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Preview becomes blurry for a moment, when I adjust the image

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52 comments

  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    What OS and version? Do you have hardware acceleration enabled? Try disabling it? I wonder if forcing Capture One to rebuild the hardware acceleration engine would help?

    https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002404937-Troubleshooting-Hardware-Acceleration-in-case-of-viewing-processing-exporting-problems

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  • Jan Felber

    I use Windows 10 and Capture One 16.3.1
    Tried it on another PC with and without hardware acceleration and have the same problem.
    Can anyone confirm this issue?

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  • Jan Felber

    Ok, i followed the steps in your link. Obviously the hardware acceleration does not work with Capture One 23. (it works with CO 22!)
    Unfortunately the OpenCL Registry entry does not exist on my computer.
    My graphic card has only 4GB ram (RTX 3050). Could it be the reaon?

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  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    It's possible. What kind of display do you have? What size preview have you set in app preferences?

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  • Jan Felber

    I use a full hd display and I tried different preview sizes.

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    I can confirm this on my Dell XPS13 notebook with1920px resolution, provided I zoomed in to 100% or at least to a zoom level which is probably not covered by the preview resolution anymore, in other words when C1 is working from the raw file. I have only basic adjustments on the image, no layers, so no computational burden other than it is a 45 MP image.

    Compared versions are 15.2 vs. 16.3.1.

    I tried all settings in preferences (size, speed vs. quality, legacy format) for preview generation to see if that makes a difference by taking away system resources but doen't make a difference.

    I also rebuild the imgcore kernel, successfully. The blurryness still occurs.

    But, I noticed that the focus mask test (from the troubleshoot link) was unsuccessful. The focus mask does not disappear when sliding the exposure. This indicates that hardware acceleration does not work.

    Or that the focus mask test is not relevant anymore in 16.3.1. But given the blurriness issue I tend to believe hardware acceleration does not work or is not utilized. It behaves the same when I set the opencl preferences to Never.

    Here are the files ICOCL_all.xml and ICOCL.xml:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <query>
      <DeviceQueryResultCode>0</DeviceQueryResultCode>
      <DeviceQueryResult>no error</DeviceQueryResult>
      <FoundDevices>1</FoundDevices>
    </query>


    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <device>
      <Index>0</Index>
      <Platform>Intel(R) OpenCL HD Graphics</Platform>
      <Version>OpenCL 3.0 </Version>
      <Device>Intel(R) Iris(R) Plus Graphics</Device>
      <Driver>30.0.101.1338</Driver>
      <GlobalMemoryMB>6461</GlobalMemoryMB>
      <NumberOfKernels>1268</NumberOfKernels>
      <NumberOfCompiledKernels>1268</NumberOfCompiledKernels>
      <Benchmark>0.268776</Benchmark>
      <Status>Benchmarked:CL_SUCCESS</Status>
    </device>

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    I would have expected that the C1 routine to rebuild the kernel would have given me notice instead of indicating success. I'll try to check if Dell is providing a new driver. 

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Updated all drivers and packages, specifically BIOS.

    Rebuilt C1 imgcore.

    Same issue persists, 1/2 sec. blurriness when moving exposure slider, and focus mask test indicates that hardware acceleration is not used.

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  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    Clarifying question .. is this happening when viewing 100% zoom only or also when zoomed to "fill" view (whole image visible)?

    Capture One does not apply some adjustments in fill view (eg. sharpening). When viewing at 100% these adjustments are applied. The previews don't have these adjustments. If you navigate at 100% zoom from one picture to the next it will have to build that preview on demand and it doesn't save them to disk. It may cache them in memory for a bit in case you navigate backward a few images for example.

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  • Jan Felber

    The focus-mask-test proofes, that the hardware accelleration does not work.
    Iam shure, thats the problem for the blurry preview.
    But why does it work on CO22 and not on CO23? Higher Hardware requirements???

    I ordered a new graphics card. A RTX 4060 with 8 GB Ram. :)
    Hopefully it works with it. I will report my experiences.

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  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    I recommend opening a support ticket and ask Capture One if that card is recommended. They don't make public recommendations but might offer an offline opinion on a specific card.

