Photoshop SOLVED: "Could not save because the file is already in use or left open."

This is a random irritation that frustrated me for a long time with Photoshop Elements on Mac. I'd make changes to an image and receive this error upon trying to save: "Could not save [file name] because the file is already in use or left open."

I searched forums for the answer to this problem and settled on a workaround of saving-as another file name, then deleting the original version. Doable but clumsy.

Till the day I had a eureka moment that was so simple and so satisfying.

Want to know where the file was "in use or left open"?

It was on my Finder.

Photobucket phail, or How to ruin a hosting site

UPDATE July 3: Photobucket keeps sending me autoresponses and demands for payment, so that's no help. BUT, I did find a viable workaround for myself, so I've posted what I'm doing right now at the end.

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The pirate's sign that you must
pay the ransom or forfeit your photos

A few days ago, without any advance warning, Photobucket sneakily changed its terms of service to disallow third-party hosting, or hotlinking, on nearly all of its plan tiers. Most people use Photobucket explicitly for the ability to link from images on Photobucket to other locations such as blogs and forums, so this seems like a baffling move.

Until you realize the scam that's afoot: The only way to get your images to show up again is to pay Photobucket $400, upfront, as an annual subscription to its most expensive plan.

Ah, I see. It's a ransom demand.

I'm livid. I'd been using Photobucket to host my images on my Blogger blogs for ten years. For several of those years, I paid Photobucket an annual subscription for the benefits of unlimited bandwidth and extra storage.

Lauren's link love: YA preview, Twitter tools & tips, Scrivener tute, and animated cats

Links to share, collected at @LaurenWaynecom on Twitter:

The Most Anticipated Children’s and YA Books of Spring 2016 https://t.co/Prw4EKzo60

— Lauren Wayne (@LaurenWaynecom) February 2, 2016

How to Write Better Using Humor https://t.co/5iD9f05Q7Z

— Lauren Wayne (@LaurenWaynecom) February 2, 2016

#Scrivener Tips from Joseph Michael | @thecreativepenn https://t.co/tQHqQGZuwi #writing

— Lauren Wayne (@LaurenWaynecom) February 2, 2016

3 easy ways to make your blog Pinterest-friendly

The pinners are everywhere, and they want to pin your post!

Here are my top three ways to get pinned and repinned on Pinterest!

1. You need an image in your post!

Preferably big and pretty. Pinterest is visual, and the people who use it tend to like their boards to look nice. If your post has no image (or just a video), Pinterest will refuse to let it be pinned. So, seriously: You need at least one photo or illustration in your post!

Sunday Surf: Responsible blogging & parental dilemmas

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

The Panic of Never

Right there, the title, isn’t it the perfect phrase for a parent and a writer? The panic of never, the panic of never finishing a project, of never starting one, of never again having time to write, or never having the time you need.

I love Rachael’s follow-up suggestions as well:

Some Answers to My Own Question {Plus Some Friday Reads}

Which also includes this rad excerpt by Dean Young from “Selected Recent and New Errors”:

Do you think the dictionary ever says to itself
I’ve got these words that mean completely
different things inside myself
and it’s tearing me apart?
My errors are even bigger than that.

33 SECONDS AGO

writing pressure scheduling parenting poetry publishing failure

Walking On Egg Shells | The Path Less Taken

On writing authentically instead of pre-censoring our words.

22 HOURS AGO

blogging writing censorship judgment negative comments

Skitch - Annotate, edit and share your screenshots and images...fast.

Wanna write on top of photos? Annotate, edit & share screenshots & images.

1 DAY AGO

photos photo editing software apps

Facebook page admins beware! What you CANNOT do on Facebook | MarketingGum.com

Rules about cover photos and giveaways as they relate to Facebook.

1 WEEK AGO

facebook giveaways timeline cover photos

- Navelgazing Midwife Blog - Responsible Blogging

What responsibility do you have toward readers as a blogger when it comes to giving advice (parenting, birth, health…)? If someone takes your advice and has a bad outcome, are you liable?

