Custom folder icons are blurry
Hello,
Now when trying to change folders icons to custom images, they come out blurry, yet some come out correct?
Hello,
Now when trying to change folders icons to custom images, they come out blurry, yet some come out correct?
@micoDigital The first time I did this, it did not seem to work... Then I looked closer and figured out why...
First time fail: I copied out of my favorite pixel editor (Pixelmator) and opened Preview. Preview dutifully created a new document from my clipboard. Then I copied from Preview and pasted, got the Moblurry icon.
Second time success: I exported the icon from Pixelmator to a PNG on the desktop. Then I opened that PNG in Preview, did a command-a to select all, copied, flipped to Finder, clicked on the GetInfo file icon well, pasted, and it worked.
Examination & Analysis: What I found was that the image canvas was being cropped to the boundaries of the image data by Pixelmator when traveling through the clipboard. By contrast, when saving the file, the original canvas bounds are maintained.
This makes sense as it is a common best practice to trim the clipboard data to the image bounds to avoid transferring egregious amounts of transparent pixels. For example imaging an image that is 10,240 by10,240 with the actual image in the middle fitting in only 512 by 512 and the rest being transparent pixel around it. Why transfer anything but the actual data in the clipboard... especially using Continuity / Handoff to an iPhone... but I digress.
The Test: I have a 1024 x 1024 image in Pixelmator with alpha channel transparency and some shadow at the sides, top and bottom. The transparent area around the image data occupies the 1024 x 1024 and when I save as a PNG, those boundaries are honored as shown when I open it in Preview. But when I select-all and copy from Pixelmator, which is selecting the full 1024 by 1024, Pixelmator trims the clipboard content to the rectangular boundary of the actual pixel data which results in 993 × 922 pixels being transferred
Now instead of the Mojave Finder simply centering that 993 × 922 pixels data in a transparent 1024 x 1024 canvas as the Finder has done before, Mojave Finder is pixelating the image in a faulty attempt to resize the image for the icon. (bad math?) This results in MoBlurry icons.
Visually... Original image in Pixelmator:
That image copied with selection marquee as shown above, then pasted into Preview showing the clipboard data conservation applied by Pixelmator:
Then selecting all and copying from Preview...
The image at 993 × 922 pixels copied from Preview and pasted into the Mojave Finder icon well will show a MoBlurry distorted icon.
Using the same actions, the same image in macOS Sierra 10.12.6, pasting in the 993 × 922 pixels data on the clipboard works fine:
The Conclusion: Mojave Finder has problem. It is not properly placing an image on a square transparent canvas that encompasses the image to produce an icon based upon whatever was pasted regardless of dimensions of the original clipboard image. Instead MoFinder poorly scales and down samples the image to make it MoBlurry.
Secondarily, Preview does not practice conservation on the clipboard. While not conforming to a best practice is not a bug... some consider it poor engineering. By coincidence, this issue in Preview clipboard content handling provides a mechanism for us to work around the MoBlurry bug (say that fast) in Mojave.
Mojave Hadrurus arizonensis; there be scorpions in that desert!
This. With Sierra, one could change the preview icon for any folder. High Sierra limited that to the square dimension, which was enough of an obstacle to overcome myself as I depend on the customized thumbnails for my graphic work. Having hundreds of (blue) folders to search through, having custom thumbnails for the folders (esp. in Cover Flow, yet another loss - RIP) made finding folders and files easy. Same logic applies for videos, except now in Mojave they don't even display the icons - just black screens? It's completely infuriating and defeating tbh.
You can make a nice template in photoshop that is square with white "wings" to make it work. When your image is copied into the black area that is what will paste onto the folder. Then just create a photoshop action and wham! you make a new cover in a second. Then just go to info and paste.
pink just shows the white area - otherwise it just looks like a black rectangle
Yes, thanks, that workaround is known. You do not have to work with photoshop, powerpoint or keynote can achieve the same result. It is that in Sierra and High Sierra any copy and paste gave a scharp image and the restriction of a square image was introduced with Mojave. So it remains a Mojave problem.
If you do not want a blurred image, you can use any type of picture even your own vector drawing if you follow following procedure:
Go to folder /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources.
Copy the file Multipleitemsicon.icns to your desktop.
Open e.g Powerpoint app and insert the icns file.
Expand the resolution to 1024 x 768
Then put the image you want on top of the icon image (can be another inserted image or a new drawing).
Now put the transparancy of the icon image to 100% and group it with your own image.
