Previews and Slideshows: a perennial question

Hi all,
I make slideshows in Aperture (and iMovie and iDVD) only once a year, and it seems like I have to re-learn it every time. To all the people who claim that iMovie and iDVD are intuitive, I guess you and I are very different!
But that's beside the point: I know that, for Aperture slideshows to look good, previews have to be set to (at least) the resolution of the playing device. And I know that that's spelled out (a little bit) in the Aperture manual in the Chapter 5 section on "Previews."
My first question is a bit of a vent: why is there no discussion of preview quality in Chapter 20 on "Slideshows" (where it might be useful!)?
And then my real question is: can I -- just before generating the slideshow -- simply "select all" of the versions I want in the slideshow, raise the quality on the previews in "Preferences" and then "Regenerate Previews" -- and then generate the slideshow. (And then go back to previews in Preferences and set it where it was?)
Thank you!

On the second page in the Slideshow chapter of the User Manual, this section is separated and highlighted:
"About Displaying Sharp Images in Slideshows
To display slideshows at the best quality, you should set Aperture to create high-resolution previews. In addition to setting previews to their highest resolution, you should also use full-size previews to prevent upscaling with large displays. If previews are not available, images in the slideshow may not be as sharp as they would be otherwise. For more information about creating high-resolution previews, see Working with Preview Images." (http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/#chapter=22%26section=2)
The Previews page (linked in the original) is one of the most comprehensive of all the help pages.
(Sent from my magic glass.)

Similar Messages

Full screen preview and slideshow are blurry / fuzzy

Hi folks-
I just upgraded from CS2 to CS4, in part to improve efficiency of selecting photos - I wanted the zoom and loupe features. Unfortunately a very basic function has been compromised and I'm hoping there's a solution: In both full-screen preview and slideshow the full-screen image is notably blurry. This is a problem for two reasons: 1. I can't judge pictures accurately by just flipping through them in full-screen mode (without zooming to 100% to see if they are well-focused). 2. I can't use Slideshow for, well, slideshows. I've had to resort to keeping another app (like Windows Picture Viewer) open just to be able to quickly flip through and evaluate images full-screen or to show slideshows.
I've tried setting all the options related to image quality (they mostly have to do with caching thumbnails and speeding 100% viewing); I've tried purging the cache files. Nothing helps.
Any ideas? Thanks!

It seems to me that there is something wrong with it.
I am trying Bridge CS4 as a viewer for my JPEG files.
I also noticed that the previews were fuzzy. I activated the high-quality previews as well as the option to generate the previews at screen size.
Here's what I noticed. I went to check out a specific photo that is quite sharp with a number of straight lines, angles, details, where it's very easy to detect a lack of sharpness. That photo immediately looked fuzzy to me, which didn't jive with my memory of it. I quickly opened it in other viewers, which displayed it as intended with all the expected sharpness.
So, I went through the settings to see where the problem could be and I immediately thought of checking the box to get software previews instead of hardware, restarted the app, purged the cache, tried again. There my photo had recovered its sharpness, or at least most of it. I thought I found the culprit, but not quite.
I went to browse other photos and found one in particular with a lot of fine detail (hair) and that photo also didn't display all the sharpness that it should have (I was still using software mode). The difference was very slight and to make sure of it it required A/B comparison between Bridge and PS, but there was a difference.
Now I tried the opposite. I went back to hardware rendering mode, restarted, purged the cache, tried again. That second photo looked alright in preview, but the previous photo looked fuzzy again.
So, it doesn't work the same way for each photo...
What's the main difference between the first photo, obviously fuzzy in hardware mode, and the second one, alright in hardware mode but slightly fuzzier in software? The ratio. The first one is a vertical photo, the second one is horizontal (close to square).
I quickly checked other vertical photos and they showed the same behavior...
Now staying in hardware mode, I noticed something else. When I preview the vertical photo and click on it, or double click, it quickly jumps, switching between 2 versions of the photo: the one displayed originally (fuzzy) and another one, with a very slightly different size, which is sharp. During that manipulation it also briefly displays "100%" at the top of the screen. It doesn't stick when you click and immediately switches back, so it looks like a glitch.
Now in software mode, I tried the same, this time you can click once on the photo (which is originally displayed *almost* sharp). When you click once, it displays "100%" but also displays a very slightly smaller version that is clearly fuzzy. Clicking again goes back to the other, less fuzzy one, but doesn't display "100%" this time.
Doing the same test on horizontal photos shows no change that I can see.
So, it seems to me that in the preview mode, Bridge has trouble displaying some photos (vertical ones?) in their actual resolution (100%)
and since there is a slight resizing going on, it brings fuzziness. This doesn't explain the very slight fuzziness seen on horizontal photos in software mode.
Now I'll mention, for those still awake, that I saw no fuzziness on the same vertical photos when I go to Review Mode with *hardware* rendering. Photos there are sharp. Now if I go to the review mode with software rendering enabled, vertical photos are not 100% sharp (akin to the small difference I mentioned earlier while in software mode), while they are sharper in preview.
To sum up, it seems that the only configuration that gives me consistently 100% sharp (=as they were meant to be after post-processing) photos no matter what their orientation, is when I stay in hardware rendering mode and use the Review Mode, instead of preview.
This all really smells like a bug.
For info, I am using Windows 7 and an ATI HD4850 card, and this only about processed JPEG files, not RAW files.
Perhaps the preview is really meant as a quick preview and not a tool to view final photos at 100% accuracy...

