How to fix .Ai.EPS files preview issue on Sonoma ?

It's not that hard. That's what automation is for. Read one of my previous responses where I explained how the folks at DecoPac set up actions in Photoshop for raster EPS, and Illustrator for vector EPS. They let it run overnight for each and did thousands that way without having to waste production time doing it.

I worked in the printing industry in general for 50 years. 45 of it in electronic prepress when the first Scitex workstations came into the country. Over time, all of that switched to Photoshop. Add to that (being in prepress), learning Pagemaker, Freehand, InDesign, Illustrator, Quark XPress, whatever else.

We frequently worked with BBDO, Martin Williams, Honda, Target, and I can't even remember how many other high end businesses and ad agencies. I never gave it much thought because that was just the daily routine.

Am I a designer? No, but I worked with them nearly every day. EPS ruled for many years. But virtually all of them stopped using it a minimum of 10 years ago. There's no need for raster EPS when you can just as easily bring a TIF or PSD into InDesign/Quark. There's no need for vector EPS when you can bring a .ai or PDF into InDesign/Quark.

What killed EPS more than anything else? Lack of transparency support.

Thank You. Yes, we've been rubbing ink on dead trees for decades - today it's more like - rubbing crushed toner on some pulp mixed with lots of recycled plastics :) Always something new to learn - often through pain.... BUT to remove a file type "eps" was awful, to users that have assets. Suggesting Bridge, Literoom or other alternates - are to suggest - time is irrelevant. Thumbnails (sometimes small, sometimes medium) help us search and fly through our own work, never mind that, yes - download libraries still supply files, many of them in eps. This is much like, your restore of the backed up files failed. Gone. Poof. You can rebuild one-by-one.... My goodness - everything can contain bad bad code today - are jpg and PDF next to be banished - they too can contain awfully destructive code? Warn users. BUT in a mostly professional community of Users to say - 'gone', is just wrong.

Things change. That's just the way it is.

Have you ever seen the movie, Other People's Money ? Danny DeVito has a great part in where he explains how the horse and carriage hung on for years as the automobile took over. The last maker of buggy whips made the best buggy whips ever, and were the last to go out of business. The moral being, the buggy whip manufacturer refused to see the writing on the wall and didn't diverge into a newer business model when they should have.

EPS is today's buggy whip. Will it go away soon? Who knows. People thought because there were so many Type 1 PostScript fonts out there, and businesses had hundreds, or thousands of dollars invested in them, they'd always be around. Wrong. They're now all but dead. The Adobe suite will not list them. Neither will MS Office or the SoftMaker Office suite. And it only took about two years between the time people thought they'd be usable for at least another decade to dead.

Kurt - you're making me sound aged, I am - gracefully and always getting smarter. One of the things I've learned is you can always buy new things with old money. Film negatives went away too. EPS is not yet dead, far from it. And like money - i have assets that we've created over time and continue to use, OR even to re-save as a TIF - MY PROBLEM and i'd be grateful for any offered solution - for how to continue to use the GREAT MAC Search Function to race through files, see the thumbnail of the image I need - and use it, open it, save it some other way perhaps - BUT to have made these files almost impossible to run through - is mean spirited as I can see no actual reason that the OS set an arbitrary rule of what image I can see, or can't see - except.... 'cause we decided'. What's next, PDF, jpg or a gif? - each can have bad code. I got 2 expensive MACs on ice. Anybody with a solution? Please.

BrianWAM wrote:

Anybody with a solution?

I would be happy to fix it for you. Contact me via e-mail and we can negotiate terms. I've made this offer a few times now and no one has contacted me yet.

It seems people think that posting in this forum will cause Apple to restore the EPS preview capability. That is extremely unlikely. But who knows? Apple's WWDC conference is only a month away. Maybe macOS 15 will restore EPS preview capability!

Here's to hope!

Hello - is there, have you discovered, any path towards a fix for "can't preview eps images" in MAC Sonoma? I've got hardware that keeps aging, in a corner that I just can't use. Aprreciate any shared update you may have. tx B

This thread seems to be hijacked by folks who would like us to stop using eps files.