Now save the group as a PNG file.
Open the PNG file in preview app.
Select the image and copy to the clipboard.
Paste from the "get info" of your file.
Now you have a high resolution image to replace the file icon.
seems like any size square will do and if you want a rectangle just add the "side wings" as stated above
Hello, thanks for your reply and sorry for the delay in response. I was speaking to movie file formats. With Mojave they do not show any file icon preview or cover thumbnail, but rather just the file itself in its playable format. They maintain their file preview images (Get Info), whether it's a movie poster, cover or custom file one wants to use (which now only will show correctly/not blurry if it's a square file of equal size in length and height), but does not appear unless selected with multiple files at a time. I have included screenshots to hopefully further explain.
Such intractable and mysterious problems mean that I’ll never give myself another Apple Macintosh computer.
Cupertino apparently doesn’t want to sell its Macintosh computers.
The last remark that I received from an Apple-employed person (he sounded as if he was a quarter my age) about my damaged icons was words to the effect that I was imagining the problem (I seem to remember that he said “That’s your opinion”).
I had no answer to such a you’re-only-a-customer attitude, so I had to (politely enough, but tersely) end the phonecall.
Well said Leigh and exactly what most of us think. Steve Jobs cared about the product and cared about the users. Tim Cook struts and preens and displays his ignorance on stage and figures every apple customer is his for life. The “genius” support people are barely trained and so full of the “geniuses” idea they never listen to long time users.
i don’t know who will come out with a product we can love, but the time is here.
My my first Mac was 1993 and my last Mac was 2017.
Well you are certainly not talking for all of us !! If you think the support of the competition is so much better then be my guest.
There you pay a premium price for every system upgrade and are not sure you can start your system after upgrading . You even have to take a payed subscribtion to get function updates for most of their products.
I suggest you refrain from these type of comments on this forum, because they do not add any value towards a solution of somebodys problem.
A sterling post, Mr Hill. Thanks. (But I suppose your nom-de-guerre isn’t a mix of Stirling Moss and Graham Hill, is it? Anyway, you’re driving in the right direction.)
The cute rules of business in Cupertino:
The most intelligent customers are wrong. When we’re on to a good thing (for instance Mountain Lion and all the user-friendliness that came with it), let the vandals in. Complicate things so much that a new Mac-OS causes strife for users of a previous one. Make things difficult or impossible. Fail to explain things. Fail to give answers to common questions. Frustrate our most faithful customers by failing to arm our staff and the independent Apple-retailers with the wherewithal to help those customers. Fail to invite customers to bring their problems to a named Apple employee who’s equipped to solve them.
too funny Leigh - My name was (Ms) Sterling Marsh and I married George Hill and became Sterling Hill - my husband was an airline pilot who raced as a hobby so we had a lot of racing friends who really hooted at my new name! "Hey if Stirling Moss married Graham Hill... har har har"
I find the lack of customer support to be terribly frustrating. I do not know what the solution is. I've used macs and pcs and spent years and years on Unix workstations - I did broadcast animation for 25 years. I hate to have the little cretins say "is it plugged in?" and for one of them to tell you "That’s your opinion”...(?) I had a serious problem with being unable to boot from a secondary drive with ancient adobe software (on a mac boot drive) with my new iMac. I had to go through about 20 of them until I actually got to an engineer who worked on the mechanics and was told - "no you can't do that because the mechanics were redesigned to prevent you from doing that" but it was a hard haul for sure. I really hate tech support.
I'd like to see some competition. I have the iMac, the watch 4, the iPads, the Big X and I love them all but I sure wouldn't want to buy apple stock these days.
Rogier - hahahahahahahaha - I was sure not supporting any PCs... maybe you could go back an re-read what I said.
have to take a payed subscribtion to get function updates for most of their products.
have you heard of Adobe?
because they do not add any value towards a solution of somebodys problem.
I actually DID post a solution to this problem of blurry icons that actually does - yes - work. And having been a mac user for over 26 years, I have solved a number of problems on different forums/questions.
I was changing the icons in OS 7 or 8 (I can't remember for sure) in the late 90's. Funny thing is that I can change the Icons on my 6 year old MB Air with Mojave (home) yet my 1 year old MB Pro (work) I can't change the Icons with out them being blurry.
Any ideas?
FWIW, I don't think Apple ever intended to have custom icon customization. I think it was just happenstance.
Thats because of their software department suck now.
Custom folder icons are blurry