CS3 on Mac Question

[Hogleg 44]

First... Adobe allowed me to upgrade my CS2 Windows program to CS3 Mac, but of course I had to buy the program from them! But that is fine! No problem! Thanks Adobe!
Now my question... When CS3 launches, it opens without a background in the workspace area. In other-words, I see the active desktop with the menu bar at the top and the toolbar on the left, and the pallets on the right. In the area where any file would open for adjustment there is nothing. If I click anything in that area the desktop comes to the front and I must click the PS icon in the dock to bring it back up. This is not the way CS2 opened in Windows. It had a matt background.
Is this normal behavior for the Mac Version of CS3? Or do I need to call Adobe to resolve the issue because something erred in the install.
Web searches, FAQ's and CS3 Help have not given me a clue about this, or how to change it myself. if I click 'New' after it launches, then that produces a matt background in the work area, and the Desktop is no longer visible. It seems to work fine, other than this.
Is this normal???
Thanks!

[srwatters]

Nothing is wrong with your install.

Type the 'f' key to cycle through the window modes. The Cocoa interface on OS X is a different paradigm than Windows. It allows you to float sub windows on the desktop instead of creating a viewport on top of it. Once you have an image open, you'll see the two full screen modes return if you want to hide the desktop.

[Hogleg 44]

Thanks a lot Scott.

[merock]

FYI..... The 'f' key command for full screen is with all and PShops, not just CS3. :-)

[Tim-in-TX]

Originally Posted by Hogleg 44

First... Adobe allowed me to upgrade my CS2 Windows program to CS3 Mac, but of course I had to buy the program from them! But that is fine! No problem! Thanks Adobe!
Now my question... When CS3 launches, it opens without a background in the workspace area. In other-words, I see the active desktop with the menu bar at the top and the toolbar on the left, and the pallets on the right. In the area where any file would open for adjustment there is nothing. If I click anything in that area the desktop comes to the front and I must click the PS icon in the dock to bring it back up. This is not the way CS2 opened in Windows. It had a matt background.
Is this normal behavior for the Mac Version of CS3? Or do I need to call Adobe to resolve the issue because something erred in the install.
Web searches, FAQ's and CS3 Help have not given me a clue about this, or how to change it myself. if I click 'New' after it launches, then that produces a matt background in the work area, and the Desktop is no longer visible. It seems to work fine, other than this.
Is this normal???
Thanks!

This is a Mac thing, nothing wrong with your programs. For some reason Mac versions of Adobe Design products do not have the gray "desktop" that you get when you run PS on Windows. So it is a little of a pain when you pick off of your work and it suddenly jumps to the Mac desktop. It takes a while to get use to...I've been on a Mac almost a year now and I am still getting use to it.
And congratulations on your being able to upgrade across platforms like you did. I had a different upgrade problem than you, but Adobe stepped up to the plate and did me a solid.

The "f" key command is a little different in that all it does is resize your working window.

[Hogleg 44]

Originally Posted by Tim-in-TX

And congratulations on your being able to upgrade across platforms like you did. I had a different upgrade problem than you, but Adobe stepped up to the plate and did me a solid.

Thanks Tim for the additional input. Yea, after running PS on Windows for 7 years, I thought something was wrong when CS3 first opened on the Mac.

For anyone interested in the crossover process, here is how it went for me with Adobe...And I will say that Adobe is to be commended for their accommodating help on the crossover, even though I was shuffled around from dept. to dept. for an hour and cut off once.
But when I finally got to the right place, (and he was an American ) he got me set up.
During the process i had to give them the serial numbers of the upgrades I had on the windows platform. I only had CS and CS2 immediately available. They really wanted the numbers for the first full install. Not an upgrade. When I told them that it went all of the way back to 5.5, and that I didn't think I could find that old CD, the guy said he would have to discuss my case with a supervisor. He came back and said that all was approved and he would proceed with the sale. He pointed me to a adobe page to download and print a form where-in I should in effect swear that I had destroyed my old Win CD's. Then I had to fax this form back yo them.
What he did then was order and ship me a CD with the Full program, (not an upgrade) (an upgrade looks for an earlier version prior to installing) but they charged me the upgrade price. $199 + Tax and Shipping. About $222. total.

Whew!!! I'm Happy!

[srwatters]

I've said it many times before. Adobe has some of the best customer service in the business. That's why I continue to use and preach their products. YMMV.

[Huck]

Sounds like Adobe went above and beyond on this. With many PC people going to Mac, they prob. figure you will upgrade again and continue to make more money from you.

I am going to go to a MAC soon, but with PS Elements 4.0 only, wonder what kind of upgrade I can get. But since I am a Graphics Art major, might be best to get the educational prices on the programs.

[Hogleg 44]

Nik Sharpener...!
Kudo's to Nik too.
I had just purchased Nik Sharpener Pro 2.0 in May, during a promotion by Phase One.
I emailed Nik to see if I could crossover with that very recent purchase. They were just as helpful as Adobe.
They erred on the answering email, and pointed me to the wrong program to download.
The email said to call their 888 number if there were any problems. So when I was sure there were problems, I called. A live person answered...(NO MENU)! i told her I needed help with a program "Shane" pointed me to. She connected me to Shane, and I explained what happened, and he said it looked like the wrong program had been placed on my download page. He corrected the error and told me to do it again. I repeated the steps and got the right thing this time.
Incidentally, Right now PS needs to run in 'Rosetta' for Nik to be available....

So! Nik is a great bunch for direct customer support too...!

[billbunton]

I thought Nik had just recently released universal binaries of their plugins.

I think PixelGenius has started making their serial numbers cross-platform also. That would be good; I think I'm going to sell my Windows PS, but I actually also have two Mac licenses so I could use the second set of PK licenses on the second CS license :-)

[DigitalDiva]

When I upgraded from studio 8 to Web CS3 they sent both win & mac media. When the license email didn't come I called Adobe and he walked me through retrieving lic. online, during our conversation I mentioned the 2 operating system dvds and he said they now ship both and trust that we will use just the one we need and they don't usually sweat it unless the lic# number use get excessive?

[DigitalDiva]

Oh, I wonder how they define excessive.