I would be happy to NEVER use an .eps file again for the rest of my life.

However Getty Images, the largest stock image provider in the world, still delivers their vector images as eps. Same goes for most other stock companies. As a designer, I am downloading these images all day long and placing them in Indesign etc... I don't have time to convert each one as I go.

Getting back to the original question, does anyone have a solution for previewing eps files?

A correction. Yes, the last image would look like that as an EPS, but everything that overlaps would be flattened down to raster. All but the text in the center would be raster, even though you think you purchased a vector image.

It's no different in Affinity Designer. I quickly created a very simple (and ugly) image of three overlapping gradients. Still all individual and editable shapes.

Saved a copy of it as an EPS and everything was rasterized. As it had to be in order to look the same.

We can only hope. 😕

I truly can't understand why people want to grip so tightly to this almost obsolete, archaic, and nearly useless format.

Type 1 PostScript fonts are dead. EPS/PS is very, very close behind. You've mentioned this already, but it bears repeating. Anyone still insisting on using these files are going to find themselves at an impasse - likely at the worst possible time with a fast approaching deadline - when their print vendors will no long accept, or can even use them. Then the panic will really set it and the complaining here will be even louder.

The solution is relatively simple and can be automated.

I do get that, but it really goes to show how far behind the times these image suppliers are. They still think EPS is some kind of gold standard, when it's now really just shy of manure.

I mean, just look at my previous example. I chose images in their specifically categorized vector library. All of them are listed as having a resolution of 300 dpi. Which means none of them are vector images.

Why do this? Because if they were truly vector, you'd only have and need one "size" to sell. By rasterizing them, they can perpetuate the "Pay per size" structure.

Dear Apple

You, yes you, had "the BEST" file find/search function - period. Full Stop. To find an external beyond the OS workaround defeats one of the reasons to remain a user/investor/adopter/booster. Watches, iPads, phones etc - are not graphic station workhorses. MAC Pro and family are work-tools. We the graphic users have historical files of pics, logos and other images that are eps formatted. To say "too bad, so sad" is a harmful directive - the breaks a trust bond. These files are assets, and as such have value in that we use them. It will be costly for us to disband the new Studios, Laptops etc - but it will be a one time write-down, that will then allow us, as Users, to get back to working with assets. Does this really have to become a departure point? Why do this? If it's about saving us from ourselves then it's political - and not a logical business decision. PLEASE reconsider allowing eps preview with the OS Search/Find function, before migrations occur.

Getty offers rastered versions of vector art at different sizes. So when you see the small, medium and large, those are rastered jpgs. I guess if you just needed it for a small web icon you pay less than someone who needs it to print a poster etc...

But yeah that's strange that they have a dpi number for the eps vector option.

When I place these vector eps files in Indesign, it maintains the transparency. So for example the white background on that flowers image would be knocked out in indesign. Not sure if that's what transparency you are talking about.

Yes, I explained above there's nothing vector about the "vector" images they sell. They're all raster.

The transparency I'm referring to is like the simple example I posted above. This was thrown together in Affinity Designer (same type of app as Adobe Illustrator). The bottom gradient is just that. The blob shape is also a gradient, but is set as partly transparent. The smaller rectangle is another gradient, and is also set as partly transparent.

If this were truly vector art sold by Getty, you would still have three independent layers that were vector objects, and would still have their partial transparent attributes. But when I export the file as EPS, which does not support any type of transparency, the app has no choice but to flatten the layers to raster in order to maintain the same "look". The EPS no longer has any vector objects in it. Just two raster objects.

That's what Getty is doing. What you buy looks like the image you bought they say is vector art, but it's all been rasterized. When you get right down to it, they're straight out lying about what the image is. And it isn't just the EPS versions. Every size lists a DPI and pixel dimensions. Nothing is vector.

That's not correct, the eps they offer is not rastered, it is a vector with all of the layers when you open it up in Illustrator.

For me EPS files work the same as .AI files , I just wish they could be previewed in the Mac finder.