Image Dimensions not showing

Question

Image Dimensions not showing

This MAY be a Photoshop CS3 issue, so forgive me if it is, but I can no longer see image dimensions in the (Leopard) finder. The problem seems to have started when I upgraded to Photoshop CS3, but I upgraded to Leopard just a few days prior to the CS3 upgrade. If I look at images that were already on my hard drive before Leopard, the dimensions appear. Any new images I save via Photoshop no longer have dimensions appearing in the finder preview area.

Edit: This definitely appears to be a Leopard issue. It appears that ALL new images, no matter which program saved it, do not have dimensions attached. I opened a jpeg with Preview and saved it as both a jpeg and a png, and no dimensions appeared.

MacBook Pro 2.33GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.1), 120GB 2GB

Posted on Jan 9, 2008 7:18 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 9, 2008 12:32 PM in response to Eric Blankfield

I was doing a lot of graphics stuff the other day, for many hours, and noticed that the things I had just saved were not showing the pixel dimensions in the Finder. For me simply selecting the image in the Finder caused the dimensions to appear. You might also try a restart, then open a folder with the new images and see if the dimensions are now present. Also had a bizarre result in Cover Flow where several newly created images all displayed as being exactly the same (all looked like the first image created). In that case a force restart of the Finder brought things back to sanity.
Francine

Francine
Schwieder

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Answer 2

Jan 9, 2008 12:38 PM in response to Francine Schwieder

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, that didn't fix it. I had been selecting the image in the Finder, expecting to see the image dimensions, but wasn't. A restart didn't help either.

One thing I am noticing is that when I select the image, the place where the dimensions and last opened values would be briefly say "Fetching..." before resorting to two dashes. It looks like Leopard is trying to fetch the dimensions and last opened (which incidentally also never appears for new images), but fails to do so and so places "--" in their places.

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Answer 3

petrock

Level 3

980 points

Jan 10, 2008 2:31 AM in response to Eric Blankfield

The Finder gets the dimensions information from Spotlight. Did you turn off Spotlight? Go into Terminal and type

mdls <path to one of your files not showing the dimensions>

It should have an entry for kMDItemPixelHeight and kMDItemPixelWidth. If not, then the problem is that Spotlight wasn't able to index that file. Good luck...

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Answer 4

Jan 10, 2008 5:50 AM in response to petrock

I thought Spotlight might index things like that. But I never turned it off. It is reindexing right now so I'll check when it's finished.

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Answer 5

R C-R

Level 6

17,794 points

Jan 10, 2008 6:29 AM in response to Eric Blankfield

I assume you have already checked this but it never hurts to be sure: in the View Options for the Finder windows showing this problem, is "Show Item Info" checked?

Also, in the "More Info" section of the 'get Info' window for these items, are the dimensions shown? What, if any, color space info appears there?

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Answer 6

Jan 10, 2008 6:36 AM in response to R C-R

In the View Options for finder windows, there is no checkbox for Show Item Info. Only for Desktop. Unless I am missing something. However, checking the one in Desktop does not fix the problem; it only shows how much space is left on the drive on my desktop.

As for the More Info disclosure triangle in Get Info... there is nothing there at all (except --).

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Answer 7

Jan 10, 2008 6:36 AM in response to Eric Blankfield

BTW, Spotlight finished its most recent index and there are still no dimensions.

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Answer 8

R C-R

Level 6

17,794 points

Jan 10, 2008 8:05 AM in response to Eric Blankfield

"Show Item Info" should appear in the View Options for any Finder window set to icon view -- it should be in the section immediately below the text size & label location section. If it is not, it implies there is some deeper problem with the installation of the Finder or perhaps with a preference file it references.

If you are sure the item info checkbox is not there, you might try creating a new user account for testing purposes & see if it then appears. If so, it implies a problem with a preference file in your original user account or maybe a conflict with some login item for that account.

I'm not sure if the lack of info in the "More Info" section implies the same thing -- some files do not produce any other info for other reasons.

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Answer 9

Jan 10, 2008 8:18 AM in response to R C-R

If I open a Finder window and do Command-J (Show View Options) the small window opens with the following items in it:

(Checkbox) Always open in column view
(Separator)
Text size: (Select)
(Checkbox) Show Icons
(Checkbox) Show Icon Preview
(Checkbox) Show Column Preview
Arrange By: (Select)
(Lots of empty space)

That's it.

Creating another user did not change the items that appear in this window.

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Answer 10

Jan 10, 2008 8:22 AM in response to Eric Blankfield

Ohhhh... in ICON view. I never use that. Sorry. Yes it does appear. I almost always use column view, and sometimes cover flow. Still no dimensions though.

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Answer 11

Jan 10, 2008 10:27 AM in response to Eric Blankfield

The only time I have seen this problem is when a folder (or the drive the folder is on) is listed in the Privacy pane of Spotlight. Have you checked the Spotlight System Pref pane and then clicked the Privacy tab to see if there is anything there?
Francine

Francine
Schwieder

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Answer 12

Jan 10, 2008 10:31 AM in response to Francine Schwieder

There is nothing in the Spotlight privacy pane at all. This is baffling and frustrating. I often use the dimensions under the preview in column view to quickly glean the dimensions for images. Now I cannot for any new images that I create.

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Answer 13

R C-R

Level 6

17,794 points

Jan 10, 2008 10:43 AM in response to Eric Blankfield

As I said, not all files containing images will display dimensions info. Among them are many PDF files, image files without metadata support built into the OS or through an applications resource or Spotlight plug-in, many vector graphics formats, & pretty much any file formatted as a multi-page document.

Are you saying that no graphics file on your drive will display dimensions info in column or icon view when the appropriate view option is checked (even simple jpeg or tiff files), or just that CS3 files won't?

Message was edited by: R C-R

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Answer 14

Jan 10, 2008 10:48 AM in response to R C-R

In this case, the culprits are jpg, png, and gif image files. The bug seems to apply to any of these files recently saved to the drive, whether I download the image from elsewhere, or create the image locally. I have not tested this with other file types.

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Answer 15

Jan 10, 2008 10:49 AM in response to Eric Blankfield

It is worth reiterating that images that were already stored on my hard drive before installing Leopard, the dimensions DO appear.

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