Expert: LizaL - 9/22/2005

Question
Liza, I apologize.  I left out another error we've had, and that is, we cannot reopen the .jpgs created in 7.0 once closed.  When we reopen them, we get an error and they will not reopen, even in Photoshop.  So that, plus the Quark thing.  We are using Quark 4.0.

After I asked you the question, I started looking for answers just on google.  I found this:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=1852

an update, and it does reference a .jpg issue.  My employer is vary wary about any software changes, and so she downloaded it first.  I will test it ouit and see if that fixes the issue, then get back to you.  Starting with 7.0, it appears that they made the .jpgs have a certain kind of preview, and these .jpgs were crashing web browsers.  That was one problem I found reference to in my google search.  I'm wondering if that is related, becuase when you open a graphic in Quark (to import it), it wants to show you a preview, and that is where the program gets stuck.  

If that doesn't fix it (7.0.1), I'll investigate your Quark suggestions, but with the additional problems we've had, and my web sleuthing yesterday, I think that the problem is with Photoshop.

Thanks for your help--any further help or comments, please write me again...and I'll try to let you know the resolution.
Marianne


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Followup To
Question -
Hi Liza,
I am using a Mac on OS 9--Photoshop 7.0--working in a small print shop.  We have experienced a problem saving .jpg files from .psd files.  If you try to import the .jpgs into Quark, the simple act of trying to import the .jpg makes the mouse pointer turn into a clock and then the computer is frozen into an eternal countdown.  (i.e. the mouse turns into the clock and the clock ticks forever, you cannot force-quit, must restart).  I have also experienced problems accessing files in other programs, and if that .jpg happens to be at the top of the list of files, again, the watch thing and you must restart.  To get around this problem, we simply stopped saving .jpgs out of 7.0 and use our other copy of 6.0.  But we have potentially 4 people that can use this copy of Photoshop and so this doesn't work well at all.  Are you familiar with this problem and can you help?  Thanks for your time and effort.
Marianne
Answer -
Hi Marianne,

You didn't say which version of Quark you're using (although I appreciate the other details!) -- but this might not be limited to a certain version, anyway. It sounds to me like an issue that would happen regardless of your Quark version.

I'm thinking the problem lies with Quark, as opposed to Photoshop. You didn't indicate that anything was out of the ordinary with the JPEGs, like you had trouble saving them in Photoshop, so my feeling is that Quark is missing something in order to allow imports of JPEGs.

So check out this page on the Quark site that explains the need for the JPEG Import Xtension to be installed when importing files of that type. You should check your Quark Xtensions folder to make sure you have it. If not, I believe you should be able to reinstall it from your Quark installation discs.

http://www.quark.com/service/desktop/support/techinfo/view.jsp?faq_id=235#graphi

Why don't you check to see if that's indeed the problem, and if not, post back? The behavior you describe sounds a lot like a missing Xtension, and I bet this is it. But if not, please let me know. Then we can pick apart one of your JPEGs, and figure out how it's saving incorrectly in order for it to be imported into Quark.

Lisa

Answer
Hi Marianne,

Well, this gets interesting, huh! I went to the link on the Adobe site, and you're right, 7.01 does address a fix for JPEGs. But what's sort of confusing to me is that this fix deals with the *metadata* of JPEGs, which would lead me to believe that we're talking here about JPEGs that have been optimized for the Web, not JPEGs used for print. I mean, metadata is a Web page component -- an HTML component. So that was something that occurred to me.

Also, JPEGs with metadata stored in them are often those that have been saved as JPEG 2000 -- check out this page (and site, too, if you feel like doing some reading!):
http://www.jpeg.org/apps/archive.html?langsel=en

One other thing that occurs to me: When these JPEGs are saved, in Photoshop, what is the method used? Are they saved with Save As, or have they been optimized for the Web using Save for Web? The compression routines are very different here, and that might be something Quark doesn't like. Save for Web does just that -- it modifies the saving routine to include compression that will keep the file size very small.

JPEG compression is "lossy" -- that is, a little bit of file information is lost each time the file is saved. It's usually nonessential stuff like repeated pixels (sky, water, a background, etc.), and it's usually not noticeable, but it could be that this lossy compression is not agreeing with Quark.

Also, another thing occurred to me. Have you tried saving files as EPS and/or TIFF with Quark, and if so, how has that worked? I use InDesign CS now, although I started using Quark when it first came out, and continued until about four years ago. And I mean, I used Quark every single day, both at work and at home. It was my primary program, along with Photoshop. But I didn't use JPEGs much when saving for print work. I worked in magazine design for a number of years, and also in prepress, and TIFF and EPS were the main formats I used when saving graphics and photos for print.

However -- that said, every company is different in their requirements, and times have changed. So I can understand if JPEG is the format of choice for you and your company.

Anyway, do let me know what happens with the update, and check out the Quark suggestions. I'd also be interested in knowing how you guys are saving those JPEGs.

Lisa