How Do I Keep Finder From Changing .png, gif, .tif?

Comments: 2 Responses to “How Do I Keep Finder From Changing .png, gif, .tif?”

Gary Rosenzweig

12 years ago

When you drag an image from the browser to the Finder, that image files downloads and is placed there. If it is a .jpg file, you get a .jpg file. If it is a .png file, you get a .png file. You basically get what exactly what you are dragging. No transformation of the file is done.
I think what you are doing is trying to drag an image from the Google Images search pages to your desktop, correct? If an image is a .png file, Google will compress it to a smaller .jpg file and display it in that search interface. It will tell you that the original is a .png, but the one you are looking at is a thumbnail image meant to represent the real image in the search page. So if you drag that image out to your desktop you will always get a jpeg file.
What you would need to do is to click on the image and go to the original page with the original image on it. That is where you would find the .png file or whatever format it is.
Of course if you don't own the image and plan to reuse that image in any way you should check the site's policies or ask for permission first.

Shirley Allan

12 years ago

Ah, thank you Gary. Several years ago dragging an image to the desktop direct from Google Images resulted in the same format but now it seems it is a two step process. Also, when you click on the image to go to the originating page often the image is not there but a page wanting you to subscribe to get images. This is the case even if you type in something like "Free Christmas tree clip art." My classes of Senior citizens only want to make some christmas cards for personal use. Thanks again. I will revise my handouts accordingly.
Shirley Allan