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How to get PSD thumbnails in explorer!
By Ps graphiX | November 18, 2007
Here you can learn how to change the normal .psd thumbnail to a thumbnail (small picture) of the actuall ducument! It’ also pretty easy, and work with Photoshop CS and above. In earlier versions, I think this was standard, but I don’t know.
Actually, it all started when I was at a photo/art shop and was going to print something I had made on my own computer. When I got there, I saw that she had a thumbnail view of my .psd document! I really wondered how this was possible, but didn’t think much about it. I was (and still are) a bit newbie at photoshop.
So recently, I did a little research about this and found out that you just had to download and add some files. On the bottom of this page I have added the files needed, and here comes a little tutorial on how to do it:
- Extract the .zip (obviously)
- Copy psicon.dll to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell. If the Shell folder doesn’t exist, just make a new folder and call it “Shell” inside the Adobe folder.
- Run Adobe.reg
- Finished! View your.psd documents as thumbnails and see the document before you open it!
FAQ
Q: Help! How on earth do I go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell?????
A: Take it easy! Just (in windows) press start>Run… and paste C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell. If it doesn’t work, erase \Shell and make a folder called Shell.
Q: I’m lost this doesn’t work!!! I’ve done everything you wrote here, but it doesn’t work here!!! Help me!!!!
A: Well, I’m not sure that this answer fixes your problem, but to get the thumbnail view, it’s important to have internet explorer in either thumbnails view or filmstrip view. Here’s a picture of it:
Finally… (PS: let me know if you like it by commenting
)
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Topics: Photoshop Tutorials |


This is awesome! Thanks!!!!
Works perfectly too. This helps out more than you know. Or maybe you do, but it helps a lot anyway.
You can disable Photoshop from creating thumbnails in the Preferences window, just an FYI, it does eat up processor power when you save your files so I do disable it.
One word “Excellent!” (think Mortal Kombat lol)
Thhanks man works perfectly
thanks!!!
thanks dude
Fantastic mate!! Cheers!!
Thank you soo much.. You don’t know how much this has helped me. I hate opening Photoshop just to see a PSD! Again THANK-YOU for posting this
Thanks for the tip! I had the psicon.dll in the right folder already but running Adobe.reg really made it work beautifully! No more blank thumbnails!
Thanks for positive comments everyone!!
And yes, it’s pretty usefull… I discovered many old ps documents now that I can see them in thumbnail!
Hi,
Thank you so much. Before I reinstalled XP, explorer previewed the PSDs, but afterwards I couldn’t remember what I installed to make it work.
This is great!
Will save me hours opening and closing documents!
Thanks for sharing
DM
Revolutionary!!
This was so easy and simple.
Thanks for the link!
Appears not to work in vista though?
Dunno why Adobe disabled it for CS versions, maybe trying to push Adobe Bridge into use.
Cheers
Will save so much time & effort
Dude… this owns.
Thank you so much… I hated not having thumbnails for my PSDs. You rock!!
Thank’s again for the positive comments! I’m really glad this worked for you too.
How it works in vista I don’t know, but when I get vista and find a way to do the same, I will post it.
And yeah I think Adobe wanted people to use Bridge, but I just… um… never wanted to use it and my pc isn’t to fast so I found this soulution perfect
FANTASTIC! I work with lots of psd files and it was a pain to have to open Photoshop to view them to see if I was getting the correct one. This helps immensely. Thank you very much!
Very nice. A made a post about it in my blog.
I have created the Shell folder and inserted the .dll file but how do I run the Adobe.reg ? PLEASE!!
Andy Warren: That’s the easy part actually. Just doubble click it as you normally doubble click things, andit will ask you a question like “Are you sure you want to…”
Press yes and then OK in the next box that shows up.
If you did the Shell folder thing right, this should work.
If you use something else than Windows XP I’m not sure if it works. Hope this helps anyway!
