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Has anyone been able to find a fix for PREVIEW? I spent nearly 2 hours with Apple help reinstalling osx system which was supposed to fix preview. It did not repair Preview. Almost all buttons on Preview are still greyed out. It would seem Apple would have a photo resizing program that would work satisfactorily. The fix described by using Terminal does not work either. It blows my mind that Apple can't come up with a reliable fix for this problem. I have spent hours trying to resize photos and then inverting selected photos to remove the big black surrounding area in the background.

It makes it impossible to export photos to kijiji.

Posted on Jan 23, 2020 7:57 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Community+ 2024

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116,747 points

Jan 24, 2020 8:19 AM in response to Applescrewupagain

Once you resize an image in Preview, it either needs to be saved (updates original), or exported to another image with the same, or different image format. Then using the Finder, drag/drop that resultant image from the filesystem to your target application. One other alternative is to perform a select all on the current image, and then copy the it to the clipboard. Then you can paste into the target application that permits it.

When you adjust the size of an image, that image shown in Preview remains a working image that cannot be dragged anywhere, as it expects further adjustments from you, or that you perform the first paragraph. This is not a limitation of Preview — that is how it is designed.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

245,261 points

Jan 24, 2020 4:11 AM in response to Applescrewupagain

Do you mean in Preview>Tools>Adjust Size... cannot be chosen?

What version of MacOS are you running?

If you want to get things done I recommend GraphicConverter has a powerful Browse Folder function, & many tools for manipulation, & you can keep your Pics wherever you want...

https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/

http://www.lemkesoft.com/

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Answer 3

Jan 24, 2020 6:55 AM in response to BDAqua

Running yosemite 10.10.5

Apple help is unable to get Preview working properly. Almost all of is greyed out. Apple help spent over an hour trying to get Preview whole on my computers . Preview will downsize photos but the photo reverts to original as soon as you drag to another application. Looks like its the same problem for a lot of Mac users.Cant Apple come up with a solution after this many years?

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Answer 4

Jan 24, 2020 12:29 PM in response to VikingOSX

That solves a lot of my problem. Now how do i get rid of the huge background that stays with the resized photo? I thought inverting selection would eliminate the black background so it would accomodate kijiji size requirements. If. I can get rid of that, it's clear sailing from now on. Thanks for the help.

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Answer 5

Jan 24, 2020 6:40 PM in response to BDAqua

THe small border is gone but the large shadow still remains the full size of the original photo. Is there a trick to exporting it to the application you need it in? When I reload it, the background is white. Thanks for all your help.

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Answer 6

Jan 25, 2020 1:34 PM in response to BDAqua

It blows my mind just to think a company as huge as Apple with some of the smartest employees in America can't come up with a working application for just such a simple task. It looks like there are probably dozens if not hundreds of Apple users who are having the same problem and Apple does nothing to correct it. Apple help bent over backwards to help me but in the end was just a waste of their time. Thanks for those who helped me on this site. I won't waste any more time trying to make Preview work for me.

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

245,261 points

Jan 25, 2020 2:10 PM in response to Applescrewupagain

Sadly I don't think any of those smart employees, especially programmers have anything but strict marching orders... which is work on the next OS version & new "Features", not anything current. :(

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