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

Apple has removed all capability to view or convert .e/ps files in Sonoma with the exception of the Preview application which can still view selected .ai files. This was done because it has come to light that these file types can be used to deliver malware. You will need third-party applications that still support opening .e/ps files such as GIMP, Inkscape, Affinity apps, Pixelmator, etc.

I happened to install the full MacTeX 2023 distribution which also installs Ghostscript and by which the TeXShop application can open and display .e/ps files.

I am a fellow user and neither Apple nor Apple product teams participate in these user-supported, public communities. Can't answer product design why questions.

Because Preview is based on Apple's PDFKit framework and that framework has now disabled its Postscript to PDF conversion methods, Preview can no longer display Postscript, or Encapsulated Postscript files. However, the current version of the free Skim PDF reader can still display .e/ps files.

Consider using third-party applications like Adobe Bridge, which provides thumbnail previews for a wide range of graphic formats, including .EPS and .Ai files. Other recommended apps include GraphicConverter or using EPSView for QuickLook capabilities, which can restore some preview functionalities for .EPS files.

It all depends on how much time and effort you want to put into it. But, if you automate the process it will take much less time than you would think.

Our main client was DecoPac. We initially outlined thousands of cake, cupcake, pic, layon and other images as EPS with clipping paths. All of the vector images (like all of the pro football, hockey, baseball and basketball logos) were also EPS.

At the strong encouragement of their printer, they converted every to PSD and .ai files. Clipping paths in particular add a lot of complexity for the RIP. That also makes them a prime candidate for most RIP crashes.

What they did was collect every raster EPS they had and put them all in one folder. They then set up a PS action to select the clipping path as a selection. The selection was feathered by .3 (it just looks better to be slightly softened than a hard edge). Change the Background to Layer 0. Invert the selection and delete the background. Lastly, delete the path and save it as a PSD. So, you go from this with a clipping path:

To this:

Now you just drop the PSD into your InDesign file as is.

After testing the action on a few images to make sure it ran as expected, one of the employees ran it as a batch on all of the images at the end of the day and let it run. By the next morning, it was almost done converting everything.

All later work after that was done as PSD.

Extra nice with a PSD is many of the later shots we did had translucent parts on the toys. We could make those partially or fully transparent in the file to match the product. Bring that PSD into your project and those areas are already transparent or translucent to anything under it. No futzing around with a second masked item or layering to get that effect.

They did the same thing with their vector EPS images. Collected all of them, and ran a batch to convert them to .ai files.

They did save all of the EPS files in case they pulled up an old project to be reprinted as is (rarely). Then nothing had to have the assets relinked. But for all new work, all of the images were ready to use as PSD or .ai files.

Probably Getty is resisting the formidable cost of converting all of their .eps stock images to another format as to why they are still offering them. If their revenue from EPS downloads drops too low, they may then change.

It has already been stated in these threads that Apple has simply removed the PS/EPS viewing/conversion capability from all of its Frameworks and applications in the operating system. That means that for any fix to preview or convert these file types, you will need a third-party application using its proprietary PDF frameworks that still handle these file formats. Probably Adobe Lightroom, or some other tool. It won't be coming from Apple.

Brian you're right. Suggestion -- your "ai" files should preview using the spacebar on a Mac which engages the Mac Preview App. It works. It's clumsy, but works. Shutterstock -- and virtually every other stock agency currently use EPS for their vector file format. NOTE: Photoshop and EPS shouldn't be discussed in the same post unless you are a very serious packaging designer and you create bump plates for custom colors, UV layers, etc or other "VECTOR" masks over PHOTOGRAPHS for print purposes. Photoshop's EPS is not relevant to overall vector art files. It's a vector layer for special color separations. There seems to be a communication issue between Adobe and Apple on this. I don't have time to comment more. Suffice it to say: I am a very successful designer (Landor, Metadesign, ITT Industries, Audi, Cuisinart. Kurt? You work for any of those companies? Have you ever printed anything?) Brian -- Try Bridge. Trust me. Fight through it. It will give you solid previews of vital EPS and Ai files with no issues. I have over a million vector files (all in other formats now for the future Kurt thinks we're in already.) Kurt is invited to put his CV up here to really show his design chops.

