[Simon]

(Previously posted in the wrong forum - newbie error, sorry)

I have recently bought a K10D which came with Pentax Photo Laboratory 3.10. I have a problem. I have already sent details to Pentax UK, but I wondered whether anyone else here has experienced the same and hopefully found a way round it.

In the "Custom Processing" configuration, under "White Balance", I select "Gray Point Setting" and click on the image. As soon as I click I get a Windows XP error - you know the sort of thing "PPHLAB03.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close..."

Have you seen this?

Thanks

Simon

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Last edited by Simon; 01-05-2007 at 01:29 PM. Reason: typo

[getmoresoon]

Heck, PPL3 will just randomly crash on me anyway. It's probably the most unstable piece of software I currently use. (And I run some pretty arcane stuff!) I think there's more than a few bugs in this release. I'm watching for an update.....

[jeffkrol]

This won't help but I've used Photolab from 1 to 3 on my XP home box w/ no problems.
Are you launching Lab though photoviewer, or as a stand alone? Not running in admin mode maybe?
Think I had a few issues when it was opened on it's own. Haven't done that for years so it may or may not really be an issue.
Except for the MAC versions and the slowness of the software there seem to be few crashing issues. At least fewer than for a lot of software.
Could be a hardware/RAM issue???

[Simon]

Thanks getmoresoon and jeffkroll,

I haven't used ppl enough to find random crashes, it just crashes reliably as described.

I am running it from Pentax Photo Browser.

I have XP Home, 3.4 GHz processor and 2GB RAM.

Having read another thread I have now installed UFRaw, which seems to do the job. If Pentax or anyone else can come up with a solution to my PPL problem I'll give it another try.

[borno]

simon, mine crashes when I try the image magnification tool in the preview window and try to do anything like sharpening and see the results.It's frustrating as i'd rather save for a tele. or macro than buy software.I have a laptop with pentium m and windows pro,other software like silkypix (free trial and lightroom beta ran fine),I also hope there may be an update soon.
TB

[jeffkrol]

Where are your RAW files? I've found it best to NOT use some of the restricted Windows folders, like "my documents", "my pictures".
Move your RAW's to a safer file ie create Pentax RAW folder on c or another drive.
Definitely don't try to access and edit w/ files on a CF or in camera or off a CD/DVD. Not that it can't be done but not "best practice" in my book..
All "shots in the dark" btw.

[getmoresoon]

Hm.. well actually ALL my pics end up in the "My Pictures" folder. I've never considered that to be a "unsafe" location, restricted file, etc.

I have been launching through the Photo browser. 1GB of RAM *should* be enough, but yeah in these days of BIG image files that might be touch-and-go. Of course no other image editing program goes boom, so memory doesn't sound right to me.

[Simon]

borno - UFRaw, which I've downloaded today does pretty much what Pentax Photo Laboratory tries to do and hasn't crashed on me yet... and it's free! I heard about it on another thread.

jeffkrol - I have almost a whole second disc devoted to image storage and manipulation. The file location shouldn't really matter, although I wouldn't usually try manipulating things on the SD - it would be slower for a start.

getmoresoon - I've got 2GB of memory and I'm still having problems, so I don't think it's a memory issue.

Thanks all. I'll let you know if I hear anything from Pentax.

Regards

Simon

[jeffkrol]

I wish you luck. This is one of those it's their fault" situations I bet. Pentax blames X who would blame Y who would blame Z, who would blame spy ware, user error ect.
As to Win folder properties this is an example: My documents and my pictures are technically "read only". Believe ever RSE (Raw shooter essentials) ran afowl of this minor annoyance.... Doesn't seem to apply in your case/situation though...
IBM - Cannot save new documents to My Documents folder

[Simon]

I wish you luck. This is one of those it's their fault" situations I bet. Pentax blames X who would blame Y who would blame Z, who would blame spy ware, user error ect.
As to Win folder properties this is an example: My documents and my pictures are technically "read only". Believe ever RSE (Raw shooter essentials) ran afowl of this minor annoyance.... Doesn't seem to apply in your case/situation though...
IBM - Cannot save new documents to My Documents folder

It sounds like someone at IBM hasn't been reading the Windows documentation. Although I can't be certain of it, Microsoft implies it has been that way since Windows 95. I certainly haven't come across it as a problem in any application I use, so IBM probably stands alone. "My Documents" is effectively intended to be the "user" area of the Windows operating system, so if a user application can't write to it I would say it's a serious flaw, and blaming it on the operating system is a bit rich - having said that, see what I say below.

