[Gavin's Grandma]

Sometimes when I've purchased mask sets, some of the masks are perfect and I can use them easily. Then I will open another one from the same set and it looks nothing like its thumbnail. Instead it looks like huge black blocky pixels . Is there something I am doing wrong? Very frustrating not to be able to use my lovelies. Thanks for any enlightenment. Kay

[Nica]

Hi, Kay! How frustrating. Can you tell us which products you're having trouble with and which software you use? Then we can give you specific help rather than general suggestions.

[elibar]

Yes, as Monica said, if you let us know the specific product, we can help you better. The only thing I can think of is that maybe you're opening a low resolution preview of a layered mask or a marketing image.

[Gavin's Grandma]

I'm using PSE 5 on XP. The one that immediately comes to mind is indeed a layered mask...AYO Snow Globe. Elibar's explanation makes perfect sense as I was actually able to finally get a globe together with my grandson in it. The one I was fooling around with last night was a freebie from another site. There were 4 in the set and two were great, two were the blocky pixelated thingies. I can't really complain about a freebie, but am glad to know what is going on. Thanks for your input.

[PBarnes]

I was going to ask if the masks you were having problems with might be from another site. While most sites create their items at 300 dpi, you might occasionally run into freebies from a tagger site that uses a lower resolution.

[Gavin's Grandma]

Update...now that I am using CS6 on Macbook Pro, these same files are not a problem. A good elf at work?