This is another proprietary move.

No, it isn't. EPS is obsolete. Everyone is moving away from this file format. Including Adobe. The two biggest reasons are they don't support transparency, and they're a vector for malware.

I saved a TIFF out to a Photoshop EPS. As expected, there's no desktop icon. However, since I saved the EPS with an 8 bit preview, I did expect Photoshop to display a preview of the image in its own Open dialogue box. Wrong! Even Adobe doesn't care anymore about previewing an EPS file. I get the same generic icon there as on the desktop.

I would suspect that Adobe is aware EPS files can contain malware, so it simply won't read one for preview. Not that the same thing won't happen if the user opens and EPS. But the difference is the user chose to open the file. They can't blame Adobe if it contains malware.

Basically, stop using EPS for anything. It has no necessary use anymore.

I wouldn't call it highjacking as much as trying to guide users away from a nearly dead medium.

I have also spent time trying to find a third party plugin or other means of viewing a thumbnail for EPS. Not that I want or need one myself. Just looking to provide a possible solution to the original questions. I have found none. At least, none other than those already mentioned by VikingOSX.

I happened to install the full MacTeX 2023 distribution which also installs Ghostscript and by which the TeXShop application can open and display .e/ps files. … However, the current version of the free Skim PDF reader can still display .e/ps files.

Other than those, you have no other options. Basically, you'd only be using these apps as an EPS viewer. Then opening the image you want (raster or vector) in your actual editing app.

About Getty. What are they doing there? I purposely searched their vector image section. I chose what should be obvious vector art:

But when you go into the item for purchase, you see this:

There are a few of nonsensical things going on here.

1. Both Large and EPS have the same text. 6000 x 6000 px (20 x 20 in) 300 dpi | 36 MP
2. So, what is Large? A PDF? An Illustrator .ai file?
3. If it's vector, why does it say 300 dpi? Vector art has no specific, defined size. It's infinitely scalable and has no raster dimensions.
4. If it's vector, why would anyone pay for anything other than the Small size? Pay the least and size the art to whatever you need.

And if a person insists on paying for the EPS vector art (only the deity of your choice knows why you would do that), then open the image and immediately save it out as a PDF or .ai file.

Then there's the issue of EPS having no transparency support. Zero. Which means if you were to purchase the EPS of this art, it would NOT look like this as much of what's transparent would have to be flattened down. And it won't look pretty.

So. Again. Stop using EPS. Seriously. Stop it.

One option is to use an older OS X like El Capitan via VM for this (El Capitan seems to work better via VMware Fusion VM than Mojave in this respect):

You didn't lose anything. Your files are intact. There's just no preview.

Convert the images to something other than the archaic, and nearly obsolete EPS format.

Taylor510ce wrote:

apps like Adobe Illustrator sort a different file format, but keeps the clean vector that Illustrator produces, WITH a preview icon. . .

There are many new vector file formats. The most popular such formats for end users are PDF and SVG. These new formats are fully supported, with preview icons, by macOS.

To be more accurate, as I only glossed over your post the first time:

They are vector files not raster files and give a much better resolution in print, or on screen.

No they aren't. EPS is a container file. The E means encapsulated. An EPS can have vector images, raster images, fonts, PDFs and other file types jammed into one container. We used to send pages to a RIP that way all the time. And that was over 20 years ago. It's changed a lot since then.

Using an Adobe Photoshop file for instance to gain the transparent background needed is only a bodge.

Again, old thinking. Our main client used PSD files for all raster image placement in their flyers, catalogues and such for over 10 years before we retired. They hadn't touched an EPS since switching. Any vector images were placed into InDesign either as a PDF, or directly as an .ai file. Which works because for well over a decade, an Illustrator .ai file actually is a PDF.

EPS will b around for some time to come unless apps like Adobe Illustrator sort a different file format,

Again, an Illustrator file is just a PDF with a different file name extension so they open in Illustrator when you double click one on the desktop. There is zero reason or advantage in saving them out as an EPS.

but keeps the clean vector that Illustrator produces, WITH a preview icon…

And if you simply placed an .ai file into your page layout app, you'll still have a clean vector image and a desktop icon.

