How to make Photoshop open your EPS file

2006-05-14 03:59:00 -08:00

Sometimes, when I want to draw a graphic, I write it instead. I write it in PostScript, as an EPS file, and then convert to whatever destination format I want.

The problem with this plan is that I was never able to get Photoshop to import the EPS directly. I always got this error message:

Could not open “foo.eps” because the parser module cannot parse the file.

Finally, today, I went looking for the solution. I used strings to see what the EPS Parser plug-in looks for. I found it in under a minute.

So, at minimum, this is what your EPS file must contain:

%!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 width height
%%EndComments

The %%EndComments line is the one that I was missing. Make sure yours isn’t missing it too.

In case you want to know more, these special comments (% is the comment character in PostScript) are defined by the Document Structuring Conventions. EPS is an application of DSC.

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2 Responses to “How to make Photoshop open your EPS file”

  1. Simone Manganelli Says:

    Just a quick question: why does your screenshot show a Mac OS 9-style dialog? Are you still using Photoshop 6, or are you using Photoshop under Classic/Mac OS 9 for some reason?

    — Simone

  2. Mac-arena the Bored Zo Says:

    I use Photoshop 5.5 in Classic because of the greater level of suck of the current version. I don’t know about any versions between.

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