Lightroom slideshow - preview and slideshow shows dark pictures

All presented images in lightroom 1.2 are fine. Only when viewing a slideshow, the screen switches to black. This is also the fact during previewing a slideshow. In the film area on the bottom of the screen, the relevant images are marked and the counter changes according to the chosen changing time.
During the time version 1.0/1.1 was used, everything worked fine: Any suggestion for a solution?

Updating the video card driver has solved this for a number of Windows users.

I have lost catalog, previews and slideshow

I made a slide show. When I wnet in to change something the pictures would not come up in either slideshow, library or develope. An Error box said something about the previews were corrupted. I looked up what to do (delete the previews and let it rebuild) It did not work. Now I am in a really big mess. Others of my pictures are a missing. All the pictures from the slide show are missing. I know that the originals are still on my computer but I need to get back to the slideshow and how it was set up. I need help really fast. The customer is expecting the corrected version of the slideshow in 2 days!

I realized when I wrote the note that details were being left out but I was almost afraid that I would scare people off, at least that is the way it seemed. I have been looking for an answer for days now and no one has answered. Thanks DJ.
I am running a PC on Microsoft Windows 7. I use Lightroom 4 upgraded to 4.4.
I am not a techy, I am a Grandmother that loves photography, and Lightroom, but for the life of me there are some parts of Lightroom that I just don’t understand.
I loaded and fixed up some pictures in Lightroom and then made a slide show from the pictures. The pictures are not mine, I am doing it for an organization. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ms3xlWgbE . When I went back in to make some corrections I got an error message.
I put the exact error message into Google, which said :"Lightroom encountered an error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit. Lightroom will attempt to fix this problem the next time it launches". It never did fix itself so I found several sites that said I needed to delete the preview cash. Now this is where, to me, it gets complicated: I didn’t know where the preview cashe was so I put it in my programs and files search and to my surprise it showed me a bunch of catalogs that I didn’t even know that I had. I selected the one with the most recent activity on it and deleted the preview cashe. It didn’t seem to do anything, no error message, nothing. When I went back into the catalog that had the pictures and slide show in it, it seemed to be gone.
I understand that it may have deleted it but it has never attempted to rebuild it and now all of those pictures and their changes seem to no longer be in Lightroom. I am afraid to do anything else for fear that I will really screw things up.
Now that I am calming down a bit, just from finally making contacting with someone else about this, I do realize that the pictures being missing is another problem. Can I discuss this with you later?
Is this forum the only way to talk to you? I was afraid that what ever that delete was that I hit deleted a bunch of other pictures.

Bridge cs3 preview and slideshow question

Hi
i have a question
does bridge cs3 need cache (drive space) to preview a photo or to see my photo with the slideshow feature ?
i mean does bridge need to render and store the photos in the database to let me see in the slideshow or browsing
i don't talk about thumbs
or does it on the fly?
thanks

If you don't need High Quality for thumbnails then select Quick Thumbnails in preferences.
I think as soon as you point Bridge to a folder of images it goes to work caching the thumbnails and previews. I'm using cs4, have forgotten how cs3 does it for quick thumbnails. You could point Bridge to a new folder of jpegs and watch the rotating indicator status display at the bottom; and you might get more information by posting in the Bridge forum.

