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Ghandi Junior
Participant
February 22, 2019
Answered

What is happening with illustrator and importing pictures?

  • February 22, 2019
  • 5 replies
  • 2331 views

Hello everyone,

First up I am working on a MacBook pro (2015) with the lateste MacOS 10.14..

I've got Illustrator all updated as well.

The last couple of days i keep getting problems when I try to load in images in a document.

yesterday I had some jpegs which gave me an error when I tried to load them in. I converted them manually to PNG and then they loaded in normally.

Now I'm trying to load in 2 PNG files which are screenshots of my Iphone X which I transferred using AirDrop.

both images are black and whit with not much color. when I load them in in illistrator they turn in soem weird images with all green and stuff you normally see on broken screens. The pictures look completely normal in "preview" on the mac.

Does somebody know whats happening?

Or do you have any clue about a solution?

Let me know thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer sara_pixels

Oooh, you've got swirlies!  I've seen that before and it usually happens because the png in question has 16 bit color instead of 8.  I've never seen a way to address that directly in Illustrator.  Usually I see it with 3D renders and I just go back and adjust my settings from that program.  But you can also go into Photoshop if you have it and make the adjustment there.  I am doing a terrible job of explaining this right now, but you want to save it in 8-bit instead of 16.  And you can change that in Photoshop.  Or, if you're desperate, crunched for time, and not worried about resolution, you could get around that taking a screenshot of the image presenting properly and use that resulting png.  But your best fix is to either change how it exports at the source, or resave in Photoshop.

5 replies

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 23, 2019

Andyou can make a feature request for support of 16 bits .png files:

Adobe Illustrator Feedback

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 23, 2019

Sara is correct, it is the 16 bit that is causing the problem.

Converting in Photoshop is a good solution, but Export as 8 bit from Preview will do as well.

sara_pixels
Inspiring
February 22, 2019

And here's your updated file, saved as an 8-bit image.  Try it now.

sara_pixels
Inspiring
February 22, 2019

This is it.

Srishti Bali
Legend
February 22, 2019

Hi there,

We are extremely sorry to hear about this. There few apple file formats which are not supported in Illustrator for example HEIC. Will it be possible for you to share a sample file? If yes, please upload it to Creative Cloud/ Google Drive/ Dropbox and share the direct download link. I can try to check those files at my end and get back to you.

Regards,

Srishti

Ghandi Junior
Participant
February 22, 2019

Of course i can!

Thank you for the comment.

Here is a link to the file im importing in illustrator

Dropbox - Sample - Simplify your life

Ive also enclosed in the map the result when im importing it in illustrator

kind regards

sara_pixels
sara_pixelsCorrect answer
Inspiring
February 22, 2019

Oooh, you've got swirlies!  I've seen that before and it usually happens because the png in question has 16 bit color instead of 8.  I've never seen a way to address that directly in Illustrator.  Usually I see it with 3D renders and I just go back and adjust my settings from that program.  But you can also go into Photoshop if you have it and make the adjustment there.  I am doing a terrible job of explaining this right now, but you want to save it in 8-bit instead of 16.  And you can change that in Photoshop.  Or, if you're desperate, crunched for time, and not worried about resolution, you could get around that taking a screenshot of the image presenting properly and use that resulting png.  But your best fix is to either change how it exports at the source, or resave in Photoshop.