Thank you very many! Xtremely usefull…
i did everything u said, restarted my comp and i still cant see the thumbnail image? help im on XP and Photo CS3
is there a way to make this work for Illustrator also
Well, 2343, I don’t have to much experience with Illustrator, so I really don’t know…
And, D, I’m also on XP and have CS3 and it worked fine for me. So I’ll suggest that you check that you added the file to the right folder or, if you made the folder, check that you named it right (Shell).
Hope I managed to help you a bit and hope it works for you.
Excellent! Thank you soooo much!
I am using Photoshop Elements 5.0 and can’t view thumbnails of PSD documents in Explorer or My Pictures folders. I have tried the psicon.dll and reg entry but no luck. Any suggestions?
Just added a new FAQ i anyone should wonder
You sir are f-ing awesome!!!!
Thankyou, real timesaver
Hi,
Thank you Ps graphiX, works fine in my XP 32-bit, but not in XP 64-bit…
TIP: To anyone have a non-English version of Windows XP, you’ll need to edit adobe.reg file and change the path:
“C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\Adobe\\Shell\\…”
to (example of Portuguese version):
“C:\\Arquivos de programas\\Arquivos comuns\\Shell\\…”
Well, my problem with the XP 64-bit: I changed adobe.reg file to the path “C:\\Program Files (x86)\\”, but there are something that don’t work for 64-bit version…
Anyone have some idea?
Thanks,
(sorry for my poor English)
Yeah it’s a good point about the tip on non-English versions of XP. I somehow have an English version although i should have it in Norwegian. I think I’ll add it to the FAQ one time
And about the 64-bit thing… I have no idea… sorry I can’t help you with that
Works fine for me. Even on windows vista Home Premium and PS CS3. Thanks very much.
I can’t find Adobe.reg. Where would I find that….working in Vista. thanks, MD
Absolutely awesome! I had no idea that this existed. This is going to save me so much time. Both my fiancee and I are greatly appreciative of your work!
BTW, if anyone out there can’t find C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell, just go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe in Explorer and create the “Shell” folder if it doesn’t exist. After that, run the .reg file, change the folder view to thumbnails (in whatever folder you have that contains your .psd files) and POOF! it works!
Cool stuff….. quite helpful
You Rock! Whoever figured this out. Many Thanks for the post.
I have Vista and I used this fixed and it worked great. It stopped working recently and I tried the fix again. When I run Adobe.reg I get a message that says it needs me to make a program association with this type file in my Control Panel. Which program do I associate it with? Before it just worked automatically.
Thank you
natali
What am I missing?
I do as he says, Go to RUN >> type Adobe.reg
But I get the message:
“Windows Can Not Find “Adobe.reg’”
And the thumbnails still don’t work.
And how do I edit Preferances?
PS: I feel like an idiot.
I’ve clicked the Adobe.reg file and it says it was susccesful, but the thumbnails still don’t work.
My C:/ drive was changed to a E:/ before I bought it. But that shouldn’t have anything to do with the problem.
OH yeah, and my name is SEspider. The original was a typo.
I thank you greatly for this……worked like a charm.
For anyone whom this dosen’t work for….try a free program called
ThumView
here is the link to the website….
http://www.seriema.net/thumbview/
i’m curious WHERE the adobe.reg file should be located when you run it. i have the .dll file in the shell location. i have runt he adobe.reg with no success.
my program files are all on my D drive
my .psd files are all on my E drive.
could that cause a problem? i’m struggling w/o thumbnails. it’s frustrating.
thanks.
btw: i save the zip to my desktop and extract it to my desktop.
Brilliant! cheers.
copy both adobe.reg and psicon.dll to the shell file and run the adobe.reg with in the shell file.. acept the change to your registry..
Done
darn. i did that and it didn’t work. I had done this fix on my last computer just fine.
thanks for trying to help.
ugh. frustrating. and yes, i am using “thumbnail” view.
i’m on xp professional 5.1
Your problem is that your programfiles are on the D drive. Standard in windows is C and the adobe.reg (which can be placed anywhere on your computer wen running it) is looking for program files on the C drive.