Really, truly. Stop using EPS.

The reality of the matter is Apple has removed the ability to view .e/ps files in Finder, Preview, and any other Apple application by whacking the underlying frameworks that made that view possible in the past. Kurt knows what he is talking about based on his own real world industry and aligned business ownership experience.

You clearly disagreed with Kurt, and if in time, other application vendors (e.g. Adobe) phase out .e/ps handling, you will have a ton of these files that are no longer interoperable. Then, your productivity will meet a quandary.

You seem to think I have no experience at this. Quite the opposite. I started in electronic prepress when that consisted solely of either Scitex Imager, or HeII Chromacom image retouching and color correction workstations, and a HeII drum scanner to get the images into the system. This is something over 6 years before there was such a thing as Photoshop 1.0

I was there when Aldus Pagemaker was a new thing, putting pages together on an amber monochrome monitor. That morphed over the years of assembling pages on the Scitex workstations, to Macs in Pagemaker, then Quark XPress, then learning and adding InDesign when that was brand new.

I've worked with every possible file type ever thrown into a print project. So please, don't tell me that 45+ years of experience in electronic prepress isn't enough to know what I'm talking about.

So - again - stop using EPS. I'm serious. No one we worked with for a minimum of 10 years, and 20 for most, used them anymore. As VikingOSX noted, you're going to find yourself trapped in a grossly outdated production process with no easy way out. Set up automated processes now with actions in Photoshop to covert raster EPS files to PSD, and actions in Illustrator to convert vector EPS to .ai or PDF.

Hmm, your previous post seems to have disappeared while I was typing. But here's my response anyway.

A part of me even missed Freehand.

I liked Freehand, but its worst fault was zero color management. It did have its own CMYK and RGB profiles it used for display to the screen, but that's all they were for and they were terrible.

Don't remember my first Photoshop discs having the 1.0 designation. I remember it just saying Photoshop. But I could be wrong.

Could be right. I never saw an original version disk. Or version 2. I had version 3 of PS at home, but we Scitex operators didn't move over to Macs on PS until version 4 when those proprietary systems had become very expensive dinosaurs. Print shops didn't want those $385,000 Scitex Blaze or Prismax workstations anymore when you could purchase at least 8 Macs and a full software suite for all of them for less money (the original Scitex Imager IIIs I worked on were 1 million per station).

Changing our tens of thousands of eps files to something else would then break every link in every file. Anybody have a workaround for that?

You wouldn't do that. What we did for old projects was convert them only when necessary. Such as if a client picked up an old job and updated it with new copy, rearranged pages, etc. There's no need to do all of your standing archived jobs when the odds of ever using them again is less than 5%. Doing everything in the archives would result in days of system time wasted for images that will never be used again.

All new work would of course avoid EPS entirely. If that meant picking up old EPS images to do the job, convert those files as needed so they get archived in a new format.

Has anybody mentioned the death of eps files to iStock or Shutterstock? or any catalog company that uses decades of eps files in all their publications?

That's their problem. Not yours. The very simple solution is to NOT download the EPS versions of the images you purchase.

When my printers reject files because I've decided to send them "print-ready" artwork with RGB SVGs in them, who has to have this conversation?

Why would you use SVG at all? It's a terrible vector format. The only and only thing going for it is it's considered a generic vector format that most any vector editing app can open. Even cheap ones. If a client sends you any SVG files, covert them to .ai or PDF for your production work. That's what we did. The client doesn't need to know you made the conversion for your end.

EPS files are not obsolete.

Not entirely. At least, not yet. But it's only because EPS hasn't fallen completely into the grave yet, and people hate change, even if they shouldn't be holding onto anchors like EPS.

The entire point through this topic is, you asked, and you're not happy with the responses you're getting. Well, simply nodding in agreement with a user's complaint is not the point of a forum. We're trying to steer you away from old processes for good reason. If you wish to continue on as is, then ignore us and do so.