My problem is simple: a number of alchemy ingredients are "gray" and I cannot use them in potions. I cannot even move them in my inventory, for example to swap position. If I sort my alchemy ingredients, there are 6 or 7 that are usable and they show up first in my inventory. Then another 10 ingredients are unusable, with the inventory icons gray.

So I played through Witcher 1 before and I did not have this problem. I am starting a new game and I have collected most of the ingredients available in the outskirts.

I have purchased all the books available, basic herbs, the book on ghouls, book on barghests etc.

Celedine, berbercain, death dust, beast fangs, hellebore, ballise, and drowner brains are all unusable (plus a few others). I have journal entries for all of these ingredients.

Note this is not a problem with using inferior potion bases. I can make potions using the non-gray ingredients just fine. But I cannot swap the gray ingredients in for the usable ingredients. I can't even make a new, "blank" potion (i.e. not starting from formula) with any of the gray ingredients.

Please help!

This may sound like a dumb question, but do you have the potion brewing talent selected under 'Intelligence'?

Thank you for your reply.

I have potion brewing, herbalism and oil preparation.
Potion brewing is a quest-based perk that is required for "A potion for Triss."

I have no problem making potions using the seven ingredients that do not have gray icons.


***EDIT****
I solved the problem by installing a mod that changes all the icons for alchemy ingredients. Now everything is usable, as it should be.

Just above the ingredients in your inventory, they are buttons to hilight specific type of ingredient (dont remember the names, but the colors are blue, green, purple, white, etc). If you have clicked on an alchemy type (example green) only these type of ingredient are usable. You have to click on the far left button to uncheck the alchemy types, and have access to all ingredients.