I recently found that my copy of Adobe Photoshop CS5 was acting up — crashing soon after loading or while applying actions to images. If this happens to you, it’s probably because of a corrupt settings file that Photoshop creates to save your preferences in.

Deleting Photoshop Settings File

Windows: Launch Photoshop and immediately hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (before/while the splash screen is displayed). You’ll see a dialog box asking whether you want to delete your Photoshop settings file. Go right ahead.

Mac: Same story, except here you need to hold down Cmd+Option+Shift. Then delete the Settings file.

When you’re finished, Photoshop will load with all windows and settings reset to their defaults. It’s a bit of a bother but there’s really nothing else you can do to fix this. Good luck!