No thumbnail images when viewing pictures folder via desktop & screensaver

Question

When I go into system preferences and then Desktop & Screensaver I chose the pictures folder. It does not show any thumbnail images of any of the contents of my Pictures Folder, yet clicking on a blank area of space applies a desktop???? I have never seen this before anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

There may be some minor issue or glitch in the system; and perhaps even
starting up in SafeBoot and using Disk Utility's repair disk permissions, then
quitting the utility, and restarting normally may help repair this situation.
Some file types, in some cases, may not appear in icon or thumbnail view;
and there are a few image editor applications whose custom icon thumb-
nail views actually appear as a generic icon w/o an image; but an original
import from a camera will have the correct thumbnail captured by Finder
and/or Preview (or iPhoto) by first-contact with the image from the camera;
but Photoshop or other third party shareware or freeware may not show one.
For a normal situation where a thumbnail image icon should be present:
Open up a finder window and do like this: from Finder=View=Show View Options
=Show Icon Preview. That will give you a thumbnail view of whatever document it is.
You can select to do this setting for all windows
Apparently your situation is different in that there may be a permissions or other
issue going on in the system; so try routine maintenance and also see if the images
are in the correct location for the system to see them. If the system is really messed
you may have to consider repairing it; try booting from the native disk utility in OS X
boot/installer disc, repair disk and repair disk permissions; then reboot using Startup
Disk in the boot disc's utilities menu (in installer menubar) and immediately press &
hold the Shift key on startup to engage SafeBoot; and re-repair disk permissions
from the System's hard drive located Disk Utility to re-correct these permissions, as
they will probably not be proper for the fully updated system running in the computer.
Then restart normally.
There may be file damage, so if that is discovered through additional troubleshooting,
you may have to consider a new system folder, as in "Archive & Install" then update.
Repair disk permissions between all update & install steps of system and other software.
If you have and use a utility interface tool such as OnyX (runs free, is donationware) from
Titanium Software, download from their site; and run all the checkbox items in Automation,
and then restart the computer - or set its preferences to do that also, automatically - this
may help general system health. It may not be able to fix something deeper in the system;
but a third party disk utility such as DiskWarrior or Drive Genius2 may help in other matters.
In some cases, depending on what images are involved and where they came from, be
they a chosen set of personal images you've directed the system to use as background
desktop images in Finder, or a set of Apple-supplied images, the results can be different.
I use a folder of camera created scenics as desktop backgrounds and use ToyViewer to
edit and rotate at a most basic level, since I try to make photos in the camera and not edit.
Sometimes, these will have generic non-image icons and not thumbnails; there is a way
to work around the issue should a whole folder of them go bad or change over w/o notice.
Hopefully someone who has fixed this problem will write a follow up; it is getting late in my
timezone and I am running on empty per this topic, among others... You may resort to an
Apple help or Apple Support documents search for a matching topic. That's a huge library.
Good luck & happy computing!