PS CS5 not saving preview for EPS files

[intriguegraphics2]

I'm running a trial version of CS5 Design Premium on a brand new Core i5 iMac with 8GB RAM and running SL 10.6.3. So far, I haven't noticed any major glitches, except for the following:

When I save an image as EPS, I usually choose the standard Mac 8 bit preview. This way, when bringing it into Quark, I can see the image. On my previous iMac, in CS3 and Leopard 10.5.8, this worked fine when importing into Quark 7.5.

Now, however, when importing into Quark 8.1.6, the EPS does NOT show a preview. It even indicates that no preview is included in the "Import Picture" window before bringing it in, even though I can see the "preview" in the little preview window. All I get in Quark is a gray box with the filename written inside. This is a bit bizarre!

Then I thought, maybe it's a Quark issue. I tried importing the same EPS file into my old iMac using Quark 7.5 and it does the same thing - no preview.

What's even more strange is that I took an old EPS which HAS a viewable preview, and resaved it (after a resize), and changed no other settings. The preview no longer shows up in Quark. Boom! Gone! Brand new files behave the same way.

Another thing I tried: I saved it using a TIFF preview. That seemed to work, although the preview looked very low-quality. That might work in a pinch, but it doesn't solve the problem of why my EPS files are not saving previews even though they are supposed to be included with the basic Mac Preview options.

Resaving the EPS as TIF also works fine, but again, doesn't solve the problem.

Is this a bug or am I missing something?

[yuhong]

Yep, that is the right thing to do, not sliently generating a blank image. It should not be hard to preserve support for 32-bit mode, as QuickDraw is still available there.

[Guest]

Just confirming that we are experiencing the same issue / bug / undocumented user feature.

Sure, there are lots of reasons why EPS files should be replaced by any other format, but that is not the point. The point is that Photoshop is no longer doing something it has done for  15 or more years...

Saving an EPS file in Photoshop CS5 with anything other than a TIFF preview does not create a useable preview by default.

It's bad enough that the preview doesn't work in Quark (meh...) but it's inexcusable when it doesn't work in Adobe's own Illustrator CS5! Sure, turning off "Use Low Resolution Proxy for linked EPS" allows the preview to display but takes forever to generate... even on the fastest available Mac Pro's loaded with RAM.

We have a production process that relies on multiple EPS files being placed into Illustrator. (While alternate process suggestions may be appreciated... we are forced to use this process due to circumstances beyond our control.) CS5 has broken that functionality, and the current work around adds an order of magnitude of total time to the process.

[intriguegraphics2]

Wow. I didn't realize it was a problem within CS5 itself! That is certainly inexcusable.

When Adobe released the patch/update to CS5 recently, I had hoped that a fix for this issue would have been included. Disappointed to say, it was not.

[Guest]

My thoughts exactly!

[intriguegraphics2]

I went and filled out the Adobe Feature/Bug report page, again. This time I was referencing the 12.0.1 Photoshop update. Hopefully they are working on this. Link:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

[Guest]

This is still a live issue. I get it on newly-purchased CS5.

I cannot believe all of the workaround nonsense on this post: EPS Save As box says "select preview format", but this preview is not properly saved with the file. It is a bug, plain and simple.

Dear Adobe - this is a $1000 software suite, please fix any identified bugs in a timely and responsible manner. Your own statement on this thread is that you're "looking into it" - what is the result of this research?

And for what it's worth, the nice thing about the EPS format is that it contains a good preview in Quark. For example, JPEGs tend to render in Quark picture boxes as very low-res images, and TIFFs as high-saturation images (both print fine), whereas EPS previews actually look like the final image. So it's no surprise some folk like 'em.

[intriguegraphics2]

Interestingly, this problem just cropped up in our studio the other day when a designer was placing an EPS (saved in PS-CS5) in Illustrator CS5. It came in as a blank box. I was called over to troubleshoot the situation. Took me a minute to realize it was the "EPS Preview Bug" causing the problem. Ouch. Resaved as EPS with TIFF preview, and like magic, it reappeared correctly in Illustrator once again.

[eubean525]

I have a similar problem. If I locate a file through Photoshop, the PSD files are a blank icon and not a preview icon. If saved as tiff, png, eps, jpeg, they can be seen readlily as a preview icon. I am using 32 bit mode.

Patch please.

[Chris Cox]

You're using PICT previews, and PICT is an artifact of QuickDraw/Carbon -- which we can't support in Cocoa.

Use a TIFF preview, and it works just fine.

(yes, we should have removed the option for PICT previews - but that got missed with all the other changes happening in CS5)

[Guest]

Nonsense.

I am using the JPEG option for the preview.

Please stop dodging the issue and just put this on the fix list.

The dialog box offers the option of exporting with JPEG preview; CS3 does this fine; fix it in CS5. End of.

[eubean525]

Forgive my confusion but what is everyone talking about? This is all I see in my File Handling window. There is no way to save it in any particular preview format but as an "Icon" or a "Windows Thumbnail." Please educate me here.

Al

[Guest]

Al, you're looking at the File Saving Preferences there, which is not what we're talking about.

This thread is about the File > Save As process, when selecting EPS as the save-format, and the problem being that CS5 does not correctly save a JPEG preview within the EPS file. This is a problem when one places the image in certain page layout programs (notably QuarkXPress), as there is no preview in place to aid image placement.

Hope that clears things up.

[Magnetic North]

Just want to add my support to those wanting Adobe to fix this.

