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Photoshop CC, no icons

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
June 24, 2013
9 replies
41659 views

Just installed as many of the CC apps as I could in Snow Leopard, 10.6.8. Photoshop CC will not save desktop icons for any file type. I left Photoshop CS6 on the drive and it still works perfectly to local drives and our server. I have the preferences for CC exactly the same as CS6, but CC never saves an icon. Anyone else seeing this?

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Correct answer Chris Cox

Hi Chris,

If I turn that option on, I get the type of icons shown above in my third post of this topic out of CC. That is, they have a white border around them. Is this the new "normal", or should that border not be there if the icons are being displayed correctly?

Here's something you may also be able to answer. Back in Snow Leopard, Apple announced they were doing away with Type and Creator codes, replacing them with Uniform Type Identifiers. The OS, even now under ML, will still read these old resource fork codes, but none of the apps Apple writes will create them. Most newer apps don't, either. I was also informed by a developer that it won't be long (maybe with OS 11), that the Mac OS will be a 64 bit OS only. 32 bit apps won't even launch. It's an elimination of the need to handle two types of memory management at the same time.

So the question is - is Apple working their way to the elimination of the resource fork altogether and heading towards a single data structure (I've also read they're working on doing away with the now ancient HFS file system). I completely understand if Adobe is under an NDA and you can't answer, even if you know. In which case, you could still say, "The answer might be yes, no, or maybe."

That is the new "normal" - since that is how Apple wants to display them.

Apple has marked the resource manager routines as "deprecated" in their public API headers, but has made no announcement on when they might go away.

K

kythuatmang_net

Participant

Yes, it seem to be the good solution!

johnrellis

Legend

Since Adobe and Apple each refuse to implement PSB thumbnails and previews for Mac Finder, I've implemented a Quick Look plugin that provides them. The plugin handles both PSBs and PSDs, and compared to the default Mac previews, it is up to ten time faster on very large PSDs. The plugin also shows low-quality previews and thumbnails for files saved without the Maximize Compatibility option (as compared to the default Mac previews, which are blank).

The plugin is currently in beta, and you can try it for free:

http://www.johnrellis.com/photoshop/psbquicklook.htm

I'm not an expert Mac programmer, so the plugin very possibly has bugs at this stage. (I'd greatly prefer that Adobe or Apple, who do have expert programmers, provide this functionality.)

Kurt LangAuthor

Known Participant

That is a great start, John! You almost had me plunking down $9.95 right away. The only thing stopping me was when I bring the non Max Comp files into Media Pro, I get blank icons there. PSD and PSB images do work in the Finder with your plugin active, but doesn't help the cataloging software (drat!). Would have been nice to start drastically cutting down the size of these file types again by eliminating the hidden flattened layer.

S

scamper-beckon

Participant

Here’s something interesting.

I’m presently running a CC trial at work, and, sure enough, white icons with white borders. I tried all the suggestions on this thread, to no avail.

But, watching a new file write to the Finder, I noticed something that hasn’t been mentioned here: the icon would briefly display with the correct thumbnail before turning white. It was as if the OS were overwriting the PSD icon. (Flat files, like TIFFs, work just fine.) So, just out of curiosity I went to the Finder’s View Options (Command-J) and dragged the Icon Size slider. I always have my icons set to 192x192, but as soon as I hit 188x188 or smaller, they draw correctly. Just as they did in CS6, that is. In other words, without changing any other Photoshop preferences, I got my icons to look as they should be making the Finder icons smaller. At least for now.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m the first to blame Adobe when it comes to gripes. They lost me as a customer (at home) when they went to a subscription model, and I won’t be coming back. But in this case ChrisCox may be right in pointing the finger at Apple. If I changed an OS X setting to get things working, then, logically, I have to point the finger at OS X in this case.

(Granted, other people may be having other issues, and I don’t want to take away from those experiences. But do try futzing with your icon sizes... it may work for you as it has for me.)

johnrellis

Legend

I noticed something that hasn’t been mentioned here: the icon would briefly display with the correct thumbnail before turning white. It was as if the OS were overwriting the PSD icon. (Flat files, like TIFFs, work just fine.) So, just out of curiosity I went to the Finder’s View Options (Command-J) and dragged the Icon Size slider. I always have my icons set to 192x192, but as soon as I hit 188x188 or smaller, they draw correctly.