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    I have opened a bug ticket. 

    If you throw enough hardware power on this problem, it will disappear, but the rendering engine in base characteristics is still the old one (20/21) and the image does not have any layers, so only basic adjustments are needed to be performed on the raw image in 100% view. I have an integrated (read slow) gfx card on my mobile chip and v15.2 works flawlessly. Both versions 15.2 and 16.3 use OpenCL version 3.0. Unless they'd have a very good explanation regarding new hardware requirements I'd say this is a bug.

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    And this is the last straw for my decicion not to buy a 16.3 license during Black Friday sales, together with the other issue I have (cpu busy as described here https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/14973353616157-Problems-upgrading-catalog-from-15-x-to-16-3?page=2#community_comment_15052548460957) and the ridiculous bug fix policy/uncertainty.

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    If the quality of their software would be good, ok, but in the last 10 months just me alone have reported 4 bug tickets regarding regression defects starting with 15.3 or 15.4. Pair that with the bug fix policy changes beginning of the year let me tell you: I am upset. C1 is a huge disappointment.

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Hi Jan Felber,

    But why does it work on CO22 and not on CO23? 

    Did you check if there is a new driver for your graphics card available? 

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  • Jan Felber

    I installed the newest driver. But the hardware acceleration does not work. :(

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Thanks Jan Felber.

    Tech support has an provided explanation, though I am not convinced, at all, imo it either is a wrong analyses of the issues you and me encounter, or a bad design decision in a later version than we used before the upgrade to 16.3:

     

    This was my bug report:

    When zoomed in (100% or even a littel below), the preview becomes blurry for a moment when I am moving the exposure slider.

    It is the same behavior as if I set HW acceleration to Never.

    The focus mask test indicates that HW acceleration is not used, though it should be because I updated all drivers and rebuilt the imgcore kernel.

    In 15.2 on that machine the issue does not exist. Also, the focus mask test works (focus mask disappears briefly when moving the slider)

    I attached two videos, one for the issue and one for the focus mask test, both for 16.3.1.

    Another user has the same issue:

    https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/15058468276381/comments/15064024602013

    btw, I provided all logs, system info and two videos.

     

    Tech support reply:

    The behavior you have observed is caused by low-res previews for certain sliders. Rendering the image at a lower resolution gives a more responsive slider, so for non-pixel-peeping adjustments, this is a good tradeoff.
    Some adjustments (almost) always use "low res preview quality" when making adjustments. The adjustments are generally of the kind which you would make at zoom-to-fit, and not while pixel peeping, so adjustments to exposure, color, contrast, rotation, etc. will mostly use low-res renderings while dragging the slider.
    Detail-oriented adjustments like noise reduction and sharpening should always use high-res renderings while making adjustments.
    This behavior also occurs on Windows, on adjustments like Exposure and High Dynamic Range, but not on tools like Clarity.
     
    We have chosen not to prioritize resources into improving on this at this point in time but we have your report stored in our system for future reference.

     

    My response:

    Please explain why the focus mask test does not longer work. If you cannot, then I think your analysis is wrong.

    If your analysis were correct, I would have to object:

    First, my Dell XPS 13 from 2020 is a relatively slow machine and with version 15.2 this issue does not occur, everything works smooth and fast, just perfect.

    Second, what you are referring to as "good tradeoff" is a very bad regression issue, v16.3 it behaves worse than 15.2 on exactly the same machine.

    In this light and with my first hand experience on my machine with both versions, your arguments are not at all convincing, not at all.

    If that is really the root cause, I don't know which hardware this regression issue (design decision) should be beneficial for, please elaborate on this.

    Please also look at this post from Jan:

    https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/15058468276381-Preview-becomes-blurry-for-a-moment-when-I-adjust-the-image

     

    I felt I needed to disclose this here as it also affects you, and probably many others?

    Can you file a bug report as well?

    Regards,
    BeO

     

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  • Jan Felber

    Thank you very much for your report!
    I will file a bug report soon!

    I hope my new graphics card will arrive at the end of this week. So we can rule out this error-source.