As for software companies blaming others, I have been on the other end of that and it can be a very difficult situation. If I developed application A which depends on application B for services, that's fine as long as evrything goes well. If there is a problem and I can track it down to B not doing what I expect when I call it, who is to blame? Have I implemented the interface incorrectly in A? Is B's documentation wrong? Is B's implementation wrong? Is something going wrong somewhere else. It needs cooperation between parties, but so often the developer of B is a big software product developer (Microsoft, IBM, Oracle...) with a long product lifecycle and they just can't be moved to make a minor change for my relatively "small" application - or they just say "wait until the next release". The result is often that I have to implement a very inelegant workaround or tell the users it isn't my fault. I haven't really been in that situation myself for a long time, but it certainly happens.

Simon

This is a totally repeatable error on my system no matter what you do. Tried all types of settings. Looking for email address to send error log text files.
I use Photoshop 9.0.2 but as of last update still doesn’t handle K10D RAW properly.
or as well it will I hope.

[trog100]

if its a common problem it will be documented somewhere.. if it isnt documented its one of those particual machine/particular software situations..

a PC is just a box of bits filled with oodles of software.. sometimes it just dosnt all gell together..

not much help i know.. but it happens.. and its very often impossible to pin the blames on any one of the many variables..

trog

ps.. "This is a totally repeatable error on my system no matter what you do".. the key words here are "your system".. its probably not repeatable on other systems.. if it was the world would be aware of it.. i have been in your situation myslef and have had to find the answer myself or simply not use the problem software on my own particular system..

[jeffkrol]

It sounds like someone at IBM hasn't been reading the Windows documentation. Although I can't be certain of it, Microsoft implies it has been that way since Windows 95. I certainly haven't come across it as a problem in any application I use, so IBM probably stands alone. "My Documents" is effectively intended to be the "user" area of the Windows operating system, so if a user application can't write to it I would say it's a serious flaw, and blaming it on the operating system is a bit rich -

Simon

Having folder properties set as "read only" and then designing software to completely ignore the marker is sort of stupid. In IBM's case, if a folder is read only then it can't write to it. Not being able to change attribs perminently is also sort of idiotic, though I haven't tested wether I can perminently uncheck "read only" for my documents folder ect...We use Lotus at work so I've run into this before. Why build a lock on the door only to go in another door??
MS rightfully blamed 3rd party software designers for "ignoring" windows specs and thus creating OS crashes... yet they themselves ignore their own code.
Not being a software guy this is probably too simplistic but seems true on the face of it.

[jeffkrol]

This is a totally repeatable error on my system no matter what you do. Tried all types of settings. Looking for email address to send error log text files.
I use Photoshop 9.0.2 but as of last update still doesn’t handle K10D RAW properly.
or as well it will I hope.

Are you saying you have the exact same crash as Simon? You and Simon should look for a commonality maybe.

[slip]

I was wondering if there is a way to reset the preferences in pentax photo lab?
the reason I am saying this is when photoshop starts doing some weird and wacky things, I reset the preference file and it usually takes care of the problem. (the preference file can become corrupt after a while)
I know its not photoshop, but trying this with photo lab might be worth a try.
I don't know how to do this in photo lab, but with photoshop when you just start the program, hold down the CTRL, ALT and shift buttons at the same time and keep them held down until the program starts.
If it works, don't forget to reset your preferences.
if this doesn't work, then try to find the preference file in one of the photo lab folders and then delete it while the program is not running. once the program starts, it will make a new preference file automatically

hope this helps

randy