Thumbnail rendering

Hi
I like everything about Lightroom 2 except it's treatment of thumbnails. I have reams of similar photos so find that picking out the correct one from its thumbnails is slow and tedious. The wait whilst it twice re-renders every thumbnail seems interminable, especially as it only does it one screen at a time. I'm used to Expression Media which has loads of faults but does at least give you a nice crisp thumbnail every time with no re-rendering.
Is there no way of persuading it to render every thumb and save them, like it does previews?
Thanks in advance for any pointers.
Tim

> Is there no way of persuading it to render every thumb and save them, like it does previews?
It already does. It just loads the low-res ones first.

Similar Messages

Why is Lightroom 2.4 Thumbnail Rendering SLOOOOOOOOW...?

For some reason Lightroom 2.4 is taking an enormous amount of time to render thumbnail previews and in spite of having my thumbnail cache set to 50 GB, it still re-renders the thumbnails every single time I use the scroll bar.
Every other aspect of Lightroom performs just fine on my machine. But the library is so slow that it is unusable. Every time I touch the scroll bar I can see a somewhat darker preview of the thumbnails and then as soon as I stop scrolling, the CPU shoots up to 100% utilization and I watch as the thumbnails brighten and adjust one by one. 30 to 45 seconds later I can click on the thumbnails and navigate around just fine. Performance is great in fact until I touch the scroll bar again.
The basic question is this. Why does Lightroom refuse to cache my thumbnails? And why does it take soooo long to render them when Vista's explorer can render hundreds of thumbnails off even a flash card in seconds? Even if thumbnail rendering was slow it would be fine if Lightroom would only cache them for me so it doesn't have to redo it every time I scroll back and forth. Shouldn't there be an option to render thumbnails on import as well as 1:1 previews?
I am running Vista 64 bit with 4GB of RAM with a Gforce 7600GT graphics card. My library has about 18,000 images in it. But I've also tried with a brand new small catalog. I'm shooting and processing Nikon D300 RAW files.
I've done all the standard performance tweaks that everyone talks about:
1. I render 1:1 previews and never expire them.
2. I have tried all the various nvidia card tweaks.
3. I've updated to the latest and greatest nvidia drivers.
4. I have my catalog on a separate drive from my images, and my thumbnail cache on yet a 3rd drive.
5. My machine has plenty of RAM, and in fact Lightroom is only using 1.5GB leaving me with well over 1GB remaining.
6. My machine is not swapping at all.
I've been reading and reading for the past 24 hours about this issue but have yet to come up with an answer to it. I did find this old thread from over a year ago that describes the EXACT same problem I am experiencing except his problem was with version 2.3: http://forums.adobe.com/message/1395391#1395391
Does anyone have ANY idea what can be causing this? As is, I can't use Lightroom under these conditions.
Thanks!

So I spent all evening experimenting with different things in Lightroom to try and improve performance and found 1 solution that worked. Although I'm not sure why.
I understand that a design decision was made to render thumbs on the fly. Fine. But what I couldn't understand was why it took so incredibly long. I mean the process was literally locking up my entire machine every time I touched the scroll bar.
The ONLY thing I could get to clear up the problem was to select the top level folder in my catalog, and export the entire catalog as a new catalog. For export I did NOT choose to export the image files or the previews since I only wanted to keep my database (image adjustments, keywords, etc).
Upon opening this newly created catalog, of course everything was slow because there are no previews for anything. Fine. So I chose to render standard sized previews for a couple of the folders in the catalog (about 150 photos each). And then lightroom became extremely fast for browsing and scrolling through thumbnails on those particular folders.
What I can't undertand is why rendering standard sized previews on my old catalog (same photos, same folder) does not improve performance, yet doing it for the new catalog which should be an exact copy DOES improve performance.
The only thing I can think of is that my original catalog must have either been corrupt or there may be some upper limit on how many previews Lightroom can handle gracefully? Since I had standard previews for my entire catalog before.
I'm going to try and render standard sized previews on my entire new catalog tonight and see if the performance remains snappy. But something is definitely not right here.