I cleaned up my mac and now all my applications are gone. I try to open them and it has a question mark on the app icon. Everything from System prefrences, Everything in itunes, iphoto, preview and mail? Please help

I cleaned up my mac and now all my applications are gone. I try to open them and it has a question mark on the app icon. Everything from System prefrences, Everything in itunes, iphoto, preview and mail? Please help

These question marks are on your dock? And you can't open applications from your dock?
If so, try this: Open a new finder window and navigate to the Applications folder in your hard disk. The applications in question should still be in there (the Applications folder). So drag each of the application icons that you want to be available on your dock from the Applications folder onto your dock, one by one. Take each of your question mark icons that are on the dock and drag them off the dock to get rid of them. See if that fixes you up.
Now, if your hard disk no longer has an Applications folder in it, or the Applications folder is empty, you are going to have to reinstall OS 10.6 then do a software update to bring you back up to OS 10.6.8. You may be able to just go to the "optional installs" folder on the installer DVD and maybe all the stock applications are there -- I don't remember and I don't have an installer DVD handy to look. That would be way easier than doing a full blown OS reinstall. Also, as I recall, if OS 10.6 was on the computer when you bought it from the store, I think there should be an "extras" DVD that has a handful of applications that could be reinstalled from it, too.

My Muse compositions, panels and slideshows dosen't work (preview).

Hi!
What's wrong? I didn't have any problems with muse earlier... older version and older Win XP.
Now I have the latest version of Muse and Win8.
My compositions, panels and slideshows dosen't work when I try to preview designt site in browser.
Is something missing on my computer? Or what's wrong?
Regards from Finland!
-Nanna

Hello,
Please provide us with the site URL and if possible, screenshots showing the exact issues.
Cheers
Parikshit

Curious question about Lightroom previews and Camera Raw Cache

Posted in the Flickr Lightroom Group as well:
I have noticed something about the Lightroom (3.6) previews and Camera Raw cache that have me puzzled.
I create a brand new empty catalog and purge the Camera Raw Cache.
Then I import ONE Nikon RAW (NEF) file with dimensions 2592 x 3872 (10 megapixels - 10,036,224 pixels).
Next I export that NEF file to an uncompressed 8-bit TIFF file. You would expect the size of that TIFF file to be roughly 30 megabytes (10 megapixels x 3 bytes per RGB value) and in fact the TIFF file is 30,135,830 bytes in size. If you export the same TIFF file but specify ZIP compression the resulting file size is 10,834,038 bytes. Obviously the compression obtained here is going to be highly specific to the image but so far no surprises.
During import I specify render 1:1 previews and I go into Loupe mode and view the entire image at 1:1 size. I also visit the develop module and do a bunch of manipulations on the image but no cropping.
At the conclusion of all of that I exit from Lightroom and examine the size of the Camera Raw Cache folder as well as the Lightroom previews folder. It would be my expectation that the previews folder should have a rendered full image and that the Camera Raw Cache should also have a rendered form of the raw data. What would you expect the size of those respective folders to be?
In fact - in my trials the previews folder totals a mere 1,675,264 bytes and the Camera Raw Cache which contains one DAT file corresponding to the one cached image is merely 267,374 bytes. This does not seem like nearly enough bits to preserve the rendered image nor is there a full size image tucked away in the actual catalog either - that file is not large enough to contain that. And yet I can use Loupe mode at 1:1 size and move from image to image with no loading delays (even when importing multiple files).
I'm wondering if I've missed something obvious in my analysis and if not, whether someone might care to speculate as to what magic Adobe is practicing here. Even if we grant them some special algorithm to compress their previews I don't see how they can achieve a compression so much greater than the ZIP-compressed TIFF file achieves.
And for those that might think to ask - I've repeated these experiments with multiple raw images and on both the PC and MAC platforms.
I look forward to some answers or interesting theories or perhaps someone might replicate the experiment and report findings.