Simply open adobe.reg in notepad or something similar and edit the places where it stands “C:\” to “D:\” (it’s only two places)
It should do the trick, but if you can’t figure it out, let me know and I will make the changes for you
OH OOOHH THAT WORKED!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU. you should see how happy I am.
I really really appreciate your kindness in helping me.
No problem
For some reason this does not work for me. I have done this for about four times earlier, but this time (with my new PC) it does not work. File copied to all ’shell’ folders inside all “common files”- and “adobe”-folders and .reg has been written to registry.
I think this is due to my x64 Windows Server 2003?
Well, I can’t tell you what’s wrong, but if you open the adobe.reg you see that it is going to do something a place on your C: drive in the shell folder.
On some computers that folder is placed somewhere else than the standard destination (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell) if the folder is located elsewhere, it won’t find what it’s looking for.
So just edit that info to where your shell folder is and there is another destination file that might need to be edited in adobe.reg.
Hope this makes sense and help you to get this working cause it really helps a lot.
finally!! thanx!
This works!… but is your language is Spanish, change:
(Funciona, pero si tu sistema está en español tienes que cambiar:)
C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\Adobe\\Shell\\
to:
(a:)
C:\\Archivos de programa\\Archivos comunes\\Adobe\\Shell\\
in the reg file
(en el archivo de registro)
Works like a charm!!!
Vista users will find Explorer.exe will crash alot with the .dll added. Especially if you try to access, copy, or move the .PSD file whilst the thumbnail is generating. I can see why Adobe abandoned it, but yet can’t see why adobe did not work with Microsoft on this.
Hey i can’t find the adobe.reg that you mention.
Sorry to be so dumb but i simply cant!
Thank’s for the help!
Worked perfectly. Thanks!
OMG!! the nr one problem in photoshop is fixed thanks man!!!!!
OMG!! the nr 1 problem in photoshop is fixed thanks man!!!!!
thank you soo much - this is awesome!!! great job
Thanks so much!
Awesome - that problem was the main reason i went away from PSE! I run Vista and it worked perfectly!! So easy. thanks so much!!
It’s works! I hate Adobe in this problem…, but Thank you to fix this!
I have Vista 64-bit and it doesn’t work….
Do you have any ideia?
Awesome! this has been a pain in my side forever. I’m so glad your sharing this information. You’ve made my life easier. Thank you so much
or you could just use the adobe bridge to manage your PSD files…
plz send me poster size ur side is so good
holler: Yeah, but this is way faster and needs less power from the computer. Who wants to open adobe bridge all the time?
ADM: Hi, what do you meen by poster size? Thanks for liking my site
Fantastic!!!! I love adobe but adobe bridge and the adobe dialog previewer is sooo stinking slow. i would spend close to ten minuets sometimes looking for file cuz im not the best label-er. Message to adobe- speed your file viewing software up, its crap… and for those of you who like me did not have a shell file under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell… for what ever reason i didn’t have one but a buddy of mine fixed it for me. if you don’t have a shell file you can just create a new one under :\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe type “shell”, and then just extracted the zip files to that folder. done it on 6 computers without a hitch. -Toshiba, dell, gateway, asus laptop, a custom computer of mine, and an everex laptop. thanks again Ps graphiX !!!!!
had to create folders C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell for the german version, but the everything worked out perfectly - thx !
Thank you
Just glad i could help you all
thanks mate U re a genius
Thanks for this, fabulous
Works great on Vista after a reboot though.
Thank you!! Keep this post up…I did a wipe & reload and was grateful to have found this again.
This works great. Thank you very very much!
ok PS graphiX jus wanna say thank you but this doesnt
wanna work in Vista Ultimate 32-bit . Was wondering if anyone else is experiencing same ?? I got your Hack from http://www.thehobbylounge.com where many users there are runnin Vista. So i thought you might have a solution .
Also i need help setting up my Wordpress blog for my personal site badbreezer.thehobbylounge.com
Thanks man