Serious Problems with "Preview" and image editing

I have iMac with Snow Leopard.

I have been using "Preview" for the first time (In my past life I only would have used Photoshop) since "Preview" is the automatic default for image editing on the iMac and has some nice features.

Problem #1 (serious enough)

When opening an existing image file and saving to a new location, preview saves them as an image created "December 31, 1903". And then adds a modification date that is "current". This doesn't look too good to my clients who want an image that has not been modified. And I don't think any of us were around in 1903??

Problem #2 (even more serious)

If I open a photoshop .tif in "Preview" and click on adjust image size, it will retain the original image size upon opening--as it should because I haven't told it to change the size yet.

However....when I open a jpg in "Preview," and click on "adjust image size" it automatically downsizes the image size like from, for example, 10MB to 2MB even though I didn't tell it to change anything.

I didn't notice this was happening at first and have already lost some irreplaceable high-res images created by my camera just by opening and closing files in "Preview" to have a look and/or to make adjustments other than file size.

This is a serious problem because "Preview" is automatically reducing the file size of my original master image files created by my camera. When they are closed, they have been automatically downsized and I am losing the high-res originals.

Help please. Are these bugs? If so, an update can't happen soon enough.

Screen shot

Thanks.

I haven't learned how to do screen shots yet.

Please advise or I'll try to figure it out.

Got the screenshot on the downsizing problem. How do I get the screenshot into this window?

The "adjust size" is under the "tools" menu.

Okay now I have screenshots of both issues. But I haven't figured out how to get them here into this window. They don't seem to just drag. How to attach?

https://forums.macrumors.com/attach...nt.php?attachmentid=275210&stc=1&d=1299734562

Not sure if I am doing this correctly, but I did discover the paperclip.

Okay, the screen shot on the left is the downsizing issue. I went to the Preview Menu Bar/Tools/Adjust Size.
But I didn't adjust the size.

Still at the bottom, you can see my 10.3MB file is now 4MB.

This seems only to happen to jpgs. I can close and it won't change, but if I made any other changes (even if not clicking in this box) and click "save" or "save as", poof! my image is downsized.

This doesn't seem to happen with .tif files if I keep them as .tif files.

But I frequently change .tifs to .jpgs for various reasons, but also want to keep the high-res.

Also, all my camera images are .jpgs and they are now my master files and I don't want them downsizing.

The screenshot on the right shows the first issue problem. Saving a file from a folder to the desktop always gets me the creation date you see here: Dec. 31, 1903 4PM.

????????????????????

I wasn't sure if I should post this in the iMac thread or the software thread.

But it is new iMac/System X.6.4 with preloaded Preview 5.0.2.

Thanks.

I can open in Photoshop and save onto desktop and the creation date is correct: today.

This only happens and consistently happens with Preview.

Why would I choose "save" or "save as" in preview???

It's supposed to be an image handling/editing program. I might want to move it to a different place. I might want to adjust brightness/contrast/sharpening.

I damn sure don't want to lose/change my resolution unless I tell it to.

So, everyone be forewarned. Apple will give you preview as your default image opening application but DON'T USE IT!

Hopefully, someone will come up with some fixes.

I thought I could use Preview to open images, move them around, save them to client files (after importing them to desktop from camera and/or scanning slides and editing in Photoshop).

It's easy enough to use Preview to resize an image (by choice) for sending by E-mail or something unimportant.

The problem is that in the process Preview is destroying the master files by changing the "create" dates and worst of all by automatically downsizing jpgs (masters from the camera) without warning. It doesn't do this with tifs.

These are issues with Preview that need to be fixed. Faulting someone for using a program provided by Apple and set by Apple as the default file for handling images is not particularly helpful.

mjsmke

I know how to use Photoshop. This thread is about Preview and its defects that need fixing. Preview is designed to preview, rename, move, organize images. It should do so with proper dates and resize only when told to do so.

I'm posting to warn others. And I'm posting so that Apple may consider fixing.

Preview is Apple's default image opening app. It should work properly. I've called Apple. Their engineers are working on it.

machampster68

Automatically resize is not selected. It does not automatically resize .tifs only .jpgs

It is making December 31, 1903 4PM as creation date no matter when or where files originated from, old .tifs created in photoshop from slide scans or brand new .jpgs created with new digital camera.

I don't expect Preview to do what Photoshop does. I expect Preview to do what Preview is supposed to do.

Hi Stan. I only expect Preview to do what Apple says it should do--Preview, sort, delete, save, move, minimal editing or editing for non-commercial purposes.

NOT make 1903 "create" dates. NOT automatically resize without it being told to. NOT destroy master image files by doing the above tasks it is supposed to be able to do.

Cheers.

True, there is obviously something wrong. That's why I posted here.

You likely have different systems/software versions.

Nobody has yet come up with a solution for my situation yet. Not even senior Apple Tech support. Still working on it.

In the meantime, some folks might need to be forewarned and careful when using Apple imaging software so as to not lose their master high-res originals.

But if anyone has any idea what should be set differently on my iMac, please chime in with the ideas.

For now, I claim bugs that need to be fixed.

I'll repeat and elaborate on my own system--very new--which is often where new bugs creep in:

new iMac 21.5"/System X.6.4 with preloaded Preview 5.0.2.
3.2 GHZ Intel Core i3, 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3, 1T hard drive

I updated to System X.6.6 (10 hour download) which updated Preview to Version 5.0.3 (504.1)

Preview is still automatically downsizing my high-res master jpgs from my camera!!!

Preview Downsizing jpgs

Starting a new thread on "preview" issues.

I updated from X.6.4 to X.6.6. When doing this Preview updates to 5.0.3--and this does eliminate the "create" date problem of 1903. Now there is a blank line for "create" date which is an improvement.

The problem that remains however is the default setting for saving .jpgs.

Everytime a .jpg is opened in preview and simply renamed or saved to another folder, the default is to reduce the image quality from 10 to 8. Or, to put it another way, to reduce the image quality by 20% each time one uses preview to handle a jpg.

Preview would be highly useful--except for this problem--which is huge.

Apple Senior Tech support says there is no way to set the image quality "default" for jpgs from 8 to 10. So one must use "save as" and reset the slider each time or .jpgs will be reduced in quality by 20% every time one uses Preview for .jpgs to sort, rename, etc.

Very risky if one has high-res jpgs they don't want to lose.

There is no explanation or warning of this feature in "help" files for Preview and Apple is touting "Preview" as a very good app for dealing with images without mentioning this.

With .tif files, image quality remains high when using Preview unless one tells it to do otherwise.

With .jpg files, image quality is automatically reduced by 20% every time one uses Preview unless one goes to a hidden file that appears with "save as" and pushes the quality bar to 10.

Since digital cameras, for the most part, use .jpg rather .tif format, this default feature for Preview is a huge problem that engineers need to fix. No one wants to lose/reduce their image quality because of a hidden Apple default that can't even be changed.

Be forewarned.

And to save others from lecturing me about using Preview instead of Photoshop, please refrain. I know how to and do use Photoshop for serious image editing.

Preview, however, is much handier for previewing, sorting, renaming files--except for Apple's forcing jpgs down 20% in image quality every time it is used.