Photoshop and Elements text incompatible??

[Jason Freund]

I had been using Photshop Elements 1.0 to edit a PSD file with lots of
layers each containing individual pieces of text. As long as I stay
in Elements, I can use the text tool to click on the text to edit the
text object.

When I load and save the file in Photoshop 5.5, the version it saved
no longer works in Elements. All the text has been rendered and using
the text tool in Elements to click on a text layer just inserts a new
text object.

This is a big problem for me because I'd sent out my Elements file to
a contractor to get some edits done, and I can no longer use the PSD
file that he sent back to me because all the text is gone (and there
were lots of non-trivial text elements in the file).

Is this a known bug? Are there any other incompatibilities I should
know about? Is there any way to get Photoshop to save in such a way
as it won't destroy text objects that had been created by Elements?

Jason

[Beth Haney]

I'm going to make a guess at this one, more for the challenge to see if I'm right than because I'm sure of the answer.

Photoshop 5.5 is pretty old in software years. Elements 1.0 is based on PS 6.0, and PSE 2.0 is based on PS 7.0. If the digital editing world works anything like, for example, MS Office, it's very hard to get an older version to open and edit a document - or in this case an image file - that was created on a newer version. I'm suspecting that the basic engine of PS 5.5 isn't recognizing some of the work done using PSE 1.

As to a workaround, I'm wondering if TIFF, which is a universal format that also saves layers would overcome the incompatibility.

Now, let's see what the experts have to say about this.

[Barbara Brundage]

Jason, I would also try creating a word file or something like that and sending that back and forth. I'm wondering, since he's using PS 5.5 if maybe you are using something like open-type fonts that are too new for his computer to understand. See if a word processing doc with the same fonts does the same thing.

[Chuck Snyder]

Nancy, glad you enjoyed it!!