unable to open a source image

[Jerry Astbury]

Hi folks

 

I'm new to studio artist and have a question:  When I go to the file menu to open a new source or open new source and canvas and then am given the option to select an image, for some reason the image is not loading into studio artist.  Has anyone else experienced this problem and is there some way I can correct it on my end?  thanks

 

Jerry 

[balaclava_man]

Hi jerry
chances are it has loaded your image and SAs default behaviour of starting with a blank canvas is foxing you. Check whether you see your image on the top right in the source pane. Click the eraser icon next to favourites to change canvas display. An oldie but a goodie! Is that the problem or is it more serious?
Cheers
B_man

[Synthetik]

When you open a source image, it should appear in the Source Area (when the Image tab there is active). If you loaded a movie file then you will also get a set of transport controls in the little source iage preview area.

If you do try to open a source image and it does not open into the Source Area, then Studio Artist is unable to open it as an image for some reason. It could be that it's a file format Studio Artist doesn't know about. Studio Artist can open an image format that Quicktime can open, but it can't open things like raw files from some arbitrary camera format.

 

The other issue is that Studio Aritst may be able to open the file, but may not be doing so because it doesn't know the file type. In the old days all mac files had a resource fork that contained a file type id, whihc could be used to determine what file type an image was without an extension being put at the end of the file name. But many programs now do not set the file type id properly, which means that Studio Artist has to look at the file extension (like .jpg or .tif) on the file name to determine what kind of image the file is (if the hidden file type id is not set). So if the file extension is missing and there is no magic internal resource fork apple file type associated with the file, then Studio Artist has no way of knowing what the file is and can't open it. If this is the problem, then adding the correct file extension to the image name will fix the problem.

 

 

One conceptual issue to be aware of is that if you open an image using File : Open Source menu, the image is loaded into the Source Area but will not appear in the canvas. You have to manually erase the canvas to the source, or drag the source preview to the canvas. Studio Artist is different from photo manipulation programs like photoShop that directly open a source image for editing in a canvas like view. The Studio Artist Source is like a model that an artist looks at when building a painting, the opened source is not edited in any way, it's just used as a reference.

 

You can use the File : Import : Open New Canvas menu command to directly open an image into the canvas for direct photo-manipulation style edit the imported image manipulation if you so desire.

 

If you ever open an image or movie and the Source Area image preview is black, but if you set the canvas to the source image you see the full color image, then your image or movie file contains an embedded alpha channel that is set to full off. The Source Area image preview displays an alpha enabled view for the source image.

[Synthetik]

The image file formats Studio Artist can open include the following:

 

jpeg

photoshop (single layer)

tiff

sgi

targa

bmp

png

quicktime

 

SVG vector files can be opened as source image, and will be converted into a raster source image

 

movie file formats that should open as sources include

mov

mp4

avi

dv

m2v

 

since we use quicktime to open movie files, the appropriate quicktime codec needs to be there. so for things like video from a flip camera you may need to initially instal some third party video codec on your mac. if you can open the file in quicktime player, then we should be able to open it.

[Jerry Astbury]

Hi John

Sorry to bother with such a zany question  I knew it seemed ridiculous that something like this could be happening

so I called Apple once again to see if it could be a result of something they had done on their end inadvertently.

We ended up having to run what we had already done and then installing all available updates.  (I've been having

what they refer to as "kernel panics" and that's the reason for the troubleshooting strategies.)  After completing this 

and trying the software once again everything seems to be up and running smoothly.  Thanks once again for the prompt

response.  I will be running the program for a few more hours today so if anything else pops up that can't be resolved 

by apple I'll drop you a line.  

thanks again for the help!

Jerry

[Steve Boyd]

I had this same problem.  I discovered I had to right-click on the Erase button at the top, then select Source image.  My image would then appear.  The same situation occurs sometimes when I add another layer.  No idea why the image is initially set to white, or why I had to go to the Erase Button to get my image to appear, but this worked for me.

[Synthetik]

When you open a source image, it shows up in the source area, but not the working canvas. You need to either erase the canvas to the source or drag and drop the source icon into the canvas (which just performs an erase to source) to get the source image into the canvas.