    Greetings from Germany.
    Jan

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Yes, please do.

    Focus mask test succeeds in 15.2, fails in 16.3.

    Scrubbing the exposure slider back and forth shows cpu (almost 100%) and gpu (approx. 50%) usage, (see the graphs, not the numbers) very similar for both versions 15.2 and 16.3:

    But the blurriness issue only occurs in 16.3 and is quite annoying. 

    I don't see any speed improvement in 16.3 elsewhere during editing, so nothing can justify the blurriness annoyance on my computer.

    Regards,
    BeO

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Again, as I don't get it:

    The behavior you have observed is caused by low-res previews for certain sliders. Rendering the image at a lower resolution gives a more responsive slider, so for non-pixel-peeping adjustments, this is a good tradeoff.

    I don't have a super computer but an ordinary Dell XPS 13 from 2020. I never had responsiveness issues with 15.2. But now (16.3) I have to live with 1/2 sec. blurriness without getting something in return?
    Also, I have set quality, not speed, for preview preferences, so I don't want low-res previews even for "pixel peeping" exposure adjustments. And I don't mind the preview file size "improvements".

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Jan Felber

    Please report this. Tech support is trying to make me accept this new bad behavior, instead I am asked to create an "Improve Capture One Pro" post. In other words I should be quiet now and hope that somebody in R&D will pick up the "improvement" idea, eventually, in some unspecified future. 

    Regards
    BeO

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Hi Jan Felber,

    Can you pls. tell me which exact v22 build you used for which the problem did not exist? See menu>Help>About.

    Regards
    BeO

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  • Jan Felber

    Hi BeO,

    I used almost every Capture One 22 Version without any hardware acceleration problems.

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Meanwhile I installed 16.3.2. on my main machine too, to further testing. Same issue but worse as my Eizo monitor is bigger, with same resolution (1920x1600) than my 13 inch notebook.

    To recall, tech support reply was:

    The behavior you have observed is caused by low-res previews for certain sliders..... 
    etc. etc., see above

    It is exactly the preview size which you set in preferences. So when you set 640 and regenerate (F5) you will have a blurry image when adjusting exposure (etc.) even if zoomed to 17% or 25%.

    It is the same behavior in 15.2 (exposure change is switching to the blurry preview if 640px is set, or not so blurry preview if 5120 is set)) if I fiddle with NVidia driver settings so that hardware acceleration is not working as it should.

    But if I set optimal graphic card settings (actually when I switch off the Cuda cores of the GTX 960 and let the cpu-integrated Intel Iris Graphics card do the job instead) then 15.2 is changing exposure:
    (1) without switching to the preview at all, so no change in sharpness whatsoever and
    (2) the slider reaction is still as smooth/fast as with any other setting in v15 or v16

    So whatever they did to the hardware acceleration capability or to the preview vs. raw development display in the C1 implementation for my two Windows machines in v16 , it sicks (or replace i with u).

    Maybe they can offer, as a workaround, a preview size of 8256px, or better a preview size which auto-adapts to either the camera long edge pixels, or which auto-adapts to the cropped image long edge. And auto-adapts to the panorama long edge pixels.

    Better though they solve this regression issue at the root cause.

    And no, if that is an optimization which maybe benefits Apple M chips users but negatively affects me as a Windows user, I will not buy a Mac (nor v16.x).

     

     

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  • Jan Felber

    Today I got my new RTX 4060 Graphics Card.

    And the hardware acceleration in Captue One 23 does NOT work!!!

    Its so disappointing. I want my money back!

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Yes, they need to address this.

    Please, submit a request, and maybe even reference my ticket number (#213125) so they see it is not only you.

    https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

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  • Jan Felber

    Ok, I made a bug report.

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  • Propheticus

    BeO  I'm not so sure this is introduced in v16. I'm still on V15.4.2.10 and also see a brief (0.1sec) blur when I do any non-detail edit (so exposure) at higher zoom levels 67% and 100%. I've got my preview size set to 2560px on a 2560x1440 monitor.
    The blur is in line with the preview being ~6x less pixels than the full image (2560px wide instead of 6240). The 100% zoom temporarily is like a ~250% zoom and looks accordingly.

