Windows 10 Fall Creators Update .PSD Thumbnails Not Showing

[gonzalu]

Hello all,

I have lost the thumbnail icons in Windows. At one point in the past, .PSD file icons displayed as a Thumbnail Preview of the file. This stopped working a long time ago and I have the latest version of Photoshop installed.

Windows is Pro x64 and Photoshop is also the x64 bit version.

Please DO NOT suggest third party plugins, extensions, DLLs, CoDec packs, etc. I am not interested in third party solutions. This should be a function Adobe enables. If it MUST be from Microsoft, I will pursue that option.

Thank you for your help in advance.

[EashanMisra]

Hi,

Unfortunately, you can't have thumbnail previews on Windows 10 without installing a third party software.

This thread might help you;

Viewing PSD thumbnails...

[gonzalu]

Hi EashanMisra... are you giving the official Adobe or Microsoft response or just your observations? Also I have read every single "alternative" way of doing it which is why I said don't bother posting them... I am ONLY interested in a proper solution to this natively by the OS or by Adobe.

Thank you. 

[Jeff Arola]

Unless you can convince adobe to provide the psd previews, which microsoft told them not to do anymore for windows explorer or you can convince Microsoft to display psd previews, which people have been trying to get them to do for more than twenty years, then EashanMisra's

solution is the only reasonable course of action, besides using something like adobe bridge to view psd files.

If your psd thumbnail icons are actually blank and don't show the psd photoshop icon, then that is a problem that hopefully can be solved.

Do you have photoshop associated with psd files in the windows file associations?

What version of photoshop and windows are you using?

[gener7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jeff+Arola  wrote

Unless you can convince adobe to provide the psd previews, which microsoft told them not to do anymore for windows explorer

I did not know that. I wonder why they do not have a problem with third parties doing the same?

Anyway, if there is something free or paid to get psd thumbs in Windows...get it, and get on with your business as I learned to do.

Gene

[honorm76400537]

Microsoft told them not to do this? Is there a link to the policy so we can yell at MS about it?

[Jeffrey_K_]

The best (free) answer is SageThumbs. It's an open-source system that will help generate thumbnails for over 160 formats. So much quicker doing a Windows search and seeing those thumbnails. Go grab and install, you'll be a happy camper after that.

SageThumbs | SourceForge.net

[Phil Dx]

I have the same demand. Not unreasonable I think for software that costs $600 a year.

I can't even place .psd files in Indesign because they're all mystery icons, I'd have to have the memory of a savant to recall which one of my 1000s of images is the one I need.

Microsoft won't fix it, it's up to you Adobe to supply them with the necessary codecs to support your file formats. Or release a Windows explorer plugin to do the job.

[gener7]

When it comes to Windows, buy or download a free codec so you can see your PSD thumbnails and get your work done.

If you do not want to, move to a Mac where PSD thumbs are natively supported.

[honorm76400537]

I did try it on some Macs recently, but I noticed a deal-breaker problem with them that appears to be a hold-over from when I was working for Apple and Motorola years ago:

They're all still Macs. 

[gener7]

Microsoft and Adobe has decided PSD thumbnail support is a closed matter.

Just get the proper codecs in, use Bridge, or convert all your PSD files to Tiff.

[Emptywig]

$600 a year? For Photoshop? I don't think so. $120.

[jessicaw48069587]

Yes, it costs money each MONTH to have an active Photoshop program with current updates.

[wynb77426006]

I had the same problem, but found a solution by installing a picture viewer software (Pictus) which when installed will extend into Windows Explorer and show PSD thumbnails. During installation you can check or uncheck which files are associated with Pictus. It is free and works brilliantly without ever actually running Pictus as a viewer.

Here is the link: https://poppeman.se/pictus/

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

I use SageThumbs.

• SageThumbs 2.0.0.23 [CherubicSoft]
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/sagethumbs/

[Brandon Loshe]

Hi Nancy,

Thanks so much for the recommendation. Really helps me work quicker on a Windows computer when sorting through Photoshop files. For some reason, my Illustrator icons are no longer the orange Ai icon, but the generic blank page icon. Is there some way to get the Illustrator icons back? The same thing for jpeg images...

Weirdly enough, when I deselect Adobe Illustrator from the SageThumbs list, nothing appears to change. Even more strange, when I switch to any of the icon views, the orange Ai icon is there, but not in List of Details views. Any thoughts on how to troubleshoot this?

[rogeri16186926]

Correct! Thanks! This solved my problem!

[John_W_Little]

I have installed Pictus for this very reason. It does not display CR2 thumbs and displays only some of the PSDs. I don't know why only some of the PSDs but I know file size is not the issue; I have a 23MB PSD with thumbnail displayed right next to a 30MB PSD that doesn't display, also a 144MB that displays, right next to a 169MB that does not.

SageThumbs does appear to have fixed all the thumbs, after adjusting file size preference.

[be5FB6]

Somehow I solved this problem with SageThumbs by first checking the boxes in the SageThumbs options (see image below, boxes pointed by red arrows), giving admin permissions (also for writing in the registry), which resulted in having NO preview icon for any of the psd files, and then by uncheking them again, giving admin permission: now I have all psd preview 🙂

In synthesis, try this:

• check the boxes below and update
• uncheck the boxes below and update

[honorm76400537]

I also have started using Sage Thumbs since it was mentioned here - it works almost perfectly.

[danstep34475]

What do you mean "almost"??

[honorm76400537]

Sorry - didn't see his

I haven't been able to work out which variables are responsible, but there are some images it doesn't work on.  It doesn't seem to be related to (or, rather, causally correlative with) file size or version - perhaps it's a question of some for of object or procedure that may or may not be in the file that makes it happen?

I'm not a programmer, so I'm kind of guessing.  I am, however, a professional level beta tester (which sounds ridiculous - I just mean in-house paid testing, with direct access to programmers) so I feel confident I could probably work it out...  I could take two or three of the files it doesn't work on, and deconstruct them to find the common elements and see if I could re-produce it, but that would take a significant amount of time - Something I'd try to schedule on request but not just at random, for my own amusement.

[Trevor.Dennis]

I've just installed Sagethumbs after reading this thread, so thanks for the heads up.  In my case, it resolved most PSD files with thumbnails, and the limiting factor seems to file size.  Note, I only installed it ten minutes ago, and have not used it before.  So I am wondering if there are any downsides for upping the maximum file size to cover more files?

There is also an option Prefer image file embedded thumbnails and we know that Photoshop saves PSD files with an embedded JPG, so does it make sense to turn that option on?  The default file size was 100Mb when I first installed. 

[danjosephphoto]

Set the max file size to 1999 Mb as that's the largest a PSD can be before it has to be a PSB and I turned that option on also

[Guest]

Thanks to Trevor Dennis (and others) I now have images for my PSD files I did have to tick the 'prefer image file embedded thumbnails' option and change the max file size to 1999mb as some of my PSDs are over 1gig.

I also ticked the 'show type overlay on thumbnails which identify  the file as Ps or windows photo viewer assigned files much easier than looking for the file extention. It's a shame that Adobe won't do this, seems a case of the customer can have what we want them to have and not what they actually need. 

When I contacted Adobe chat, apart from having to be transferred to a 2nd & 3rd agent they were SLOOOOOOW, about 3 minutes between each reply. Not only that they put the blame on the windows USER ACCOUNT and told me to contact microsoft. Don't hold your breath waiting for a codec from them, use sagethumbs instaed.

Now the next issue. Will Sage Thumbs be adding Canon CR3 support because it seems both microsoft and Canon are not going to bother?

So it's thumbs up to the community and thumbs down to adobe support.