Conversion to Greyscale (unwanted!)

Can anyone please help me with a weird and infuriating image reduction problem?

Almost every time I reduce the size of a coloured image and then save it as a separate image, I finish up with a greyscale image. No, I haven't clicked on the "greyscale" option, which I have never has reason to use. It happens when reducing any image, whether from my digital camera or e-mailed to me or from the Web.

I think this must be a computer problem, not one with my Photoshop 7, as exactly the same happens using Irfanview as an image editor.I run W2k.

If anyone has any ideas, could they please reply using as non-tech language as possible!

 

I recently read a fairly lengthy thread regarding this very issue (and IrfanView) but, alas, no "proper" solution was found. That said, a quick uninstallation/reinstallation of IrfanView did provide a cure.

 

Thanks, Brett, for your very prompt reply. I uninstalled and reinstalled Irfanview as you suggested and it worked - no more unwanted Greyscale conversion!

What puzzled me particularly was why the problem appeared to affect Photoshop as well, but the answer is simple. Though I use Photoshop to attempt any serious image manipulation, I use Irfanview, in the interests of speed, as my basic image editor, so all of the image files start out as Irfanview files. Using Photoshop to reduce them simply continued whatever the Irfanview problem was!

I would be interested to read the lengthy thread, which you mentioned. Where is it, please?

 

Well ... it's somewhere ... damned if I can find it tho'!

I'll get back to ya!

 

Sorry, Masochist - but I cannot find it!

 

Not to worry, Brett, and thanks for looking. I probably wouldn't have understood it anyway!