Blurry thumbnails useless and frustrating!

[NNN636681449274465414]

Hello everyone,

I have a very frustrating issue with C1: all my thumbnails are really blurry and it affects severely my workflow ... it's impossible to do the culling, selecting and rating. Just to clarify, I am not talking about the previews (for which you can specify the default size) but the the many photos that you see when you hide the browser and the viewer space is replaced by a grid of many photos (the thumbnails!).

The issue is especially visible when the thumbnails are set to the largest size with the browser hidden.

I have tried to turn off and on the OpenCL and no change. Same with regenerating the previews (I tried that just in case).
The issue is present when looking at my MacBook Pro monitor but also when the Mac is connected to an external monitor...

I am used with LR which shows perfect thumbnails which are usable for editing and culling.
Please load the following photos in their full resolution to appreciate the difference.

This is a screenshot of the thumbnails in C1:


This is a screenshot of the thumbnails in LR:


Is there something wrong with m machine or is it normal??

[SFA]

Just to confirm, are you talking Thumbnails as in the Browser window or Previews as in the viewer window?

Sometimes people use the terms interchangeably. There is a significant difference. Best to start of a discussion being sure what you are referring to.


Grant

[Ian3]

Thumbnails in Capture One are very low resolution, which keeps the file size low and makes for faster loading. The file sizes as reported by Finder for some of my thumbnails are less than 10kB. It does't say how many pixels, but that is going to be a low number: I've just tried exporting a JPG of 225x225 pixels at a quality setting of 79. The file size is 29kB, about three times the thumbnails, and viewed at 100% zoom, it is smaller than my thumbnails at a reasonable zoom level. So the thumbnails are really small!

Thumbnails are OK for identifying images and selecting them, but if you zoom them to a large size they will be of too low a resolution to evaluate image quality. To see several images at once try the idea of selecting a "set" as described by SFA in this thread. http://forum.phaseone.com/En/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=29794&p=146222#p146050

Ian

[NNN636681449274465414]

Hi Ian,

you are absolutely right. I have checked the size of the thumbnails (in finder) and indeed the majority of them are under 10kb. I think this is ridiculous, they are completely useless when it comes culling, selection and editing.
I will try the 'set' process although it's not quite quick and straightforward.

The other option for me would be to use Adobe Bridge, but then again I though I was done with Adobe softwares

[NNN636681449274465414]

Just to confirm, are you talking Thumbnails as in the Browser window or Previews as in the viewer window?

Sometimes people use the terms interchangeably. There is a significant difference. Best to start of a discussion being sure what you are referring to.


Grant

Hi Grant, in my screenshots you can see what I am referring about. I am talking about the thumbnails in the central area of C1, between the tools bar and the browser.
Does it make sense?

[SFA]

Just to confirm, are you talking Thumbnails as in the Browser window or Previews as in the viewer window?

Sometimes people use the terms interchangeably. There is a significant difference. Best to start of a discussion being sure what you are referring to.


Grant

Hi Grant, in my screenshots you can see what I am referring about. I am talking about the thumbnails in the central area of C1, between the tools bar and the browser.
Does it make sense?

It probably would have answered my question before I asked it but I don't see your screen shots just the word "image".

There is no facility to upload and display an image to the forum but you could put the image on a file sharing service and link to it.

I see that Ian3 has already kindly linked to a recent proposal I put forward on another thread.

One other option that you might not be aware of is to use the Loupe tool. You can adjust the amount of zoom to apply to suit your needs. That gives you a preview (or at default a 100% view) of the image under the cursor point which helps with the tricker decisions.

Double clicking the image will re-open the Viewer for a more complete assessment. Close the viewer and you will be back to the Browser and that might be a more presentable solution for you.

Or just scroll through in the Viewer at regular size but I suspect the sets option would make more sense for what you have described.

HTH.


Grant

[NNN636681449274465414]

Hi Grant,

thank you very much for your reply.
I think that between the use of sets and loupe I have found a good alternative way, thank you so much for this!!

With regards to my images, I have uploaded them them on a file sharing shrive but somehow they are not shown correctly. However, if you right click on the question mark icon (?) and click 'Open image in a new tab' you will be bale to see the photos I've upload.

Kindly let me know if that works.
Thank you!

Edo

[SFA]

Hi Edo,

I hope you continue find even more ways to further enhance your assessment process.

There are a lot of options for fine tuning the UI but I think most people just need to discover the subset that works for them rather than become expert in all of the details - so sometimes finding someone who already uses the exact match to your process may be based purely on luck.

