unreadable jpg from photoshop export

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unreadable jpg from photoshop export

I have been converting a slew of tiffs (in 48 bit color adobe 98 colorspace) to 24 bit jpegs in srgb color space (as well as rescaling them). The resulting jpegs can be read and used in every photo management program (aperture, preview, photoshop .. even iweb!) but if i drag it to iphoto i get the following error :

Unreadable Files: 1

The following file could not be imported. (The import failed.)

and a list of files..

I have tried everything from making sure the jpg is in a temp directory to no avail.. interestingly the original tiffs import fine .. the new jpegs do not and (as i said before) the jpegs themselves seem to have no issue being viewed/editted in any other program.

I have been searching around for answers to no avail .

I have put a copy of the jpg here :

http://www.bloosqr.com/tmp/gr01-1-1.jpg

in fact if i ctrl click the above jpeg i get the same error so i am pretty sure it is a filetype issue rather than a "location" issue.

this is on a dual G5/ 1.8 ghz mac w/ iphoto 6.05

i also tried (via the web) importing that file on an intel macbook pro that had not been ever used iphoto before and had the same error.

The photo is a Adobe Photoshop JPEG file w/ the embedded color profile SRGB IEC61966-2.1 (i.e. the normal adobe sRGB colorspace)

any help on this matter would be most appreciated!

dual 1.8 - G5/macbook pro intel Mac OS X (10.4.8)

dual 1.8 - G5/Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Posted on Nov 19, 2006 4:54 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

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Nov 19, 2006 8:55 PM in response to bloosqr

bloosqr:

I can't import that file either. But the problem is that it does not have a color profile embedded. I opened the file with Preview and assigned the sRGB color profile and then saved the file. iPhoto accepted it without problem. Unfortunately you have to do one at a time with preview.

If you have a lot of files to process I've created an Automator workflow to embed the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 color profile and save the file. You select multiple files and then drag onto the workflow application. You can download the workflow from Toad's Cellar. I can't get it to work by just dragging the folder containing the files onto the application.

Do you Twango?

TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.

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Answer 2

bloosqr Author

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Nov 20, 2006 7:16 AM in response to Old Toad

Ahh thank you very much.. i had a sneaking suspicion it was the color profiles actually.

The file actually had in it the embedded sRGB IEC619662.1 profile while what iphoto wants is a generic "sRGB profile". I am not sure what the difference is, but that must have been tripping iphoto up. I keep most of my files as adobe98 and will just automate the conversion from that to "sRGB profile" for the web/iphoto etc..

Actually that does not work either... however photoshop is embedding profiles, iphoto does not seem to read it. Preview can detect the profiles and it knows what the embedded profile is, you can change it within preview to any other profile and after saving, it will import properly, but the original photoshop outputted embedded profile can not be read in iphoto. This is obviously a bug in iphoto, since preview, photoshop, aperture can detect the profile properly.

I will look into just scripting this out, from one of the sRGB's to the other (hopefully they are the same). Thanks again for your help.

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Answer 3

Old Toad

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215,736 points

Nov 20, 2006 10:15 AM in response to bloosqr

The two profiles are very close. You can compare them with Color Profile Utility and see the minimal difference.

I've edited the workflow, as a workflow and as an application, to embed the sRGB profile. If it doesn't work for you you might make sure you have the sRGB Color Space Profile.icm file on your HD.