The only practical way round this at the moment is to open + resave files in an earlier version. But that's a pain and not always possible.

Adobe has 'form' in with previews.

I need to get higher resolution preview files of large images to enable accurate positioning in Illustrator over the images (but without the slow-down which embedding a file would bring).

I use the 1993-vintage Photoshop 3.0 to achieve this!

[Chris Cox]

Have you tried using TIFF previews instead of PICT?

[Guest]

The problem with TIFF is that it produces a misleading high-colour preview, which is not useful in page layout. The JPEG preview is (or was, when it worked) a much more representative image.

I'd much prefer a fix to a workaround, given the price of your software.

[Chris Cox · Accepted solution]

The problem with TIFF is that it produces a misleading high-colour
preview, which is not useful in page layout. The JPEG preview is (or
was, when it worked) a much more representative image.

If they differ, then that is a problem in the software displaying the EPS file. There is no reason that the JPEG and TIFF previews should differ.

[Allen Parkinson]

Why do you keep bringing up PICT previews? We have made it clear that we aren't using the standard Macintosh preview. The problem persists when using the Macintosh (JPEG) preview.

Or are you implying that the JPEG preview is actually a PICT preview?

And TIFF and JPEG previews have always differed in how the appear on screen. If they didn't there wouldn't really be any reason for having both, would there? And since they look different in Illustrator and InDesign, can you wander down the hall and ask the guys working on those Adobe products why their code is displaying your code differently than you want it to?

I have no problem with PICT being dead. I'm sure no one else on the forum does either. Your software is the one using it. What I am asking is that you help us with a REAL solution rather than debating it with us. We all have plenty of experience in what we do. I've been using Photoshop since version 1, and I'm sure many of the others weighing in here have too. We know what has worked in your product in the past, and we know what we need it to continue to do for us now and in the future. If Adobe is going to give us forums to spotlight issues, then Adobe should also listen and act. Eight months of debating the existence of PICT files is a waste of everyone's time. Please just fix the code so that when I choose a JPEG preview I get a JPEG preview that shows up in Illustrator, InDesign, or whatever. If a normal JPEG shows up, then a JPEG preview attached to an EPS file should as well. It's not rocket science. And it's not a PICT. It's a JPEG.

I appreciate your assistance in helping all of us with this frustrating and production draining issue. If I sound a bit frazzled it is because it is 7:30 PM and I should be at home with my family, but my jacked up previews caused me to use one of the suggested workarounds, which turned a job that should have taken 20 minutes into a 3 hour adventure. Now let's multiply that out over the last 8 months... And multiply that by everyone affected. I'm sure that adds up to a lot more lost time than what would be required to fix the bug and issue an update.

[Allen Parkinson]

It appears that this thread has been going on for the better part of a year. Kind of silly that something couldn't have been done in that amount of time, isn't it?

To clear up some of the misunderstanding that seems to be going on here, this is not an issue with PICT previews, unless Adobe is mislabeling PICT previews as JPEG previews.

I too am having this issue. I AM NOT running under 64 bit, so that is not the issue, and Photoshop CS4 saves them just fine on the same machine at the same time. So it comes down to something broken in the code for CS5 Photoshop.

Workarounds are not acceptable, as has been repeatedly stated in this thread. I work with files that exceed 1 gig in size, and saving them as EPS files is the only plausible way to import them into Illustrator or InDesign (or Quark for that matter). The JPEG preview allows for page layout and formatting without the extreme production slowdown that happens when using Tiffs, PSDs, Embedded Images, etc. Higher resolution previews will turn a 5 minute production job into a 45 minute "stare at the wall while the machine thinks about it" job.

Get it fixed. It's as simple as that. We don't need CS6, we need CS5 that works. Allocate the resources to fix what we have paid for, then go back to hitting us up for more cash for the next version.

[Guest]

Chris: please answer these questions.

1) Does Adobe have any intention of fixing this in CS5, or are we expected to shell out for CS6 before it will work?

2) Do you concede that this issue is absolutely nothing to do with PICT? It's a JPEG preview issue.

3) Has this issue been raised AT ALL with the CS5 programmers? Is it on anybody's fix list?

4) Can the person in charge of this exact part of CS5 come onto this thread and commit to something? Anything?

...all questions are because you have in this thread a really well-defined bug, real-world examples of the problem, complaints from customers who must between them have paid Adobe several thousand dollars (and that's just for CS5 - I expect most of us have used Photoshop from before CS1), and you just appear to be avoiding the issue. This is lousy customer service.

[Hutch_South_Dakota]

Has this problem been solved yet? I just (finally) upgraded to CS5 and encountered it for the first time. In a large Illustrator project, all of the linked images that were created under CS4 preview fine, but the one new image I just inserted does not - an EPS saved from CS5 with a "Macintosh 8-bit preview." Just to support previous posts, I almost do not care what format Adobe uses for "Macintosh 8-bit preview" as long as it works. I don't want to suggest a too-easy solution, but if Adobe is not going to produce a preview of a linked image in Illustrator under this option, then maybe the option should not be available under the Save as EPS menu in Photoshop.

[maurmills773]

I know this is super late...but I just downloaded CS5 Photoshop last week after paying 5 bazillion dollars for it, and I have encountered the same dumb problem. Files that I previously had NO PROBLEM saving as binary w/jpeg previews no longer will show the preview in Quark. I see after reading responses that resaving w/tiff previews seems to solve it, but what I want to know is whether or not it has been fixed so that I can save as EPS with JPEG previews as I have for the past 5 years.

?

Maureen