I think about this a lot since I blog about hot-button issues like homebirth and alternative healthcare and unschooling. I keep wanting people to know it’s just my opinion — but at the same time, I can’t stop myself from writing from the perspective of an advice-giver. I’ve tried, and I can’t do it! I love giving advice.

But when it comes right down to it, I’m not an expert in any of the subjects I write about (or, I don’t consider myself one). This quote kind of sums it up:

… all we bloggers really are are darn good writers (for the most part). We don’t necessarily know any more than anyone else, we’re just good at getting the information out there.

4 WEEKS AGO

blogging ethics liability

Uploading a new blog button without changing the button code

UPDATE 2017: Due to Photobucket's banning on third-party hosting, this will no longer work on Photobucket unless you pay for the highest-tier account (which you shouldn't bother). This will still work if you use a dedicated image hosting service — I chose Amazon S3 for now. You can use the same tips below, which I've updated to show my new image URLs.

If you have a blog button or badge (a little square logo advertising your site) hosted on Photobucket, you might have been in the tricky position of wanting to change the button without making everyone who has your button already change the button code on their blog.

There is a relatively simple(ish) way to make it a bit harder on your end but easy-peasy and seamless to everyone else. The next time their pages load, your new button will appear, with no effort on their part. Much easier than sending out pleas to change the code, yes?

The trick is to upload your new button to your web hosting site using the same file name, which will therefore give it the same URL as the old button.

Note: This trick will not, as far as I know, work if you've uploaded your image to Blogger or Flickr, and I don't know if it works on WordPress-hosted images. Which frankly is a good enough reason to advise you to use Photobucket[your own hosting service] for important images, so you have more control. If you host your own images on a server, then the following tips can still apply — but you probably already knew how to do this.

How to keep a direct link in Photobucket[your own hosting service]

For instance, here is the HoboMama.com blog button:



Here is the direct link for that image:
http://images.hobomama.com/hobo-mama-button-200x200.jpg

The piece of information after the last slash is the name of the image file, so hobo-mama-button-200x200.jpg

If you wanted to upload a new picture but keep the same direct link URL, here's what to do, in this order (very important):

1. Create the new image in your photo-editing software and save it with the same name as the original (e.g., hobo-mama-button-200x200.jpg).
2. Go to Photobucket[your own hosting service] and find the image you want to replace. Click "delete" on the old image, acknowledging that you will be breaking all the links that are looking for this image (but only temporarily!). Make sure you have a backup of the image on your computer in case you want it in the future. (Optional: You can always re-upload it to Photobucket[your own hosting service] with a different file name [for instance, rename it hobo-mama-button-200x200-archive.jpg before uploading] if you want it archived online.)
3. Upload your new image to Photobucket[your own hosting service], in the same folder as the old one. The new direct link will be the same as the old one (http://images.hobomama.com/hobo-mama-button-200x200.jpg), as long as you were careful to name your file the same as the old file.

It's important to delete the old image before uploading the new image. Otherwise, Photobucket[your own hosting service] will rename the new file slightly to differentiate between the two and the direct link will be different.

And, again, if you have different folders within Photobucket[your own hosting service], make sure to upload to the same folder, since that becomes part of the URL as well (Elements/ in my example).

This trick comes in handy for regular blog buttons, but also for advertisements and giveaways. Say you wanted to advertise on someone else's blogs, such as for your Etsy shop. You might make your ad seasonal but do all the changes on your end. So, you could create an ad with summer products, and then easily switch it out to winter products later in the year. As long as you kept the file name the same (e.g., hobo-mama-ad.jpg) and deleted the old ad image, you wouldn't have to have your advertisement hosts change their code at all to be current.

Or, for a special giveaway event, such as some review blogs do — a baby shower bash or a holiday-themed event — you could name your button for that something like hobo-mama-reviews-giveaway-event.jpg and then just keep updating the image but under the same name each time. That way, your event button on people's blogs would never be out of date!

Hope that helps, and that all your bloggy fans will appreciate the new image that magically appears on their screens!