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I use PS 2021. Whenever I try to drag and drop and image from my browser (chrome) to photoshop it simple doesnt work. It shows the rectangle with the + sign, but nothing happens when I release it. From file explore this problem does not occur. I recently switched from mac to pc and on the mac this was possible and I used it all the time. It is quite important for my workflow to have this feature!
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Hi there,
That shouldn't be happening as dragging and dropping images from Web Browser to Photoshop 2021 is not working, let's make it right.
Which exact version of Photoshop 2021 are you using?
Could you please check if there are any Windows updates available to install?
Also, could you try restoring the preferences of Photoshop and let us know if it helps?
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html
Note: Make sure that you back up all your custom presets, brushes & actions before restoring Photoshop's preferences. Migrate presets, actions, and settings
Regards,
Akash
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I did what you suggested but unfortunately this didn't help. I used the 22.0.1 release
Could it have to do with user permissions?
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Windows does not support it. Copy/Paste is only way to do this.
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I am not sure if this is a complete answer, but I’ll mention that drag and drop in general is much better supported by Adobe applications in macOS than in Windows.
I tried importing an image into Photoshop by drag-and-drop in Windows in a virtual machine on my Mac, and got the same result you did: Works perfectly well dragging from Windows desktop to Photoshop, but not from web browser (I tried Microsoft Edge) to Photoshop.
But there is more. It has been acknowledged that some drag-and-drop import workflows that work great on the Mac, such as dragging files into Premiere Pro or Lightroom Classic, are not supported by Adobe in Windows. As you are finding, those drag-and-drop workflows work fine in Windows using other combinations of programs, but for some reason there are several Adobe applications where drag and drop import is more limited in Windows. It looks like this might be the case for Photoshop too, unless someone can show how that browser-to-Photoshop drag-and-drop workflow is supposed to be done.
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There is an additional problem: when you drag and drop, you don't necessarily get the full original image. This has been shown on Mac as well.
In most web browsers, what you get is a "proxy" image, a sort of screenshot if you like. It will not have an embedded color profile, and it may not be full resolution.
Dragging works in Windows from Firefox to Photoshop. But what you end up with is a .bmp file with no profile.
For this reason I have always said that even if drag and drop works, it's bad practice with unpredictable results. Right-click and Save is the safe way to do it.
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I tried it on the Mac, and got a profile mismatch warning that the image I was trying to drop into Ps had a Display Profile.
That and of all the ways to bring in an image that I was taught, drag and drop from a browser wasn't one.
Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.
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Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.
By @gener7
Right. That's exactly how I see it too.
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for my purposes it is not crucial that color profiles etc are super accurate
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@gener7 wrote:
That and of all the ways to bring in an image that I was taught, drag and drop from a browser wasn't one.
I use Mac drag and drop anywhere it works between applications, because it skips over all of the tedious Save/Open dialog box navigation on both ends. I do it for quick Photoshop experiments with images found on the web, but certainly not for final production of anything. If I want to make sure I am getting the highest resolution image that the web browser gets, I will right-click and Open Image in New Tab to make sure it’s not a proxy.
The profile mismatch error is something you would have to resolve with any open method in Photoshop (Open command, drag from desktop, paste…) so it isn’t any more or less of a reason to be concerned about drag and drop.
On the Mac, what happens with drag and drop from a browser is that the image file Photoshop opens is in a temporary web browser cache directory, deep within the hidden path
/private/var/folders/
So there is a potential for problems if you save right back into that temporary cache directory, because the system could wipe it at any time. But as long as you save your edited version into a normal user folder, it should be fine, and no different than opening that same file downloaded to a folder. As long as you make sure it’s the best available version from the web browser.
Windows might cache web browser images in a different enough way that Photoshop can’t import it the same way. But we still don’t know the real reason Adobe provides much less support for drag and drop in Windows.
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I'd guess it's an API thing or what program calls OS maker allows. The "Save As/Save a Copy dilemma comes to mind.
Well if it is suitable for experimental purposes, I get it. I just like to deal directly with image files and I have time to.