(
they play fine in the .fla file
what should I do?

Here is a screenshot of what I am exactly talking about:

Photoshop Elements 6 Slideshow Issues

Photoshop Elements 6 Core Version: 6.0 (20070910.r.377499)
Issues:
Ordering Slide Shows
They will not order in File Name order -- Must I do it manually? -- which is silly for a computer
Slide Show Photo Background
File name picked up as title/description which is perfect --
But cannot get a bigger background then picture
This means the title covers picture and / or does not show up well.
Ideally I would like a larger canvas on the bottom of the picture so the text can show up against black or some other color without covering the photo.
This should be easy with canvas size but I cannot get it to work in a slide show.
Should also be able to change text color
Do not mind buying an upgrade but want to make sure these issues can be solved
See these issues in boards but cannot find solutions.
Thanks

the problem seems to be with the mp3,could please specify the size of the audio file which you were using and please try an audio file with a smaller size.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 Editor Issue

Have downloaded Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 Editor from the Mac App Store onto my Mac Book Pro, set iPhoto preferences to Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 Editor, but when trying to open a file from my iPhoto library, the following message appears: "unable to complete your request because of a program error". What can I do to resolve this issue?

Are you able to edit an image file that's not in the iPhoto library with PSE 10?
Also the followinjg has some tips on configuring PSE for use inside iPhoto that you may or may not know about:
Using Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements) as Your Editor of Choice in iPhoto.
1 - select Photoshop as your editor of choice in iPhoto's General Preference Section's under the "Edit photo:" menu.
Click to view full size
2 - double click on the thumbnail in iPhoto to open it in Photoshop. When you're finished editing click on the Save button. If you immediately get the JPEG Options window make your selection (Baseline standard seems to be the most compatible jpeg format) and click on the OK button. Your done. 3 - however, if you get the navigation window
Click to view full size
that indicates that PS wants to save it as a PS formatted file. You'll need to either select JPEG from the menu and save (top image) or click on the desktop in the Navigation window (bottom image) and save it to the desktop for importing as a new photo.
This method will let iPhoto know that the photo has been editied and will update the thumbnail file to reflect the edit..
NOTE: With Photoshop Elements 9/10 the Saving File preferences should be configured as shown:
Click to view full size
I also suggest the Maximize PSD File Compatabilty be set to Always. In PSE’s General preference pane set the Color Picker to Apple as shown:
Click to view full size
NOTE: If you want to use both iPhoto's editing mode and PS without having to go back and forth to the Preference pane, once you've selected PS as your editor of choice, reset the Preferences back to "Open in main window". That will let you either edit in iPhoto (double click on the thumbnail) or in PS (Control-click on the thumbnail and seledt "Edit in external editor" in the Contextual menu). This way you get the best of both worlds.
OT

Connecting the 1440x980 Powerbook to the TV, placement and cropping issues.

The last Powerbook I owned was the 1.87ghz 15inch at 1280x800 resolution. When I connected the computer to TV via s-video, everything was smooth, perfectly cropped and looked fantastic.
My new Powerbook, the last model Apple manufactured, has a 1440x960 resolution, and disappointing s-video output. After connecting the s-video to my TV, I connect to my Powerbook, hit Detect Displays and wait for a connection. The quality is perfect, but the image has a half inch black border on 3 sides and is flush with the right side of the TV.
Why am I having issues with this Powerbook? Is it the new resolution, bad video card? Is there any way to shift the image slightly or fill the remaining space?
Thanks for looking

Thanks for the tip, how do I change the refresh rate once the Powerbook is attached to the TV? The option seems to disappear once I hit Detect Displays.
I notcied that Overscan will get rid of the border, but then I have the problem of over-cropping and losing part of the image.

Bugs and issues I've run into.

First the bugs
PDF links are problematic. Most of the time they just say "Cannot find an application which can open this file." I've been able to get one to download once, but even then then the browser doesn't launch the PDFs. If I later go into the PDF reader they are there and readable.
Moving the cursor does not scroll the text within a textarea.
Going forward/back in the history causes a page to reload, including posting a form. On web discussion forums this can cause multiple duplicate postings.
Taps don't register accurately and I often have to tap multiple times to get what I want.
The next/previous app gesture doesn't work most of the time
"Weekday only" alarms go off on weekends. (I'll find out about the converse tomorrow afternoon ;-)
Now the issues/feature requests:
The "I'm sitting on the Touchstone" screen:
Make that screen rotation aware
Configurable option to turn off the backlight completely (I keep my phone next to my bed at night)
Make it possible to turn off the audible "I've been put on a Touchstone" alert sound
Provide a configurable Snooze time for alarms and calendar alerts.
There isn't a way to categorize contacts, preferably with a way to set a single ringtone for an entire category.
Provide a way to change the default text size, especially in the Email app: I am lucky enough to have good eyes, and the text size is just too big by default. I'd rather be able to fit more information at my option.
Post relates to: Pre p100eww (Sprint)

Have a new Pre, just playing with it for a couple of hours; very much agree with the "feature request;" especially relating to Touchstone screen (rotation aware, backlight off and alert sound). The categorizing of contacts is missing and is important relative to being able to have various ringtones for various types (personal, work, etc.) Also, why not have various user selectable ringtones or alert sounds for text messages, emails and IM's; by contact AND by category?