Here's why that is happening: PSDs embed tiny JPEG thumbnails with a maximum dimension of 160 pixels. Quick Look will use those thumbnails for Finder thumbnail sizes of about 192 or 196 or smaller (on my machine it's 196). When the Finder requests larger thumbnails, Quick Look will read the composite image provided by the Maximize Compatibility option. If the composite image isn't present (because the option was unchecked and the image has more than one layer), then Quick Look will generate a white thumbnail.

Sometimes you see the tiny thumbnail quickly replaced by the white thumbnail. This is an artifact of Quick Look's progressive rendering of thumbnails. When you first visit a folder, Quick Look will display whatever thumbnails it has in its cache. If those thumbnails are too small, it will then start generating higher-resolution thumbnails by reading the composite image data, and as each such thumbnail is generated, the Finder displays it. Since reading the composite image data can take a relatively long time for large PSDs, it can take several seconds or more for a folder of large PSDs to replace the low-resolution thumbnails with higher-resolution ones.

S

scamper-beckon

Participant

John R. Ellis wrote:

PSDs embed tiny JPEG thumbnails with a maximum dimension of 160 pixels.

But isn’t the solution in that very fact? If we can somehow coax Adobe to save the thumbnails at larger dimensions, then we get our proper preview icons. Isn’t this what we’ve been asking for? I’ve merely worked around the present limitation by setting my Finder icons at 188x188, and they’re not nearly as sharp as the CS6 icons (still!) are.

(I still use CS6 at home, because I hate Adobe’s CC scheme, and it’s always nice to see proper full-resolution icons there, next to CC’s shoddy ones.)

J

Jonnyphotos

Participant

I'm having this problem too - new MacPro running 10.9.4 - thumbnails generate fine in CS6 - generates only a ps logo in CC - hope this gets sorted soon as CC is useless to me now. I'll keep workng in cs6 until this is fixed. Might even unsubscribe, Adobe.

Chris Cox

Legend

Why would you unsubscribe from Adobe products due to an Apple OS bug?

J

Jonnyphotos

Participant

I'm not going to unsubscribe - but it is really annoying - I'm a busy retoucher and I need the image thumbnails for instant visual reference in my workflow.. I can work in CC and re-save in CS6 - but it's a pain with the larger files, so I'm pretty much just working in CS6 and not using CC, which is a shame - I hope that between you and apple you can can find a solution.

R

RosieMolly

Participating Frequently

I don't know if this is the right thread to post this question, but here goes!

Today I launched Photoshop CC for the first time. Running on Mac OS 10.8.5. Seems to be working well. I can see the images previews in my finder windows no problem. BUT....when I go to place a new Photoshop CC image in an InDesign CS6 document and navigate to the correct folder the new images I've saved today have no preview. The older ones saved in Photoshop CS6 preview fine.

Do I have to switch back to Photoshop CS6 to get this working properly? Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks

Rosie

PS. I'm not a techie, or a programmer, just a humble graphic designer!

Kurt LangAuthor

Known Participant

As long as you have the desktop icons option on, you will see thumbnail/icon previews on the desktop itself, and in folders. You will not see a preview of the image in a dialogue box if you have saved any layered .psd file with the the check box for Maximum Compatibility off in Photoshop's preferences.

andrew.kramar

Participating Frequently

Here's how got it back working: Photoshop Preferences -> File Handling -> uncheck 'Icon', leave only 'Windows Thumbnail' on.

Was DYP

Inspiring

Yes allowing the OS to create the icon has always worked. Allowing PSCS6 to create icons will start some kind of corruption on some systems that will not allow icons to show. But if your talking about CC I though it did not matter whether icon was selected or not because icon creation was disabled in CC.

Charismatic_yogiB82A

Known Participant

The same problem here! No icon/thumbnails previews. Even if they are turned ON in finder.

I have Lion, latest Update.

With CS6 everything is working fine.

I don't get it, why should that be an Apple problem, when everything works just fine with CS6?

Please Adobe, tunrn this essential functionality back ON, it is not possible to work like this.

If you really need to have this new way of saving files, please give us the option to use tha classic(CS6) mode in preferencies.

many thanks in advance.

Was DYP

Inspiring

With CS6 everything is working fine.

That is not the case for a lot of us. http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1008694?tstart=0

It is seaming becoming apparent that the current OS and future OSs will not support icon creation from PS. You will have to use Show Icon Preview in the finder.

