Preview cannot export or cut-and-paste

JoSaCo wrote:

You don't have to sign up for anything. Here is a similar image from another source (also attached below): Test image

Thanks for posting a sample. Files that can reproduce a problem are extremely helpful.

Apple has rewritten Preview to not allow editing of these simple B+W/grayscale images.

Yes. Apple does tend to rewrite Preview entirely on a regular basis. I'm not so convinced that this is a bug. While it certainly wasn't intentionally malicious, it may have been intentional. Apple does like to aggressively remove support for older technologies and practices. I almost typed "simplify", but that really isn't true. Apple's software gets more complex every year. But as Apple adds complexity in many areas, they invariably remove older features in other areas.

So what to do now? If you had just upgraded to Sonoma, you can always go back. While I do have a cynical outlook, I might also be wrong. Maybe this is a bug that will get fixed at some point. Don't bother using Apple's "Product Feedback" page, file a real bug report at: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

People who use their Macs for work often get unpleasant surprised when they upgrade. Back in the day, the few people who could get Macs for work typically had to use them for many years. They didn't often upgrade, so this was not a big problem. But now everyone is addicted to upgrades.

My official recommendation to people who use their Macs for work is to break that addiction. Always keep a 2nd computer handy and updated. That way, you are always able to test the current version of the operating system. And if you have some kind of system failure, you have a backup computer ready to go. If Apple breaks something important, you can test later updates to know when they fix it, all while having a computer that is still useable. If you get to a point where you really like a new version, you can then camp out on that one and start upgrading the other computer until it won't upgrade anymore. Then you buy a new computer and keep it going.

Another recommendation is to not rely on Apple's software. Use 3rd party apps instead. Unfortunately, many of them also use Apple APIs internally, so they can get broken too. That's why you have to test. Apple's not work. Not many of their customers even know about monochrome imagery, or 8 band, or 36 band, or 2 band. It's an RGBA world out there.

FWIW, it seems Apple has dropped support for 8bit grey scale images. FWIW, the free XnView MP can change 8bit grey scale images to 8bit color. Once saved as an 8bit color image, it can be manipulated with Preview.

JoSaCo wrote:

Preview is easier to use than Photo S.

Never heard of this "Photo S". One thing that people seem to never use this forum for is recommendations for 3rd party software. We are always supposed to clean up the mess from all these horrible apps. Why doesn't anyone just ask first?

At this point, this seems like a bug. What bit is Photo S writing to the file that Preview cannot interpret without it?

Most likely it is converting the image from greyscale to RGB. Internally, Apple heavily favours RGBA imagery at a very low level. There are lots of extra hoops to read imagery in grayscale, convert it to RGBA, and then write it backup to grayscale. I'm building my own imagery app right now that does just that, because most people don't want to deal with these funky images. Like Apple, I don't really have much interest in saving or exporting grayscale images. The whole point of my app is to make this kind of imagery more accessible.

*IF* Apple is trying to get away from grayscale images, this is an odd way of implementing it, making no announcement at all and then presenting an enormous problem for archivists. This seems to be a strange hill on which to plant a flag for modernity.

But it is very much "the Apple way". 😄

@etresoft, I have 2 Macs and a Win machine. I am not without an additional computer. I prefer the Mac file system (for a dozen reasons) and Preview is much easier to use than the Win editing options.

There are lots of other options. The problem is that Apple makes consumer software. When you drop a word like "archivist", you're pretty much saying you aren't a consumer-grade user. So why are you trying to use consumer-grade tools? If you're an archivist, do some research to find a more appropriate app to use. That's much harder than it sounds.

For example, many apps rely on Apple's internal APIs. While your "Photo S" app may have worked today, it might not work next year. Apple dropped EPS support from Preview a couple of years ago. That caused some consternation from the few people who know what that is. But then, in Sonoma, Apple also removed the lower-level EPS support. So anyone who was using my handy-dandy free EPS tool I wrote for Ventura is now out of luck again. I ain't writing no more handy-dandy tools for free.

But my point is that you really need to research apps and who makes them to find one that has good support and is likely to keep running in the future. I would have recommended something like Pixelmator Pro. But since you already are familiar with Window, you might like the Affinity tools better. They are Mac apps but were originally Windows apps. Some people love them but I find them very foreign to an old-school Mac user.

