Photoshop CS3 Crashes

[ted-m]

Hi, reccently I've been trying to add two pictures together, and photoshop is crashing every time I do that, whenever I go to full-screen. These are the details:
I take a 3.6 x 8.5 inch PSD file at 300 DPI, where there are a lot of layers, I merge all the layers, then flatten the image. I do the same thing to another PSD file of the same dimensions and resolution. Then I crop the second PSD file to double its width, to fit the extra 3.6 Inch width of the first PSD file, then I just move the flattened image of the first PSD file to the second PSD file, then I press the full-screen button and Photoshop stops running, these are the crash details:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Photoshop.exe
Application Version: 10.0.1.0
Application Timestamp: 470fd6cb
Fault Module Name: StackHash_6af8
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0f04423b
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 6af8
Additional Information 2: 27d6a0a025d86e1ffe13b3d2a0684be0
Additional Information 3: d4f4
Additional Information 4: 7acfd50fb4255527291b02781726a673

I am using Windows Vista Ultimate, and I'm not sure whether I have SP 1 or not because in the updates the last time I checked it said update failed for the SP1 update, but yeah I don't know what is wrong, I'm not doing anything else other than using Firefox and that's not taking up too much proccessor or RAM, nothing else is either (I checked) so i don't know what could be wrong, can anyone help?

[Almostthere]

I kind of think this is a Photoshop issue. I'm running CS4 and XP Pro SP2 now. I duplicated your scenario and got some strange behavior. It didn't crash my box but screens didn't redraw correctly and I couldn't change my workspace at first. I'd check Adobe's knowledgebase.

[DonaldG]

Nice help & reply by Almostthere (Welcome to TSF )

I am also using Vista Ultimate. I too have had similar issues. It could well be associated with memory and scratch disk usage.

Photoshop, along with many programmes, keeps a track of your work on open images so that you can 'undo' changes or use the history brush etc. This progressively takes up memory. If you have been doing any 'copy/paste' work, even outside Photoshop, the copied object will still be in the clipboard, reducing available memory.

When working on big files and lost of manipulations, think: 'Memory/Cache management'.

Prudent usage of 'Edit-->Purge-->Undo/Clipboard/Histories/All' every so often or just before where you know it will crash may well fix the problem.

If you have more than on disk, then allowing 'Scratch disk' to use one or more of other disks other than drive C will also help.

If you have, say, less than 1GB memory, then reducing the default history steps will help too.

When you have more than one image open at the same time, they each will share the available memory/cache resources. When you can, close any images that you do not need any more.

Save work regularly (as a PSD) so that if you get a crash, you can pick up from the last save.