Eyedropper not working in index color on Mac

Question

I recently changed from MAC 9.1 and photoshop 7 to a 24" IMAC and photoshop CS3. I have 3 gig ram -- operating system 10.4.10. I can't get the eyedropper to work in index color in CS3. I've talked with someone else who has a PC and it is working on the PC. I called Adobe and it is working on their PC's too. I went to the Apple Store and it isn't working on their MAC. So I am assuming either the eyedropper isn't working on the MAC or I don't know how to get it to work in CS3.
Can someone please help -- thanks.

Answer 1

Carol,
That was indeed helpful, Carol. Thank you.
I printed out your post and followed the steps you outline.
The eyedropper in the Color Table works just as expected on my computer. (See specs below)
Just to make sure, I opened the Help viewer and followed the instructions therein:
Color / Converting between color modes
Customize indexed color tables
The Color Table command lets you make changes to the color table of an indexed-color image. These customization features are particularly useful with pseudocolor imagesimages displaying variations in gray levels with color rather than shades of gray, often used in scientific and medical applications. However, customizing the color table can also produce special effects with indexed-color images that have a limited number of colors.
Note: To shift colors simply in a pseudocolor image, choose Image > Adjustments, and use the color adjustment commands in the submenu.
Edit colors and assign transparency with a color table
You can edit colors in the color table to produce special effects, or assign transparency in the image to a single color in the table.
Open the indexed-color image.
Choose Image > Mode > Color Table.
To change a single color, click the color and choose a new color in the color picker.
To change a range of colors, drag in the table to choose the range of colors you want to change. In the color picker, choose the first color you want in the range and click OK. When the color picker redisplays, choose the last color you want in the range and click OK.
The colors you selected in the Color Picker are placed in the range you selected in the Color Table dialog box.
To assign transparency to a color, select the Eyedropper tool in the Color Table dialog box, and click the color in the table or in the image. The sampled color is replaced with transparency in the image.
Click OK in the Color Table dialog box to apply the new colors to the indexed-color image.
Choose a predefined color table
Open the indexed-color image.
Do one of the following:
Choose Image > Mode > Color Table.
Choose Image > Mode > Indexed Color. In the Indexed Color dialog box, choose Custom from the Palette menu. This opens the Color Table dialog box.
In the Color Table dialog box, choose a predefined table from the Table menu.
Custom
Creates a palette you specify.
Black Body
Displays a palette based on the different colors a black body radiator emits as it is heatedfrom black to red, orange, yellow, and white.
Grayscale
Displays a palette based on 256 levels of grayfrom black to white.
Spectrum
Displays a palette based on the colors produced as white light passes through a prismfrom violet, blue, and green to yellow, orange, and red.
System (Mac OS)
Displays the standard Mac OS 256-color system palette.
System (Windows)
Displays the standard Windows 256-color system palette.
Save and load color tables
You use the Save and Load buttons in the Color Table dialog box to save your indexed color tables for use with other Adobe Photoshop images. After you load a color table into an image, the colors in the image change to reflect the color positions they reference in the new color table.
Note: You can also load saved color tables into the Swatches palette.
Since all of the above worked as expected, I would conclude that it is a bug that is not affecting PowerPC (pre-Intel) Macs. :(
Computer setup:
Dual bootable, DP MDD 1.25GHz G4 (2004), maxed out at 2GB of RAM, both Spotlight and Dashboard disabled, Photoshop primary scratch disk on dedicated 160GB internal drive, at least 100GB available on each of the four internal drives, up to 300GB on some. Counting external FW drives just over 1TB of drive space available. nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 128MB graphics display card (about to be upgraded in the next couple of hours). Processor napping enabled through CHUD 3.5.2.