Photoshop on Mac

[ViperAssassin26]

I know how to use photoshop on Windows without trouble easily. But I cannot for the life of me get it to work right on Mac. Any advice or what programs I should use? I'm using a 2021 Mac Pro with the M1 Pro chip. 

[chuckdyke]

12 minutes ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

I know how to use photoshop on Windows without trouble easily. But I cannot for the life of me get it to work right on Mac. Any advice or what programs I should use? I'm using a 2021 Mac Pro with the M1 Pro chip. 

I used Photoshop for twenty years. Now I use Affinity it is far cheaper and actually I think an improvement of Photoshop. Strongly recommend this product. Link to the free trial.

Affinity Store Checkout (serif.com)

[Lucky_Strike]

1 hour ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

I know how to use photoshop on Windows without trouble easily. But I cannot for the life of me get it to work right on Mac. Any advice or what programs I should use? I'm using a 2021 Mac Pro with the M1 Pro chip. 

What specific issues are you having with it on Your Mac? I use it all the time and although I detest the rest of Adobe's bloatware these days, PhotoShop is still pretty reliable. Could it be connected with the M1 chip?

You could try Affinity Photo as per Chuckdyke's suggestion, it's very similar and can handle most of the common tasks most folks might have. Also would recommend looking at Pixelmator Pro, a very competent alternative and written for MacOS. 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Lucky_Strike

[ViperAssassin26]

46 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

What specific issues are you having with it on Your Mac? I use it all the time and although I detest the rest of Adobe's bloatware these days, PhotoShop is still pretty reliable. Could it be connected with the M1 chip?

You could try Affinity Photo as per Chuckdyke's suggestion, it's very similar and can handle most of the common tasks most folks might have. Also would recommend looking at Pixelmator Pro, a very competent alternative and written for MacOS. 

Not sure. I just wanted you to know what kind of Mac I was using. I used Affinity and it worked. I just had to use Gimp to Convert it to a BMP file

[Lucky_Strike]

36 minutes ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

Not sure. I just wanted you to know what kind of Mac I was using. I used Affinity and it worked. I just had to use Gimp to Convert it to a BMP file

Yes, export to BMP is always a bit of a chore in many apps. Affinity doesn't support them, Pixelmator does to an extent but it seems to wipe the alpha channel mask when exporting, though that might just be operator error ...

Glad you found Gimp for the job, it's pretty capable and v. inexpensive. I'm certain that Graphics Converter would handle BMPs correctly, but it's not free and you'd still need an image editor.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Lucky_Strike

[ViperAssassin26]

any suggestions on an image editor?

[Redwolf]

GIMP will do fine unless you already have muscle memory built for Photoshop. Straight BMP export.

[chuckdyke]

Microsoft Paint also can save it as a BMP File. 

[ViperAssassin26]

1 hour ago, Redwolf said:

GIMP will do fine unless you already have muscle memory built for Photoshop. Straight BMP export.

That's what id do but the soldiers uniforms(not gear or helmet, and boots) just the uniform would turn black. So I started using GIMP to paste something onto the uniform, like a unit patch or radio, then cropping that section out and pasting it on the original uniform. Something like paint then it works fine. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with GIMP. There are multiple bmp files when I go to export. which should I use? 

[ViperAssassin26]

12 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Microsoft Paint also can save it as a BMP File. 

I'm using a MAC though

[Redwolf]

4 hours ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

That's what id do but the soldiers uniforms(not gear or helmet, and boots) just the uniform would turn black. So I started using GIMP to paste something onto the uniform, like a unit patch or radio, then cropping that section out and pasting it on the original uniform. Something like paint then it works fine. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with GIMP. There are multiple bmp files when I go to export. which should I use? 

 

Oh, I remember that issue. You probably want to search for gimp in this forum's history, we dealt with it before. I don't remember details.

[chuckdyke]

7 hours ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

I'm using a MAC though

They don't have a basic photo editor? 

[Lucky_Strike]

3 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

They don't have a basic photo editor? 

Yes but it's more of a photo editor than a graphics editor, also doesn't support export to bmp.

11 hours ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

That's what id do but the soldiers uniforms(not gear or helmet, and boots) just the uniform would turn black. So I started using GIMP to paste something onto the uniform, like a unit patch or radio, then cropping that section out and pasting it on the original uniform. Something like paint then it works fine. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with GIMP. There are multiple bmp files when I go to export. which should I use? 

This sounds like you're missing the alpha channel when exporting to bmp. I don't know GIMP but what you should be looking for is something about channels when saving out to your bmp. If the file has an alpha channel AND that channel is 8-bit then you will need to save your file as a 32-bit bmp NOT 24-bit. Look for something like that when saving. If it's not got an alpha channel then don't save the file as if it has, ie save it as 24-bit.

The choice of apps that support both useful image editing and 32-bit bmps is a bit limited. PhotoShop and GIMP are the most obvious on a Mac. I do hope in the next gen of CM that Battlefront move away from the rather archaic bmp standard to something a little more recent like PNGs which have wider support.

