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Could not place because the source rectangle is empty

New Here ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Up until about 3pm yesterday, illustrator CS6 and Photoshop CS6 worked without a hitch however at 3pm, I all of a sudden get the message 'Could not place because the source rectangle is empty'. All I was doing was dragging one of our company logos into Photoshop from Illustrator from the .eps file that holds all our graphics. I have done this hundreds of timnes before and ALWAYS either do it this way or highlight an image in Illustrator and paste into Photoshop. Either way I am still getting this error message.

Nothing has happened in the settings (that I am aware of) and google gives me numerous results all of which point at the fact that i may have a corrupt .eps file. However that is not the case. If i try and drag and drop or copy and paste various different fiele from .jpg to .png and .eps or .ai I have the same issue.

I uninstalled Photoshop this morning then re-installed to see if that would fix the issue but no such luck.

As it is, it is affecting my work and sure there are workarounds ie. if I go to file/open and open any file that way then that works but that is no good with an eps file that holds many seperate graphics as once that is opened in Photoshop, all those seperate images become one image.

Can anyone help with this?

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Adobe
Enthusiast ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Are you only getting this problem when copying/dragging from just one specific Illustrator document or is it affecting all documents? If it's just the one document, have you tried selecting all objects, copy them, create a new Illustrator document and then pasting everything into it ... and then try to drag to PS again.

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New Here ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Hi, yes it's any document.

If I highlight some text or shapes from illustrator and copy and paste or highlight and drag in, I get the error.

Also if I open up a folder that has im,ages in it for example, select an image and drag into photoshop i again get the same error.

Even if I choose a .psd file from the desktop or from a folder and drag in same error.

I just don't understand it??

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Enthusiast ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Hmm... that's a bit odd... and it just started happening out of the blue? No PS update or anything else that you updated? I am thinking maybe this could be OS related. What OS are you on? Could it be related to file permissions perhaps?  I am just thinking out aloud, I am nor super technically minded thou

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New Here ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Yep, just started about 3pm yesterday.

I haven't manually ran any updates. I'm not sure how I can look at when the last update was as if there was something that ran yesterday afternoon then that maybe the issue.

I'll have a look.

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Enthusiast ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Don't forget to let us know what OS you are on!

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New Here ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Sorry yes MAC OSX 10.9.1

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New Here ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Just to let you know too, I forwarded on one of these 'problem' .eps files onto my other mac in my other office, both exactly the same machines running MAC OSX 10.9.1 and the files open fine on that.

So it must be down to an update in Photoshop since 3pm yesterday or in the OS although more likely Photoshop to be honest.

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Enthusiast ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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I am on PC myself, so I am not sure I can be of much help. But you could of course try the old usual if you haven't already; reset you preferences: hold down Shift + Cmd + Alt after you have double clicked the start icon and hold it down till you get a prompt asking you if you wish to reset your preferences. Keep in mind that this will reset your personal preferences as well...

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New Here ,
Jan 22, 2014 Jan 22, 2014

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Thanks for the heads up. To be honest, I don't recall ever setting any preferences so shouldn't be a problem resetting them. You do mean the Photoshop preferences don't you?

FYI, the version of photoshop I had in my other office (where I didn't encounter this issue) was one below the version I had (not as in CS5 but the software version I was running) the issue on and there was an update so did that update so now both machines are identical and running exactly the same OS and Photoshop version but still have the issue.

Willtry resetting the preferences tomorrow when I'm in the office.

Will keep you updated.

Thanks for the help so far.

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New Here ,
Jan 23, 2014 Jan 23, 2014

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Well, resetting my preferences did the trick. Once I'd done that everything works fine again.

Thanks for that.

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Enthusiast ,
Jan 23, 2014 Jan 23, 2014

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Didn't quite expect it to work with this problem, but cool beans! Resetting the preferences can fix some rather odd problems ...

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New Here ,
Nov 18, 2015 Nov 18, 2015

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I have found today, same situation here, when document has - accidentally - 1 dpi 

Thanks for sharing

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New Here ,
Aug 25, 2018 Aug 25, 2018

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I tried resetting my preferences, now I cant find the previous information I worked now, and cant pull the image over at all. So that method pretty much did nothing but make things worse for me.

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New Here ,
Aug 25, 2018 Aug 25, 2018

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For anyone else still having this issue. This is what I did to "fix" it. Go to the image you want in photoshop and right click it. In the menu then appears, select "open with..." and choose Photoshop. Then the image will open in its own photoshop window. Then export the file in PNG format. Then pull THAT image into the photoshop project you're working on. That method worked for me.

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Engaged ,
Dec 02, 2019 Dec 02, 2019

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If at all possible, DO NOT place a PNG. Doing so will limit your colors to web gamut.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 02, 2019 Dec 02, 2019

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chrisl41501719 wrote:

If at all possible, DO NOT place a PNG. Doing so will limit your colors to web gamut.

 

Hi

 

No, PNG does not limit colors to the web gamut of 216 colors.

 

A PNG-8 will create a table of up to 256 colors that are currently in the document and will create an Index layer and put the file into Index mode. A PNG-24 can have millions of colors and does not create a table of colors.

 

~ Jane

 

2.jpg

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New Here ,
Dec 28, 2019 Dec 28, 2019

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This should be the recommended answer. It worked for me in late 2019 with Photoshop CC 2020, when 1 out of a load of png images decided to not allow me to place that particular image. All other answers did not help. Thanks.

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New Here ,
Aug 08, 2021 Aug 08, 2021

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Thank you! This was the issue. You saved the day! 

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Explorer ,
Jun 23, 2021 Jun 23, 2021

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Life saver! Thank you so much for posting this method!

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New Here ,
Nov 02, 2023 Nov 02, 2023

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LATEST

Thanks, i can open a png file following your instruction

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New Here ,
Oct 19, 2018 Oct 19, 2018

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I know it's probably too late but I found a quick solution using Bridge.

  1. Open Bridge.
  2. Navigate to the directory that your images reside in.
  3. Select the files. Â You can click and drag around them, or use the shift button to select multiple files.
  4. Now in the menu bar select Tools > Photoshop > Load Files into Photoshoplayers.

Googled for this solution but shall put this here in case anyone wants to give it a shot.

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New Here ,
Dec 14, 2018 Dec 14, 2018

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I am now getting this same issue, our of nowhere.  Windows 10, Photoshop CC.  I cannot place or drag & drop any image files.  Tried resetting prefs on quit, no luck.  I don't want to open a file in photoshop.  I want to drop it into a pre-sized document, so this "open it with Bridge" answer is a non-answer.  Someone else around here has seen this issue.  Someone has a real solution.  What is it?

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 04, 2019 Jun 04, 2019

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"Place" issues... my resolution was weird... like 30000x30000 inches by 1 pixel for supposed 1920x1080 (72dpi) footage. Changed the resolution to 1920x1080 - 72 dpi... try placing and... Voilà! It works. I guess it's time to make a batch to convert all footage to appropriate resolution.

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New Here ,
Jun 26, 2019 Jun 26, 2019

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I have fixed this issue but not really.

The sure fire way is to take the image you want to place, and only that image, as its own psd

then drag the psd in.

makes no sense but works.

make sure it looks right in that psd, setting etc before you drag in

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