PS CS3 No workspace appears after launching app

Question

After launching PS CS3 no workspace appears on screen only toolbars, etc.  After reading other posts on forums about problems with other newer versions it says to turn on "application frames."  But I can't find anything like that in pull down menus. And when I try to click on "Open" PS crashes.  I have a PowerBook G4 (don't laugh) 10.5.8 and PS CS3 10.0.1.  Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Susan,
We need to know exactly how much RAM you have and exactly what you have your monitor resolution set to.
If you have less than 2GB of RAM, forget it; I know the ReadMe file says you need a minimum of 512 MB, but that's unrealistic.  It's enough for Photoshop CS3 to launch, but not to work comfortably and consistently.  The monitor resolution should be at least 1024x768.
20 GB of available disk space in practice is marginal for the Mac OS X swap files (especially in case of one of the Leopards) to share with Photoshop's Scratch Disk.  I'm not surprised you're crashing.  Just for reference, I have a separate, dedicated internal 160 GB hard drive just for Photoshop's Scratch Disk alone.
Also, any time a hard drive—any hard drive—approaches 80% used space, you're in deep trouble already.
With a bigger boot drive or making much more space available in your current one, an external hard drive as Photoshop scratch disk, maximizing your RAM to as much as the machine will take (if it takes at least 2GB) and downgrading to Tiger 10.4.11, your G4 PowerBook should run CS3 just fine.
If CS4 ran on Panther, I would even downgrade to it from Tiger; I have no use for Spotblight and the Dashboard anyway and have permanently disabled both.  In the case of Leopard, If I were ever to run it, I would disable the massively intrusive Time Machine and Spaces as well.
That's my personal opinion based on equally personal experience.
Good luck.
Wo Tai Lao Le
我太老了