[Lucky_Strike]

12 hours ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

That's what id do but the soldiers uniforms(not gear or helmet, and boots) just the uniform would turn black. So I started using GIMP to paste something onto the uniform, like a unit patch or radio, then cropping that section out and pasting it on the original uniform. Something like paint then it works fine. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with GIMP. There are multiple bmp files when I go to export. which should I use? 

So I just downloaded GIMP and took a look at it's handling of a uniform texture bmp. First thing to say is uniforms don't have alpha channel masks so they should be saved as 24-bit bmps. I opened one uniform bmp in GIMP, opened a second, copied and pasted a chunk of that into the first one, flattened the image (did you do that?) then exported the final texture as a bmp. Upon export there's an extra dialogue that will appear to select Advanced options for your file, disclose those and make sure you have 24-bit toggled on:

 

Then export - you should have a perfectly serviceable bmp.

Unless of course you're trying to do something else ...

PS

12 hours ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

There are multiple bmp files when I go to export. which should I use?

Ah yes in the list of file extensions - I just used the first one, the second seems the same but did say something about not matching the file type, though the resultant file is actually fine.

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Lucky_Strike

[ViperAssassin26]

I'll try the first one I don't have class tomorrow so ill try it then

[RockinHarry]

On 10/1/2022 at 4:38 AM, Lucky_Strike said:

So I just downloaded GIMP and took a look at it's handling of a uniform texture bmp. First thing to say is uniforms don't have alpha channel masks so they should be saved as 24-bit bmps. I opened one uniform bmp in GIMP, opened a second, copied and pasted a chunk of that into the first one, flattened the image (did you do that?) then exported the final texture as a bmp. Upon export there's an extra dialogue that will appear to select Advanced options for your file, disclose those and make sure you have 24-bit toggled on:

 

Then export - you should have a perfectly serviceable bmp.

Unless of course you're trying to do something else ...

PS

Ah yes in the list of file extensions - I just used the first one, the second seems the same but did say something about not matching the file type, though the resultant file is actually fine.

 

I´m almost exclusively working with Gimp. With now having came back to bits of CM Bmp file modding I need a solution for that exotic CM 32bit alpha BMP format as well. What bugs me is that one can´t load/import these files directly and work on them in Gimp, then export /save again. 24 Bit BMP are fine (ground textures and such). As expedient I installed a vintage PS CS2 on my Win10 machine, just to be able working on the 32Bit alpha ones. Though I´m not that well aquainted with CS2 and would prefer doing it all (editing+alpha, export to CM compatible) in Gimp instead. Have a quick at hand solution or tip for that? Before I try finding an awkward or too time consuming solution myself. Thanks! 

[Lucky_Strike]

18 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

What bugs me is that one can´t load/import these files directly and work on them in Gimp, then export /save again.

That's something I didn't try. Really not familiar with Gimp at all, deleted off my Mac as soon as I finished my last post in this thread 

My only suggestion is to use the version of PS you have to open the 32-bit files, then immediately save it as a .psd file which should preserve the alpha channel. I'm pretty sure that Gimp can then open the .psd file. Just make sure when you save the psd file from PhotoShop that you check the box that mentions compatibility in the save dialogue. This should ensure the file opens in anything that can read psd files.

[RockinHarry]

8 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

That's something I didn't try. Really not familiar with Gimp at all, deleted off my Mac as soon as I finished my last post in this thread 

My only suggestion is to use the version of PS you have to open the 32-bit files, then immediately save it as a .psd file which should preserve the alpha channel. I'm pretty sure that Gimp can then open the .psd file. Just make sure when you save the psd file from PhotoShop that you check the box that mentions compatibility in the save dialogue. This should ensure the file opens in anything that can read psd files.

Thanks LS! That indeed sounds like a good start tackling this. Just checked and GIMP can open *.psd format files with alpha channel properly. At least those I had saved with CS2 previously. Big time saver. I´ll update here in case I stumble into any issues. Guess others are interested in this topic as well.

[Lucky_Strike]

15 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Thanks LS! That indeed sounds like a good start tackling this. Just checked and GIMP can open *.psd format files with alpha channel properly. At least those I had saved with CS2 previously. Big time saver. I´ll update here in case I stumble into any issues. Guess others are interested in this topic as well.

Good job Harry, glad to assist.

As an aside, I think that PhotoShop Elements (the cheapo, cut-down, consumer PhotoShop) will also open the 32-bmps. I recall using it back in the days of CMx1 to do some modding. I could of course be falling foul of flawed memory, but it would be good to know if it does or doesn't open and save our 32-bit files. I don't have a copy of Elements so if anyone else does perhaps they could give it a go.

[RockinHarry]

10 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Good job Harry, glad to assist.

As an aside, I think that PhotoShop Elements (the cheapo, cut-down, consumer PhotoShop) will also open the 32-bmps. I recall using it back in the days of CMx1 to do some modding. I could of course be falling foul of flawed memory, but it would be good to know if it does or doesn't open and save our 32-bit files. I don't have a copy of Elements so if anyone else does perhaps they could give it a go.

Thanks! I think I´ve all that I need now.