dragging pics to desktop

I use to drag pictures or avatars from safari onto the desktop and it would make a file with the pic on it. Now it just makes a file that says JPEG or PNG. How do I fix this so I can see what it is without opening it?

finder > view > show view options....
Check box "show icon preview"

I had to uncheck that box in order to see the color version of Word and Excel file icons!

Or select and press the spacebar.

Well sure, that's a different approach.