By default, You can not get the preview of Photoshop PSD files in Windows 7 Explorer. They will look like this Screenshot (The thumbnail you can see is of a PNG file):
We will perform some trick to enable the thumbnail preview of these PSD files in Windows 7 without any need of softwares.
Enable Thumbnail view for PSD files : Steps
Download this open source dll file (new page will open). You will get something like this:
Step 2
Note: This method currently might not work for Windows 7 64 bit (please read the comments). We are trying to solve the problem, we will update the method as soon we get it universally working. (31/03/2010).
Differs a bit in 32 bit and 64 bit.
For 32 bit:
Place it in :
|
1 2 |
c:program filescommon filesadobeshell # If the shell directory isn't there create it. |
For 64 bit:
Place it in :
|
1 2 |
c:program files (x86)common filesadobeshell # If the shell directory isn't there create it |
Paste it :
Step 3
Open notepad; Copy the code given below:
---
For 32 bit:
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 |
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSharedDLLs] "C:Program FilesCommon FilesAdobeShellpsicon.dll"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.psdShellEx] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.psdShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @="{0B6DC6EE-C4FD-11d1-819A-00C04FB69B4D}" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{0B6DC6EE-C4FD-11d1-819A-00C04FB69B4D}] @="Photoshop Icon Handler" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{0B6DC6EE-C4FD-11d1-819A-00C04FB69B4D}InProcServer32] @="C:Program FilesCommon FilesAdobeShellpsicon.dll" "ThreadingModel"="Apartment" |
For 64 bit:
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 |
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSharedDLLs] "C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesAdobeShellpsicon.dll"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.psdShellEx] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.psdShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @="{0B6DC6EE-C4FD-11d1-819A-00C04FB69B4D}" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{0B6DC6EE-C4FD-11d1-819A-00C04FB69B4D}] @="Photoshop Icon Handler" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{0B6DC6EE-C4FD-11d1-819A-00C04FB69B4D}InProcServer32] @="C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesAdobeShellpsicon.dll" "ThreadingModel"="Apartment" |
Now save it as “psdreg.reg” (Without quotes. Change file type to all files, otherwise it will be a text file):
Double click it and accept security prompt; Windows will inform you the values has been added:
Check your PSD files now:
Note:
1. Dont follow this method if you have folders containing GBs of PSD files; particularly if individual file size is like me (See first screenshot).
2. It will slow the explorer a bit.
3. You can use paid third party tools like Ardfry Codecs for Windows Explorer . In that case, apart from Windows explorer, you can get preview of PSD in Windows Photo Viewer, Windows Media Player (Windows Media Player can open any image file: try it) , Windows Media Center etc programs. I used trial version to check:
Note:
All the needed registry files plus those registry files you need to remove thumbnail preview in Windows 7 is here, Click here to download.
About Abhishek Ghosh
Here’s what we’ve got for you which might like :
Additionally, performing a search on this website can help you. Also, we have YouTube Videos.
Take The Conversation Further ...
We'd love to know your thoughts on this article.
Meet the Author over on Google+ or Twitter to join the conversation right now!
If you want to Advertise on our Article or want Business Partnership, you are invited to Contact us.
Contact Us
I’ve tried doing this with Window 7 64 bit, but still no joy. Are the lines in the reg script that start with “@=” supposed to write a to the default REG_SZ? In the script is has”
@=â€C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesAdobeShellpsicon.dllâ€
under the “InProcServer” line. However, the (Default) REG_SZ for the InProcServer key shows as (value not set). Should it instead have the above text as the value?
Let me know, thanks
We have tested today on other machine running Windows 7 6 bit with SP1 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended. Surely, it is not working any more. We have tried our old way and your suggested way; neither of them works :(
whatever the reason is, we will never know officially as neither Microsoft nor Adobe is open source for these two products. So, we have work for it again. If you can tweak it to make it working, please share as well. We will try to find other ways in the mean time.
However, the third party paid solution (we used trial version) works by some other method. Again these are not open source, so we can not know the source code as well.
Frankly, we do not like using extra third party software for this reason. Also it is very unfortunate for a graphics artist or amateur to pay extra fees after paying for the most costly operating system in the world for getting the thumbnails preview.
Thank you very much for grabbing our attention to this matter. We will put a notice on the post soon.
Dear Dr. Gosh,
Have you solved the Win 7, 64 bit PSD Thumbnails problem? If you have I would be very grateful for information/software, etc.
Thank you.
Best………………………………..Joe
Dear Dr. Joseph,
Welcome to TheCustomizeWindows.
Unfortunately except ardfry codec nothing ( url : ardfry.com/psd-codec/) is working. Ardfry is paid (around $20) and closed source. Probably its the only solution that works.
Regards
Abhishek
I Can’t Use This Tutorial Please
HELP ME ….
I Just Finished Installing Windows 7 On This Week
There is unfortunately no way right now anymore.
Wow, the registry file descriptions show here are all broken. There should be back slashs in there!
Thanks……………….
Sagethumbs works great for me on Windows 7 64-bit. Much easier than fiddling around with all this manual stuff, and it’s free!
Thats great !