Invisible, but technically present Illustrator links

[karenm13481728]

I'm having an issue with the links in my illustrator file. I've gotten .jpg images from a dropbox folder shared with me, but the images don't appear to the viewer. Illustrator acknowledges the placed images, showing their bounding boxes on the artboard and paths in the links panel, but they're just invisible. When I place the images in another file, they still appear invisible and uneditable, leading me to believe the issue is with the images themselves or dropbox.

I've attached a screenshot for reference. Any potential solutions?

[Ares Hovhannesyan]

How you are placing images into Illustrator? Can you try with Photoshop?

[karenm13481728]

The images were already on the artboard when I opened the file. When I place the images myself from the source folder, I'm just dragging and dropping. Even when I place the images as a .psd, they still appear that way. However, they do work if I convert them to a .png, but I don't like this workaround because on other files with more images this process would be too time consuming, and the initial problem remains unresolved.

[Monika Gause]

Does it work when you move the images to a folder that is not synched?

[karenm13481728]

No, the files still appear the same locally.

[Monika Gause]

The files might be saved in ways that Illustrator doesn't support.

Can you ask the person that created the file if this ever worked?

[karenm13481728]

Could you elaborate?

[Monika Gause]

karenm13481728  schrieb

Could you elaborate?

You need to inspect the details in Photoshop.

Can you check the resolution?

JPEG options? Bit depth or the like?

[karenm13481728]

In photoshop the resolution is listed as 72 ppi for one of the images, while in illustrator it remains listed as 0 ppi. I tried changing the quality and format options, but once I placed the image into illustrator the problem persisted.  

[Monika Gause]

karenm13481728  schrieb

In photoshop the resolution is listed as 72 ppi for one of the images,

That might be because Photoshop doesn't support resolutions higher than 30000 ppi and resets them when you open a file.

[Ton Frederiks]

The links panel shows Scale: 0%, 0%

that makes them invisible.

[Monika Gause]

I can trigger this with an image that has a resolution of 30000 ppi.

(screenshot is zoomed in 10000%)

[Ton Frederiks]

But yours show dimensions, the screendump in the question shows: -

[karenm13481728]

The links panel shows Scale: 0%, 0% regardless of how I manually scale the images.

[Ton Frederiks]

And if you resave them and save them in a folder on your desktop, or just move them to a folder on your desktop?

[Ton Frederiks]

Does it also happen if you place them in another file?

Can you share one of those problem images?

[karenm13481728]

Yes, the problem persists even if i place the images in other files.

Here's a link to one of the images: Dropbox - Kitchen-1.jpg

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

I see, it seems to be the file.

Made in Polarr Photo editor, Smart Photo editing (but maybe not so smart in this case.

Resaving in Photoshop fixed the problem.

[karenm13481728]

Thank you for the help. It'll be a bit tedious to do this for every picture, but this solved my problem.

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that.

Maybe if you creat a Save As Action and Batch that Action can make it easier to handle.

[Ares Hovhannesyan]

I place in Ps without any problem as Link or embedded file.

1.Direct opening file in Ai create blank artboard . .

2. After placing in AI i get (one anchor) See attachment. Also control bar shows file name

[Ares Hovhannesyan]

I "Save Image As" from dropbox and its work. Something get wrong when i work with downloaded image from dropbox.

[Ton Frederiks]

But because InDesign and Photoshop can place and open the file, Illustrator may also not be so smart.

I suggest to report this here, with an example file:

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