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Thumbnail quality in browser

Harry25
Does anyone else find the quality of the thumbnails displayed in the browser very low?
Compared to ANY other competing product in the market, the thumbnails are very low res, and there is no setting to influence that.
Every year or so after I realise the new version still doesn't have a way to specify the quality of the thumbnail, I write a message to support to always get the same canned answer which says in essence that "thumbnails are just there for you to find an image not to really look at".
I find that insane: They have implemented a browser view, that nicely enough allows the user to select the thumbnail size and go from tiny to quite a decent size. All of which is kind of pointless (or at least not that useful) when the thumbnail quality is that low.

Does anyone else have the same issue? Is it a Mac thing? Something related to my raws (I don't have a MF camera - but Canon, Nikon and Fuji raws ranging from FF to APS-C).
Thank you,
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Comments

9 comments

Date Votes
  • Permanently deleted user
    Hi,

    As far as I am concerned, I use thumbnails only for selecting pictures or first culling. I don't use them to look at images. If the size of thumbnails were increased, it would cost more memory space. This "low quality thumbnails" is compensated by the good quality of previews in the viewer.
    But it's only my opinion.
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  • Harry25
    [quote="tenmangu81" wrote:
    Hi,

    As far as I am concerned, I use thumbnails only for selecting pictures or first culling. I don't use them to look at images. If the size of thumbnails were increased, it would cost more memory space. This "low quality thumbnails" is compensated by the good quality of previews in the viewer.
    But it's only my opinion.


    I understand it needs to be balanced somehow (and I'm not saying it should be top notch quality), but I'm thinking it should be something a user should be able to select.
    Somehow all other DAMs out there manage to do it, without impacting (much) performance. Or is that why their programs suck so bad? 😂
    Anyway, with more DAM features being added to the app with every release (as they should in my books), this makes absolute sense to me, and I think it requires minimal effort on their part
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  • Harry25
    Also another obvious feature lacking in my opinion (regarding thumbnails again), is being able to select to view only the cropped part of an image (like you can in the viewer).
    This I've already communicated to support and they told they've forwarded it to R&D.
    This would again make the more program behave more like other DAMs, and assist people browsing their catalogues / collections.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    [quote="Harry25" wrote:
    Also another obvious feature lacking in my opinion (regarding thumbnails again), is being able to select to view only the cropped part of an image (like you can in the viewer).


    Yes, with an option 😊 , as I prefer to see in the thumbnail the whole image including the cropped area, as it is now.
    Anyway, thumbnails are not very important to me, as I use them only to quickly select my images rather than to have a look at them.
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  • SFA
    There is a reason why a thumbnail image is called a thumbnail.

    Using the Viewer offers the opportunity to browse images at sizes above the usual expectations for thumbnails and a couple of releases back C1 introduced the concept of Sets to enhance this approach. Have you considered that option?


    Grant
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  • Harry25
    [quote="SFA" wrote:
    There is a reason why a thumbnail image is called a thumbnail.

    Using the Viewer offers the opportunity to browse images at sizes above the usual expectations for thumbnails and a couple of releases back C1 introduced the concept of Sets to enhance this approach. Have you considered that option?

    Grant


    Sorry, but I've only ever heard this argument (that thumbnails are thumbnails) from C1 users and support staff, because C1's thumbnails are so bad and fixed. The program is also a DAM, which means people browse through images, so I don't see what is so strange in what I'm saying. If it was only meant to be a thumbnail, you wouldn't or shouldn't be allowed to go from XS to XL size.

    In any case, I don't know what Sets are. Can you please provide me with a bit more information?
    Thank you,
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  • SFA
    Try here.

    https://help.phaseone.com/en/CO11/Optim ... aspx#item9

    This is the selected sub link from the on-line Help Main Link from the Help menu.

    I'm not staff. I think of thumbnails as small files and for anything bigger we have the Preview files for which you can establish your preferred default resolution depending on your screen resolution and how much disk space you are prepared to commit to them.

    I can't really see the point of having 2 sets of large files and moving them in and out of memory all of the time.

    However if you really feel a need, "Wish list" suggestions are handled through the Support Case system so put in your request to the developers there to register your interest.

    I gave up on LR at version 1.4 in favour of something else. V3 offered me no more so I did no more than test it.

    What I preferred back then was very similar to the browser/viewer concept of C1 but less sophisticated.

    I guess had I stuck with the Lr option and all that appeared over the years I might wish for the same thing as you expect to find everywhere. But I didn't, so I don't feel that need. It's probably as simple as that. Just what we are used to.



    HTH.


    Grant
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  • Rüdiger5
    ☹️
    [quote="Harry25" wrote:
    Does anyone else find the quality of the thumbnails displayed in the browser very low?
    Compared to ANY other competing product in the market, the thumbnails are very low res, and there is no setting to influence that.
    Every year or so after I realise the new version still doesn't have a way to specify the quality of the thumbnail, I write a message to support to always get the same canned answer which says in essence that "thumbnails are just there for you to find an image not to really look at".
    I find that insane: They have implemented a browser view, that nicely enough allows the user to select the thumbnail size and go from tiny to quite a decent size. All of which is kind of pointless (or at least not that useful) when the thumbnail quality is that low.

    Does anyone else have the same issue? Is it a Mac thing? Something related to my raws (I don't have a MF camera - but Canon, Nikon and Fuji raws ranging from FF to APS-C).
    Thank you,


    You are absolutely right! For me It's almost not possible to pre - rate a large number of similar images in browser because of the low thumbnail quality. Switching to a retina screen didn't help. So come on PhaseOne - give us a tool to change thumbnail quality! Thank you
    0
  • SFA
    [quote="R�diger5" wrote:
    :(
    [quote="Harry25" wrote:
    Does anyone else find the quality of the thumbnails displayed in the browser very low?
    Compared to ANY other competing product in the market, the thumbnails are very low res, and there is no setting to influence that.
    Every year or so after I realise the new version still doesn't have a way to specify the quality of the thumbnail, I write a message to support to always get the same canned answer which says in essence that "thumbnails are just there for you to find an image not to really look at".
    I find that insane: They have implemented a browser view, that nicely enough allows the user to select the thumbnail size and go from tiny to quite a decent size. All of which is kind of pointless (or at least not that useful) when the thumbnail quality is that low.

    Does anyone else have the same issue? Is it a Mac thing? Something related to my raws (I don't have a MF camera - but Canon, Nikon and Fuji raws ranging from FF to APS-C).
    Thank you,


    You are absolutely right! For me It's almost not possible to pre - rate a large number of similar images in browser because of the low thumbnail quality. Switching to a retina screen didn't help. So come on PhaseOne - give us a tool to change thumbnail quality! Thank you


    Is there anything stopping you using the viewer (preview) images rather then the thumbnails?

    How big would a thumbnail need to be to be useful to you? (Pixel dimensions.)
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