MadMan and Hal - thanks so much.
So that was my D'Oh moment of what I was missing - the use of re-rendered JPGS as previews. That certainly does fit with the file sizes I am seeing. I had naively assumed that the previews might have tried to preserve the full fidelity of the image - But as you suggest that full fidelity is likely only there in the develop module.
This perhaps explains another observation from the Develop module - moving from one image to another might display "Loading" either briefly or across a longer duration. My guess is that the length of the loading process might have to do more with what is cached in RAM than cached on disk in the camera raw cache. More of a shame then that 64-bit Lightroom on 64-Bit Windows cannot grab more RAM than it seems to do at present.

Problems with display of preview - and Adobe's tech support.

Hello, all.
After quite a bit of struggle I am still experiencing problems with the way Bridge CS5 displays previews. Previews are displayed with rather low quality. By that I mean low resolution that causes images to appear pixelated and out of focus. I've tried every possible setting in Bridge (or at least I think I have) but nothing seems to work. The setting that forces Previews to be built to the specific monitor size of the computer used doesn't work for me as I spend equal amounts of time working between my Macbook Pro 17" and my Apple 30" cinema display that have different resolutions. I've tried this setting and the preview images created on the notebook would not display at all on the 30" display.
I have contacted support only to find it is nearly non-existent. A voice obviously from someone located in India answered and kept asking what I considered to be basic questions and must have used the word "apologize" at least 20 to 30 times (no exageration) during the 1 hour and 43 minutes we were on the phone to accomplish nothing other than to "register" my complaint.
What is happening to Adobe ? This is not a joke, a rumor or an angry comment but rather a serious question from a user who has built a professional workflow based on the use of Adobe's products. I have been an user of the Adobe Creative Suite since its very first version and of the individual applications even before then. Bridge is one of the applications I use the most in my workflow that involves the organization of my large database of medical images I keep from my treatments and research. So this is very serious to me. I am now on the phone with Adobe waiting again to speak with someone in technical support. I was told the average waiting time would take between 35 and 50 minutes and I didn't think it would be possible but so far I have been on hold waiting for 1 hour and 7 minutes and someone has yet to answer the phone. What is happening with Adobe ? Is the company about to go out of business ? The last time I remember experiencing such a lack of support from a company I did so when contacting Polaroid and we all know what happened to it.
To make matters worse I have twice contacted Adobe and asked their technical support agent to remove a phone number that they seem to have mistakenly written as a contact number in my files. More than one month after I registered my support request I finally received an e-mail stating that had tried to contact me at the phone that isn't mine and shouldn't be a part of my records despite the fact I have instructed them twice to remove. There are serious legal implications here as I am bound to confidentiality when it comes to the medical information I manage with my Adobe applications and the idea that someone in technical support may accidentally share this information with a stranger while calling the wrong number is a serious problem.
What is going on ?
Outside of this forum I have no idea who to contact and if it is even worthwhile doing so as it may prove to be a huge waste of time.
Bridge has been a problem application since its inception. In fact the only version of Bridge that seemed to have worked (somewhat) right out of the box was the first one. I have experienced problems with Bridge with every single new version. Previews that don't display properly, crashes, folder hierarchy indicators not displaying properly, and others. The same images display fine if I open them in Apple's OS X Preview or Photoshop CS5. The problem is restricted to Bridge. All images are RAW high-quality images from a professional Canon EOS 1Ds MK II camera with a 17 megapixel full size sensor, and they always look stunning on everything else.
What is one to do ???
Sorry about the long post but I am one frustrated user who doesn't know what else to do.
Thanks,
Joe

Hi again, Steve.
In answer to your questions:
> What view are you using for the Slideshow (centered, fit screen, fill screen, 100%)?
Centered.
> What is the slide duration set to in Slide Show Options, does changing it to manual help?
I have it always set to manual.
> What are you're Preferences> Advanced> settings for 'Software Rendering' and 'Monitor Previews' (checked or unchecked)?
I've tried both choices for both options. My usual default options are 'Software Rendering' unchecked as I have a new Macbook Pro (only a few months old) and the graphics card is powerful enough to handle the previews and 'Monitor Previews' also unchecked.
> What are you're Preferences> Cache settings for Options (Keep 100%..., Automatically Export...)?
' Keep 100% Previews in Cache ' option - checked
' Automatically Export Cache to Folders When Possible ' option - unchecked
> What resolutions do you have set for both the 17" MBP and 30" ACD?
Their native resolutions: 1920 x 1200 for the MBP 17" built-in display and 2560 x 1600 for the 30" cinema display.
> In the Mac System Prefs.> Energy Saver... do you have the Automatic graphics switching checked off ?
No. I have this option checked for both Battery and Power Adapter.
On Bridge's interface upper right hand corner I have also selected using one of its pull down menus the following options:
' Always High Quality ' and ' Generate 100% Previews '
Any ideas ???
Thanks,
Joe