As to why CS6's icons did not cause problems for some I supsect is that some elements for older OS code may have remain in a upgrade.

You might as well just get used to turning off icon creation in PS and use the finder to display icons. Of course with PSCC that is your only option.

paulburd

Participating Frequently

This is clearly a problem with Photoshop CC. I'm running it under 10.8.4, and no files saved from Photoshop have an icon other than the generic ("graphic") icon. In other words, the icon represents the file type on not the contents of the file.

This is reproducable every time:

1. Save a file from Photoshop CC and get a generic file-type icon.

2. Open the file in CS6 and re-save will change the icon to represent the contents of the file (small picture - non-generic icon).

3. Open the file in CC and re-save changes in back the generic icon.

You can do this all day. I've tried deleting the .DS_Store files but that doesn't help. Hopefully Adobe will come out with a fix.

Kurt LangAuthor

Known Participant

Yes, exactly. I can't see how the problem can be related to anything but PS CC.

L

lenny_eiger

Known Participant

I started many years ago as well. About 50 of them, in my Dad's darkroom. I was the first person to make enlarged negs for alt process using a Hell 299 with a contone head. I agree with you, ppi is spi is dpi, for all practical intents and purposes.

However, I will respectfully disagree that this is only PS CC, as I am seeing it in CS 6.

Lenny, EigerStudios

Noel Carboni

Legend

Are we talking about icons or thumbnails here? Please be accurate and specific.

The term icon is normally used to describe a fixed image that describes a program or document type.

A thumbnail is more often a tiny version of an enclosed image, used to describe a specific document.

It still seems strange though that CS6 continues to work as expected, and files saved with CC won't show a desktop icon

If we are indeed talking about thumbnails, I don't mean to rub sand but I find it ironically funny that we now seem to be looking back fondly on the quality and reliability of Photoshop CS6's thumbnail generation.

All I can say is, regarding THIS specific issue, I'm glad I have 3rd party software on my PC to generate thumbnails. It works every time, no matter what version of Photoshop is on the job.

-Noel

Kurt LangAuthor

Known Participant

I'm using the terms Photoshop and OS X use. Both refer to the desktop image of a file as an icon:

Normally, I always have "Show icon preview" off. This does not effect CS6 in any way. I always get a desktop icon. Such as this:

The above is the same image saved out of CC and CS6. Preference setting are exactly the same. CC shows no icon when "Show icon preview" is off. If you turn it on, you get this:

Better than nothing, but I shouldn't have to do that. It's also not that simple. Even with that OS option on, CC still never shows an icon of any image it saves. Here, it shows the preview, but not the icon:

CC also never shows the icon at the top of any image window within Photoshop:

Since CS6 was still functioning perfectly, I didn't expect reinstalling the OS to change anything. But you can't just say "no" without actually doing it. The reinstall of the OS changed nothing.

I also noticed that while CC installed in Snow Leopard, 10.6.8, the specs page says PS CC is only for 10.7 or 10.8. So taking that as a possible hint that it may be an OS incompatibility that CC wasn't even supposed to install to, I installed CC again in Mountain Lion, 10.8.4, where I also already had CS6 installed. No change. CC will not create an icon, CS6 does.

This can only be a problem with CC.

station_two

Inspiring

Kurt Lang wrote:
… Here, it shows the preview, but not the icon:

I had always assumed that particular Preview in column view was being provided by Apple's Preview application, not by Photoshop.

I have given up all hope of ever sorting this terminology out.

Chris Cox

Legend

Unless you disabled previews and icons in preferences, photoshop CC is saving them.

A few people have run across this problem in MacOS - but not everyone is seeing it. (on my systems, I haven't been able to reproduce the problem at all)

It is probably related to the MacOS bugs that prevented some users from seeing thubmnails on some systems in some directories. Previously users have gotten their thumbnails back by using utilities to delete the .DS_Store caches in each directory, and others by reinstalling the OS.

We thought that removing the resource fork thumbnails would help the situation (since Apple thought that's where the trouble was in their code), but apparently there may be other parts to the OS bugs that we didn't realize.

Kurt LangAuthor

Known Participant

Hi Chris,

Reinstalling the OS is how I've fixed the issue with CS6, so I suppose I could try that. It still seems strange though that CS6 continues to work as expected, and files saved with CC won't show a desktop icon, even though the preferences to do so are on.

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