Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Not sure why this happens...

Using Qimage v2010.208. Getting "Image Read Error" on some thumbnails of .psd files (CS3 on XP SP3). These are not complicated files, none has more than seven layers. In fact, I flattened one to a single layer and did a Save As to a new file name. Gave the file a short name, just in case file name length might be an issue. No luck. Image is not large -- 4110 x 2870. ProPhoto color space, 16-bit. Image was never resized in PS; this dimension was attained by extending the canvas. All of the files in question open perfectly in PS. I did a thumbnail refresh (F5) and a thumbnail rebuild (Ctrl+F5). No luck. I can print from inside PS without problem. Rebooted. No luck. Qimage simply shows the dreaded red "Image Read Error" message in the thumbnails. These are not big files, they range from 69.1MB to 146.5MB. This directory, which resides on my RAID NAS, contains fewer than 25 files -- a mix of RAW, psd, and one jpg.

This actually happens quite often with psd files, going back to when I first bought Qimage Studio Edition in Dec. 2007.

Suggestions greatly appreaciated. Thank you.

Hi DotCom,
You need to have "Maximum Compatibility" checked when you save a PSD.
Terry.

"Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility" is set to "Always" in my PS CS3 File Handling preferences. It has always been set that way. Some of these problems with Qimage are with files it has previously opened without problems. Thanks for your suggestion, but the problem would seem to lie elsewhere.

Hi,
Terry might be out and about right now as it is late morning where he lives.

Might I ask a question..... are you using anything called an Alpha Channel in your PSD file?
If so, that might be the problem. I think I read that is a Photo Shop only item. Try removing the alpha channel, if you have one.

Fred

Hi Fred,
None of my files contain Alpha channels. Indeed, one of these files is completely flattened, containing only a Background layer and nothing else. These files all open perfectly in PS.

Of course, we expect Photo Shop to be able to open its own files.  What we need to do is play Sherlock Holmes and find out what is saved in that file that makes non conforming.
I have a neighbor with Photo Shop, and he sends me pictures from time to time, and once in a while we get one that wont conform.
Upon further review, we find some weird layer with an aberration of a drawing on it in gray scale gradients that just will not conform.
I recall one that he made that was a layer with some gray, line art type of design, that didn't show in the image, but he used that as a sketch for some artistic drawing.
After the drawing was made, we pulled that layer, and the PSD worked fine.
Strange things like that happen.

Fred

Thank you very much for your reply and interest. The smallest of the problem .psd files, the flattened one containing only one layer, is 69MB. The .psd file from which it was made weighs in at 146.5MB and contains just six layers in two groups (three image layers and three global adjustment layers with empty masks). I'm perfectly willing to share them with you for forensic analysis (watching too much "CSI," I guess), but I can't e-mail files of that size; my ISP rejects them.

That file size is beyond email, but there  are a few online services that will send the 146 mb file for you, and you can use the free part of the service.
The free one is a little slow, but it's free. You upload the file, and they inform me that it is ready to download. I get it from them.

https://www.yousendit.com/
and I see another called www.box.com
I have used YOUSENDIT, and it worked sluggishly, but 146 mb is not large.
If you choose to do this, please send the unflattened file so it can be explored to find the reason for the incompatibility.

That's all I can think of.
My email address is wathree.ssz@verizon.net

Fred

Hi again dotcom,
One other thing to try: save the images as tif (LZW compression). Qimage does not usually have problems with the international standard.
Terry.