Preview and logging window in FCE 4.0 HD

Hi Everyone,
Just a quick question:
I'm learning FCE from the Diana Weynand book at the moment.
My problem is I don't see the Preview and Logging windows when I am capturing from my Canon XH A1s.
I'm using FCE 4.0 HD.
SL 10.6.8
Canon XH A1s
2008 24" iMac.
Thanks in advance.
Michael.

When capturing HDV with FCE you will only have a simplified capture window and clips will be broken at the shot changes after capture.
This is normal.
Capturing DV will give you the Capture window with more features.
Al

Preview and Print restrictions in PDF

Hi there,
I bought the Adobe Type Basics pack, and I would like to use one of the fonts that has the Preview and Print license.
The Preview and Print license states that "Preview & Print allows the font, either fully or as a subset, to be embedded in an electronic document solely for the purpose of viewing that document on screen and/or printing that document. While a font with a Preview & Print embedding permission (either through data in the font file or the font’s license agreement) may be embedded in an electronic document, the embedded font may not be used to further edit the document it is contained in or to edit or create other documents."
If I use this font in a PDF file meant to be sold/distributed, am I violating any of these terms? As far as I know, you can't create an "editable PDF." PDFs are, to my understanding, relatively static--so I do not understand why there is such specific wording about the prohibition of "further edits."
I am using MAC Pages, so I could use the additional password protection option (under the "Save as PDF" not "Export as PDF" section) to prevent people from "copying text, images, and other content." I presume "other content" covers fonts, but I'm not sure. And I don't know if the password encryption will prevent "editing." Technically doing so would be encrypting the PDF, I believe. However, this would not be bulletproof protection. And I do not know if that will prevent font extraction.
I would appreciate some help. From what I understand, all these points seem more relevant for PSD, AI, EPS and other workflow-type files.
Cheers

Thanks for posing this question.
Although fonts have embedding restrictions baked into the font such as preview and print, the real restrictions are to be found in a font's EULA (End User License Agreement) which may have other restrictions including payment of royalties on copies of PDF files or any other asset in which the fonts are embedded.
In the case of any and all fonts sourced from Adobe, not only do you have at least preview and print embedding privileges, but there are no restrictions or royalties required for distribution of files (i.e., PDF, EPS, eBooks, etc.) in which the Adobe fonts are embedded.
In other words, you are “good to go” with Adobe fonts. On the other hand, make no assumption about fonts sourced from other font foundries. Many do not provide such liberal terms!
- Dov

Preview and Finder showing photos with the right rotation, once imported to iPhoto its lost

Hi,
I'm geting nuts with this issue.
For my own camera all works fine. 90° rotated pics show up in Finder, Preview and iPhoto correctly. Landscape is landscape, portrait is portrait.
Now I got photos shared (using Dropbox) from a friends camera. Finder and Preview also show landscape and portraits correctly rotated.
But, once I import them (by drag&drop from the Finder) into iPhoto, all portrait photos are landscape now and need to be rotated 90°. This is the same for Thumbnails, full screen and even slideshow.
The only difference when importing those photos is, for my own I use the import out of iPhoto (by plugging the SD directly to the Mac), the other photos are imported from the Finder with drag&drop.
BTW, the rotation information for all photos are correct in Preview (1 for normal photos, 8 or 6 for 90° rotated).
So what is the problem here? I'm going nuts.
Thanks in advance.
Monty

To re-install iPhoto
1. Put the iPhoto.app in the trash (Drag it from your Applications Folder to the trash)
2. Download it from the App Store to reinstall It's on your Purchases List there.
For older versions that have been installed from Disk you'll need these additional steps:
2a: On 10.5: Go to HD/Library/Receipts and remove any pkg file there with iPhoto in the name.
2b: On 10.6: Those receipts may be found as follows: In the Finder use the Go menu and select Go To Folder. In the resulting window type
/var/db/receipts/
2c: on 10.7 or later they're at
/private/var/db/receipts
A Finder Window will open at that location and you can remove the iPhoto pkg files.
3. Re-install.
If you purchased an iLife Disk, then iPhoto is on it.
If iPhoto was installed on your Mac when you go it then it’s on the System Restore disks that came with your Mac. Insert the first one and opt to ‘Install Bundled Applications Only.