I know I do not make as much good use of the Workspace potential as I could - but what I do allows me to work at a pace that I find OK. Sure I would love to be able to get through thousands of images more quickly and in pure UI terms I probably could with a few tweaks to what I do. But I'm not sure my brain speed would really allow me to feel comfortable that I was making good decisions if I went much faster!

We have to find our own levels for these things ...

In regard to the screen images - it may be a browser thing. All I see is the word "Image" on its own line. It does not present as active text in any way.

No "?".

I'm using Firefox on Windows.

However you are right, if I right click on the word it still seems to be just text, not a link, but does allow me to copy the link and display the screen grabs.

I see what you mean. I have not used LightRoom for years so I have no feel for what Adobe does in terms of dealing with thumbnail scaling.

Also I note that your C1 browser capture identifies the source file for the thumbnails as a psd file.

I have no experience of PSD files as they are used within C1 and there may be differences with the thumbnail generation methods. However I think at the equivalent zoom level to the LR examples you surely need to work with either the Viewer (to make use of the larger preview files) or the instant access Loupe tool. The Browser thumbnail option is, for most images from most sources, working past its optimum levels at that point!

Enjoy your discoveries.

Grant

[bildbaendiger]

Hello,

I think we're talking about the previews of your images here.

I also have a problem with blurred previews:

The screen resolution on my PC is 3840 x 2160 pixel.
All the previews are calculated with the Resolution of 3840 pixel. (you cann adjust the preview size in the preferences)
When I now open the catalog with these previews on my old Mac with only 1960 pixel resolution I get a blurred Image at regular size. Zoom in a little bit and the preview pictures get sharp.

It seems, that C1 have Problem with the downsizing of previews with higher resolutions.
Maybe someone else can confirm that, too.

Best regards

Thomas Schneider

[Ian3]

My (unscientific) impression is that the previews are less sharp in v12 than they were before.

Ian

[Zipfelkunst]

Hi there,

i have the same problem and in my opinion it is a bug. In an earlier post already it was discussed.

Yes, the software in this condition is useless for culling, rating and so on.
Now I continue to work with Lightroom until the problem is solved. Because there I don't always have the feeling that I have to put on reading glasses.

Well, it's annoying that Phase One doesn't provide a statement. In any case, it would be helpful.

Best greetings
Bernd

[SFA]

Hello,

I think we're talking about the previews of your images here.

The original post was referring to viewing thumbnails at maximum zoom.

Not Previews.

3840x2160 = 8,294,400 pixels

1960 x 1080 = 2,116,800 pixels (Similar pixel dimensions will give a number somewhere around this value)

That means that to redisplay a 3840 prepared image to 1960 about 75% of the pixels will have to be discarded. If you viewing the image at the same viewing distance it will very likely look deficient by comparison.

Of course, when you zoom in you are recovering some of the lost pixels as the image presented is recalculated so details and subtlety of colours will return.

FWIW I have not noticed any difference with the quality of previews switching between V11 and V12 when running with 1920x1080 screen resolution on Windows.

HTH.


Grant

[Zipfelkunst]

Hello,

I think we're talking about the previews of your images here.

FWIW I have not noticed any difference with the quality of previews switching between V11 and V12 when running with 1920x1080 screen resolution on Windows.

the problem are on previews and thumbnails. But the thumbnails (browser) are much more worse. The image is totally blurred at maximum. The previews (viewer) must be enlarged to 25% or 33% to see if it is sharp or not.

I sent a comparison with Lightroom to the support. There it was confirmed that there is a significant difference in quality and this is passed on to the software developers. Whatever it means...

I suppose, this only affects the MacOS.
a similar post you will find here: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=29523

[NNN636681449274465414]

Agreed, there is a huge difference in thumbnails quality between LR and C1... LR provides usable thumbnails whereas C1 ones are totally useless. I have also sent a comparison image to the support team, let's hope they at least acknowledge the issue.

Don't know about windows, but in MacOs the issue is very very very visible and annoying, which is a shame as I love C1 otherwise. I am tempted to go back to Adobe softwares...

[SFA]

One simple solution would be to allow people to generate larger thumbnails by default should they choose to do so.

It would not benefit me nor, I suspect, anyone who was not using a higher than 1920 pixel (or very similar) screen, so I would prefer not to be forced down that route amd carry the additional overhead larger thumbnail files for no benefit.

So far as I have discovered SSDs, no matter how fast their ratings may be in the specifications, are not at their best reading or writing large numbers of small files and I don't think making very small file marginally larger (in context) will help performance.

For catalogue users things might be less of concern so long as the catalogue is on an internal drive but if one chose to make some significantly large thumbnails the catalogue size might increase quite a bit. Maybe to the point where one might as well use the Viewer and Preview files right from the start.


Just my opinion.


Grant