Similar issue, files from same source newspaper.com - but that is not the problem. For files on a shared drive, preview will open jpg files on the mini & iPad without problem. On my 2 mbpro with apple chip some, very few will open. If I drag the file to the local desktop it will open. If I change the file name on the shared drive to jpeg it will open on the mbpro from the shared drive. Safari on the mbpro will open jpg on the shared drive without problems.

I noticed that the image you used is from Ancestry.com, which is also the source of the images that I am having issues with. I was just on a phone call with Apple support. And it is a type of gray color space that Ancestry uses that is the issue.

You're correct. I had to convert the image from greyscale before I could crop or save it.

However, I doubt Apple rewrote preview to prevent editing of greyscale images. I think it's more likely a bug. It wouldn't be the only one in Preview.

JoSaCo wrote:

I apologize, the app is called "Paint S".

Ideally, if you have a question about an app, provide a link to a first-party page about the app. If you can't find one, you should consider that a Big Red Flag. In many cases, especially with iOS apps, people don't even know the name of an app. Or if they do, it's just a partial name and there are 72 apps containing that partial name.

In the case of this app, I was able to find it on the Mac App Store. But still, the Mac App Store is a second-party page. The developer's own site doesn't actually list "Paint S". The developer is just some person, not a company. It doesn't look like a bad little freebie app. It's got in-app purchases. It says it doesn't collect any personal information. It is regularly updated. Definitely not the best, but I've definitely seen much worse.

All that being said, it's definitely not a professional app.

I disagree with you that Apple only provides tools that are "consumer" software. The number of professional photographers, editors and muscians that use Apple products -- even as they come out of the box -- is enormous.

Doesn't prove me wrong. While people may call themselves professional, that doesn't mean the apps they use qualify for that designation. What Apple calls "Pro" apps are simply relatively expensive AV media production apps. There is a lot of qualitative and subjective aspects of what makes something or someone "professional". The bottom line is that Apple makes mass-market apps. Professionals can use these kinds of apps from Apple and other developers, but they have to be careful. These are mass-market apps, designed according to the way Apple thinks they should work. If you disagree with Apple, you are always wrong.

Whether an "archivist" or a "scrapbook" maker, the problem is the same, and this problem is a glaring bug.

Well then file your bug report using the link I posted above. If you are right and I'm wrong, then Apple will fix this bug eventually. A while back, Apple rolled out a bug that broke display of media files >= 120 fps. iPhones don't generate video with those high frame rates so Apple never bothered to test it. Many professionals were screaming bloody murder. I predicted that Apple would agree that this was a bug and fix it promptly - i.e. within 2 months. I was correct almost to the day.

However, in this case, I don't think it's a bug. I think this was a design decision. I don't think it will be fixed in two months. But what do I know? Prove me wrong.

I have no issues with; cut&paste, exporting or B&W images in Preview running on Sonoma on my Macs.

I don't know if there's some issue with the sites you mention because I'm not about to sign up, even for a free trial.

etresoft wrote:

While it certainly wasn't intentionally malicious, it may have been intentional. Apple does like to aggressively remove support for older technologies and practices.

Not outside the realm of possibility.

I ran my ad business for twenty years with Macs up until I retired around 2013. Upgrades were not nearly as frequent or necessary but always complicated so I put them off as long as I could without getting too far behind. Now it seems like Apple upgrades their OS about every twenty minutes and expect all users and software apps to keep up. I still subscribe to the Adobe Creative Suite and that's been a common problem over the last few OSXs. It sometimes takes Adobe weeks to get compatible with an OS upgrade but of course they'll never admit it's them, sending us Mac users down endless rabbit holes. At least I only need Adobe now for my design hobbies and not to earn a living.

I currently have a 2021 iMac with 8 GB memory and M1 chip which is plenty for my needs now. I had issues out of the box with migrating from my previous iMac to the new one and it took me weeks with Apple Cares to get everything working. Even their senior techs told me they'd never seen this problem before. To their credit, they stayed in touch until we resolved the problems by reinstalling the whole operating system a few times and hiding my old iMac in the closet so my new one wouldn't keep getting confused as to which one it was! I still subscribe to Apple Care for good reason. Maybe that's part of their plan? I told 'em I take VISA, Master Card and PayPal if they ever need my help again.