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Answer 4

bloosqr Author

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Nov 20, 2006 10:50 AM in response to Old Toad

Yes it does work in preview (i.e. i can convert to sRGB profile which can be read) but it does not work inside of photoshop. That is can take a adobe98 tiff file, convert to sRGB (any one), save as jpg w/ the embedded profile. Every other program recognizes the embedded profile (including preview). W/ preview you can "reassign" the profile to another colorspace and resave it and it imports properly. (I am guessing preview's assignment of colorspace is an assignment rather than a conversion?)

so as an example

photoshop -> srgb IEC1966 (this is the adobe sRGB space)

iphoto can't read this file

preview detects srgb IEC1966 .. i can reassign in preview to "sRGB Profile" (i.e. the one in system). I can not reassign it to srgb IEC1966 as it knows what the old profile is and assumes i haven't done anything when i do this so doesn't resave it. When I resave it it imports fine w/ iphoto.

i can also

photoshop -> "srgb profile" directly (this is the colorsync sRGB profile)

iphoto can't read this file

preview detects "srgb profile" and i can reassign it to the "srgb IEC1966" profile, save it and it will import properly.

it seems that my version of iphoto has a bug in reading in the embedded "profile" format that adobe is writing, even though preview can read that file properly (and convert to a format that iphoto can read).

the other interesting thing is tiff files work fine, its some mixing of jpg and embedded profiles .. one "fix" on apples website is to import you should use png rather than jpgs

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304487

I can't tell what is going on really but there are obviously some issues w/ colorspace and jpgs and iphoto..

in any case thanks again for your help, perhaps i should submit this as a bug report somewhere on apples site, but i can't imagine they don't know about it already.

dual 1.8 - G5/Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

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Answer 5

Old Toad

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215,736 points

Nov 20, 2006 10:53 AM in response to bloosqr

Do report as a bug. Others have experience color space issues so the more reports the more likely it will move up on the fix priority list.

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Answer 6

bloosqr Author

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Nov 20, 2006 11:21 AM in response to Old Toad

I just found the ADC submission site for bugs, so I submitted it as a bug report ( Problem ID: 4846119 ) .. Hopefully it'll be of some use.. i dont really use iphoto for anything but storing webable images so its not that big of a deal.. Looking back through the forums, it seems that iphoto is/was really a mess w/ regards to color space actually, i'm kind of surprised given the fact that the mac platform has traditionally been a haven for graphic designers/media people ;(

Incidentally shall i just mark this thread as "solved" or leave it open ?

dual 1.8 - G5/Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

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Answer 7

Old Toad

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215,736 points

Nov 20, 2006 11:49 AM in response to bloosqr

Since there's a way to fix those photos by embedding the color profile I suppose you can close it out as solved or just helpful.

Either way other users who are having similar issues will know there's some fix discussed in the thread.

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Answer 8

bloosqr Author

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Nov 20, 2006 6:46 PM in response to Old Toad

Hey i just tested your script thing and it works perfectly Thank you very much! btw this "automator" thing is genius.. i've never seen that before.. it looks like a weird GUI scripting language.. i'm going to have to hunt that down actually 🙂

actually maybe you would know how to do this (if i may ask here) there is a bug in iweb where basically under one particular "style" it generates a wrong file (an rss.xml file for podcast pages ) I have a perl script that "fixes" that file, that I run after I press the "publish to folder" button (which basically involves opening a terminal window and running the file). What would be cool is if using your magic automator thingy. I have a single fake button that first hits "publish to folder" in iweb, and then runs the perl script (i.e. just executes the program). Can the automator do this?

Anyway thanks for helping me discover a new toy 🙂

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Answer 9

Old Toad

Level 10

215,736 points

Nov 20, 2006 6:53 PM in response to bloosqr

I'm a neophyte Automator user so I really don't know. Open Automator and see if the application you would use to fix the problem is listed and if it is you might be able to put together a workflow. Ask over in the iWeb forum also. There are some very capable iWeb users there that I'm sure will have a way to do it.

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Answer 10

bloosqr Author

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Nov 22, 2006 7:45 AM in response to Old Toad

Thanks much, will do .. i messed around w/ automator and installed the iweb automator plugins but its a bit too limited right now.. i'll go ask over in the iweb forum and see if anyone has a method.. i probably should submit this bug to the apple bug thing as well actually .. i had gotten that fix from the iweb forum ages ago, so i had assumed someone had already submitted it..

-thanks again for your help,

-avi

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