Adobe Premiere 4 Elements 4 performance issue

Hi
I am a new user of Premiere 4 Elements and I completed my first project to get myself through the learning curve. However I experience a serious performance issue on my computer with this product. Sorry about the long post, I tried to give as complete info as possible. Thanks in advance for any advice on solving the issue.
1. When I open my project, a progress bar stays for several minutes at the near-completed state before the application window opens. Then the window is still frozen for several more minutes (the Windows hourglass displays for about 4 to 5 minutes) before I can actually start using the program.
2. When I task-switch (e.g. to edit a photo in another application, or to check in Windows Explorer where a file is that I want to open) task-switching is slow, and when I switch back to Premiere 4 Elements, the screen freezes again for several minutes (4 to 6 minutes) before I can continue working. Same happens after I used the option to add media from Hard Drive to the project.
3. When I press the Play button, the sound sometimes plays while the video preview gets stuck on a single frame. When I wait a while, it seems like Premiere is busy updating the icons on the timeline, and after that, I can play the video again. Sometimes the screen freezes so I canot press the pause button, and the audio just continues playing for a minute or two.
4. Last night I eventually got the project finished, and started rendering the project to a PAL DVD - quality MPEG. It was still rendering this morning, with the progress bar showing less than a third of progress. At last check it displayed an estimated 16 hours of predicted rendering time, and still increasing the time....
5. In one week of use, I experienced one to five crashes per evening while using this product.
My input files for the project are existing MPEG files that I loaded from the camera (with it's software) long before I purchased Adobe Premiere. (so I did not use Premiere's feature to import the video). This camera generates a new MPEG file each time you press the start/stop button. I can see hundreds of clips on the camera when I mount it as an external USB hard drive on Windows. I suspect the number of files has to do with my issues, so I need assistance on an improved workflow, given the source format I work with. In my test project the original footage consists of about 140 MPEG clips; about 15 photos sized to PAL DVD size (720 x 5xx), one imported DVD VOB file, and then a menu, a title or two, transition effects, and so on. The final project should render 30 minutes of video, but the original footage is about three times that duration. Can someone please suggest a workflow considering the possibility that I will have to deal with these hundreds of small clips?
The software's box specifies a Pentium 4 and 512 Mb RAM, Direct-X compatibility and 4 Gb HDD space.
My computer spec's are:
Intel Core 2, 2.13 GHz,
2 Gb DDR RAM,
200Gb Serial ATA HDD, with:
Premiere on partition C: with 25 Gb free,
Project on partition D: with 40 Gb free.
Very entry-level graphics card (purchased the PC with no thought of games or video).
XP Home is installed.
In Windows Task Manager I notice about One Million Page faults being generated for Adobe Premiere in the periods I mentioned above when Premiere gets stuck. Item 4 above was at 3.5 million page faults with about 25% progress indicated of the rendering process. Is this indicative that I need more RAM?
I have read other posts on this forum that people advise users to have Premiere on one HDD, the swap file on another physical disc and the project on yet another. I can understand the logic, but I checked that my PC was well above the software specifications on the box before I purchased, and I am not so serious about making videos that I would want to upgrade to such a monster PC. Besides if the requirements are such, Adobe should have specified that on the box.
Thanks, Willem

Willem,
Looking at your system specs., I see one major bottleneck - your I/O system. You have a partitioned HDD.
This means that the heads on your HDD are being asked to be in several places at the same time. Partitioning is an element left over from a much earlier time in computing and should not be used nowadays, with very few exceptions. I will explain. You have a fixed number of platters and heads on a single HDD. Those heads are what access the data on the platters. In the case of PE, you are asking the heads to be:
1.) reading the OS
2.) reading Premiere (your program)
3.) reading & writing the Windows Page File (Windows' Virtual Memory)
4.) reading & writing your media Assets (depending on what you're doing)
5.) reading & writing your Scratch Disk data
6.) reading & writing data for any other Process that requires it
The first step that I'd take would be to add another HDD, and do away with the partition on you Drive0. With two physical (not logical as you have) HDDs, the ideal setup would be:
1.) OS and all programs on C:\
2.) Project, Media and Scratch Disks on D:\
Things would even better, though not to the %, that adding only one additional disk, if you added two. Ideal setup for 3 HDDs would be:
1.) OS and all programs on C:\
2.) Media and additional Assets on D:\
3.) Project and Scratch Disks on E:\
I've also found speed increases by having my Windows' Page File on a separate HDD, but that is overkill, really. Now, I've got 5 internals with 1.75TB of space, so it's easy for me to do this sort of thing.
You have a 200GB SATA HDD (Drive0), and I'd keep that for your C:\ (no partition) and add another SATA in 500GB - 1TB range. If you have SATA II, make sure to go with a new HDD with the exact same connector (SATA, or SATA II). Most on-board controllers can handle 4x SATA channels, so it should not be a big deal.
Most work will come from having to do a complete system backup of your Drive0 (your C:\ & D:\), as you'll need re-partition it. Another way around this would be to leave the C:\ & D:\ partitions, and just move all of your Media, Assets, Project and Scratch Disks to your new physical drive. Keep your D:\ partition, but use it only for storing maybe Audio Assets, that you use infrequently, and the like. Do not partition your new HDD (drive1).
Note on load time: that will speed up somewhat, if you get another HDD, but PE does need time to read it's XML files, that tell it the location of all Assets, then go find them, and verify that they are correct. Only a bit of a speed up there. Almost everything else that you mention, regarding speed, will improve greatly.
Others will have some more ideas, on ways to speed things up, and I'd consider them all, plus the addition of another fast, large physical HDD.
BTW: great post. It is probably the most complete that I've seen in any of the Adobe forums. It's easy to read (good use of paragraphs) and contains all the data, that I could want. I'd hold this up as a model on how to ask a question on these boards.
Good luck,
Hunt
[EDIT] To let you know, I actually have my Drive0 (500GB SATA II) partitioned (for another reason) and use it just like my second suggestion, re: re-partitioning. My "Movie Music," SFX and minor Assets are stored on my D:\, plus I have my Windows' Page File split over three drives. This after much experimentation. I'd not recommend this, unless you have a lot of extra time on your hands. Just keep it on C:\

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