Preview and Adobe fonts problem/missing in PDF

I have a PDF document that doesn't show some fonts. The PDF was displaying fine on preview and then all of the sudden the next day it got messed up. I didn't performed any update or installed any new app. The problem persists in both Preview app and Adobe Reader; at least Adobe tells me: "Cannot find or create the font 'BYGBIR+Helvetica-12-0'. Some characters may not display or print correctly." Here's a screen shot of what it looks like.

L Huffman,
First of all, Welcome to the Discussions!
Try to select one of files in question by clicking once and then press the key combo command + i or go to the File menu and select Get Info.
Once the Get Info pane is open drop down (if not already in the open position) the disclosure triangle next to "Open with:" and change the application that will open "this" file. To change all files of the type make sure to click on the "Change All" button.
That should do it....post back if that is not what you are trying to do.
littleshoulders [:-)

What is preview and how do I get rid of it

Hi folks:
I'm brand new and shiny with a Mac, and to tell you the truth I'm not really thrilled with it. I just spent 2 weeks trying to get my password accepted on this machine (I couldn't access any of the discussion groups or any other Apple help site because I kept getting told there was a security problem with my registration code. I couldn't access my personal site at the university nor any other on line site that required a password from myself).
At least that is semi-solved. I can now access everything as long as I first enter a password which gets rejected and then go in and change it. Your site is the same, but rather than let Apple go near this machine agian, I'll live with it.
The question I have is one I have asked the Apple reps and can't get a straight answer. The question is this: "What is preview? Do I need it? Can I get rid of it?"
I have just spent 3 hours trying to get "Grab" to work so I can copy a textbook picture into a file. As soon as I click to set up the capture frame the application kicks into preview and it does nothing. This is not the only problem I run into with this intrusive, do-nothing application. If I can't get rid of it can I hide it so it doesn't show up in the menu bar or the dock?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

You might get actual answers if you posted in the correct forum.
This is Discussions > iPod nano (First Generation) > Using your iPod nano.
Preview is just what it says. It allows you to preview images and pdfs without having to open an editing app.
I have just spent 3 hours trying to get "Grab" to work so I can copy a textbook picture into a file.
From Mac Help;
"To take a picture of the whole screen, press Command-Shift-3.
To take a picture of part of the screen, press Command-Shift-4, then drag to select the area you want in the picture.
To take a picture of a window, the menu bar, the Dock, or other area, press Command-Shift-4, then press the Space bar. Move the pointer over the area you want so that it's highlighted, then click. If you decide you want to drag to select the area, press the Space bar again.
If you press Command-Shift-4 and decide you don't want to take the screen shot, press the Escape key.
Screen shots are saved as files on the desktop. If you want to put the screen shot in the Clipboard, rather than create a file, hold down the Control key when you press the other keys. You can then paste the picture into a document."

Losing links of images on Preview and Publish.

Some images are not linking on Preview and Publish (Beta7). I have relinked (even going back to the original in Photoshop) and re-published again, those link up but then other images stop linking and do not load. Ones that were working fine just minutes ago.

Hi COLBY,
Here is the link to a recently published site. On the Publish I did about 30 min. before all the images were loading. Now on this page two are not. When I wrote the question yesterday 6-7 images were missing, randomly. One than publish again three, than more. Since yesterday I went back to a earlier saved version and made some minor type changes and links, not involving any of these images. The first time I published today, all the images were linked. It seems the longer I work with the file the more images seem to disappear. I have only had this problem since I updated to the Beta 7, on Friday. http://amberart.businesscatalyst.com/cockroaches.html
Thanks.
Linda Nye

Previews and Slideshows: a perennial question

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