    HW Acceleration is working. There's a clear increase in CPU usage from <10% with it on to >30% with it off + the focus mask test is a pass.

    Funny thing: the viewer actually becomes slightly sharper while dragging the exposure slider when viewing fit to screen or 33% zoom.

    So the issue might already be in 15.3 or 15.4
    Can't say I think it's a huge issue though.  How often do you do exposure related edits while zoomed in this far?

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  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Hi Propheticus ,

    How often do you do exposure related edits while zoomed in this far?


    Yes, exposure is a shortcut for all "non-detail tools", just to remind the causual reader, e.g.
    Exposure/level/curve tools, all color tools, rotation, even rotation and crop.

    Depending on the pixel pich of the monitor, it is visible at 50% or higher zoom levels. How often I work zoomed in for non-detail-tools work? Often enough, in at least these cases:

    • masks: when working with local adjustments on subjects smaller than the sky
    • doging/burning with layers
    • rotation tool (is also affected): when finetuning rotation angle against a guide line
    • styles: when hovering over and assessing the effect of different styles on subjects
    • crop: sometimes when cropping tight or fine tuning crop
    • most of my wildlife shots

    I can't say for sure when the issue was introduced, or if it is a "feature" or an OPENCL related issue. If C1 would indicate to be willing to solve this issue I would help investigating further. 

    But I know that even in 15.2 I can easily reproduce the behavior with my notebook when setting HW acceleration to Never, so maybe the issue is not causes by a new "feature". 

    Also on my main machine, where I have two GPUs, with HW acceleration ON, I can reproduce the behavior (in 15.2) if I configure to use the Nvidia GPU or both GPUS, in which case only the Nvidia GPU shows activity (so HW Acceleration is kind of working). -> OpenCL is a fragile thing in C1 anyway.
    But with Intel GPU only (Nvidia cores disabled) it works flawlessly. With 15.2, but not with 16.3.

    The preview size in preferences was always related to monitor resolution, so 5120 being a reasonable limit. Now that they introduced the blurriness issue/feature, if they did, the preview size should be related to the image size in order to mitigate the issue, so 8k+ should be possible.

    Even better: give us on option to use the old behaviour
    (yes I tried all new preference options incl. "old format").

    But if it is a OPENCL issue (even when HW acceleration sort of working/showing activity) then they should fix the root cause.

    This issue btw. invalidates all advices given by users to other users to set 640px preview size if space is a concern and machine is fast enough, because then, even zoom-to-fit is affected.

    Maybe the change (if they made this a deliberate change) is not related to M chip Macs but rather to the smoothness of slider action for 4K/5k monitors. As if they want to prohibit the GPU from working because it is slower for so many monitor pixels than loading a preview. 

    With my 1920px (24 inch monitor) I never had an issue with slider smoothness, not even with my medium specc'ed hardware. So of course I want to blurriness issue to be solved.

     

    >Can't say I think it's a huge issue though.

    I can only speak for myself. I am used to a totally smooth slider and viewer experience, regardless of zoom level. Hence I find it very distracting and annoying, up to the point that I am losing the joy working with C1. 

    And I think I am not going esotheric here when I reckon that 'interrupted'/'disturbed' viewing experience causes unconcious stress to the brain, in lengthy sessions, and changes to the unconcious perpecption of the images sharpness adds to this. Even in your case "viewer actually becomes slightly sharper while dragging the exposure slider".

    In essence, the new version works worse for me with NO benefit to outweigh the negatives in the viewer/slider department.

    Regards
    BeO

     

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  • Propheticus

    I'd say you let it occupy your mind a bit too much perhaps. Making theories or guessing about what 'they' deliberately might or might not want to make your GPU do, does not help.

    I understand and agree that it's never nice to see regressions. Yet if a fraction of a second of blur is making you lose joy, it might be time for a walk and some fresh air. You still are in the lead in how much you let something that 'happens' to you affect you. So maybe choose to be annoyed a little less and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

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