Crashing on Thumbnail Rendering

Aperture 2.1.1 will crash on the same image it's trying to render a thumbnail of every single time.
After importing 16,000 images, thumbnail rendering will pause at #5902, the spinning "beach ball" appears, then Aperture closes and shows me the crash log.
I've repaired Permissions, rebuilt the database(Option+Command>Launch), trashed the entire import and associated preference file and tried three times to reimport with identical results. Aperture crashes at thumbnail #5902. I can reopen Aperture but it automatically resumes Thumbnail creation and will crash soon thereafter. I have not found a way to stop Aperture from rendering thumbnails on a restart.
I have reviewed the crash log but failed to find a referenced image which might be causing this problem. I'm now running out of ideas of how to fix Aperture on this machine. I have a nearly identical set of images on an Intel iMac 2.8 GHz, 4Gb RAM and Aperture runs brilliantly on it. I'm hoping someone has a fresh perspective that can lead me to a stable install of Aperture on my iMac G5.
Thanks!
BACKGROUND: The troublesome Aperture install is on an older iMac 2.0 G5 without the built in iSight. It has 2Gb of RAM, 250Gb HD. Before importing the 16,000 images, I performed a HD reformat and new install of Leopard, patched to 10.5.4, then installed and patched to Aperture 2.1.1. I use this iMac in a backup location and unfortunately I'm not at that location now, though I will be next week. This iMac has had several "issues" in the past, power supply failure, a graphics board failure, and a hard drive failure (all fixed under warranty). It has always run hot when working hard, such as thumbnail rendering, often peaking at 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Apple tells me this temperature is normal. I've run Apple's memory tests in the past with passing results.
Message was edited by: Edsel

Well, I have now:
• Performed a consistency check
• deferred the thumbnails and manually rebuilt them
Neither of which worked, but did recover me about 300mb of space.... I'm now rebuilding the library, but it looks like it will take about 3 hours to do that. I hope it works.... I cant tell which of the photos is bad and should be gotten rid of.
+(In a side note, I'm going to try to go through my old photos and start getting rid of the real duffers, I think a 700gb library is too chunky. I've had some bad house-keeping habit develop.)+

PE2 - Timeline thumbnail renders, but monitor and burned DVD video is blank for one section. Also audio export quality question

I split a clip to get rid of a few seconds of something else, and everything looked OK. I set it rendering overnight, and this morning, I found most of the DVD was fine, but this one section at the end is black on the DVD. I went back to the project, and although the timeline looks OK with thumbnails generated, it's showing black for that same section in the preview monitor. How can I "regenerate" this clip without re-adding and making the cuts?
The video details look OK though...
Video: MPEG2 Video 720x576 (4:3) 25.00fps 6802Kbps [Video]
Next up, seeing as I gave only one hours captured video to a whole DVD, I was wondering why the video was quite blocky.
Then I saw the audio....
Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch 192Kbps [AC-3] < what the?!? This is mono video captured off an old tape, so at most it could be 44k 96k mono, not 6ch! But despite FAQ-ing myself silly, I can't see where you change the audio properties...
Help on these two would be greatly appreciated.
Before anyone asks (and they will!) why I don't upgrade, well, V2 does what I want (which is about 2 DVDs per year!) and when I tried V4 trial, on my old 3GHz PC with 3.5Gb RAM it was TOOOO slow

I found the solution to the blank error - what had happened was that when I was trying to make the background, it said "drag media here to make thumbnail" (or something) so I did, but although it didn't work, what I didn't realise was when I dragged the preview image to the thumbnail, I had actually dragged the image right off the screen! But when I did "undo", it looked OK, so I didn't notice it hadn't undone the move. If that makes sense.
As that was the last thing I did, it didn't bother checking before burning. I found this because I started a new project to convert it, and thought "well, if it plays OK here..." and started experimenting. I only saw the video offset by accident!
As for the question about Audio, I was previewing in MPC Home Cinema, but you're right. because when I preview in Windows Media Player, it appears to be OK and says Dolby 2.0
Thanks for your help!

QuickTime thumbnail rendering...when is this going to be fixed?

Safari STILL does not render thumbnails linking to videos on our streaming server correctly. It is ONLY Safari that does this.
Safari:
Firefox (or any other browser for that matter):
See how the thumbnails in Safari are all zoomed in and blurry? This is pulling up the same page on the server...Safari just doesn't render them properly. Plus, Safari pulls these pages up REALLY slowly. It's kind of weird that browsers made by other companies (including IE for Windows) pull it up faster and with the thumbnails displayed correctly.
iMac G5
iMac G5

Unless there has been an update to QuickTime Publisher (I don't use it) in the last few months it is generating out of date code.
http://developer.apple.com/internet/ieembedprep.html
I use Pageot (free) and the external javascript code from the link above.
http://www.qtbridge.com/pageot/pageot.html
I use image files saved as .mov for my "poster movies". Any other image format should use the qtsrc tag to help avoid errors.

Strange thumbnail rendering on import

I have been importing pictures in batches of maybe a few dozen at a time today and have had no problems (LR 2.0, Win XP). In my last import of 33, some old pictures had shown up - with the keywords of the new import. I let the import complete, closed LR, and brought it back up. Wallah - the default library view of the last import seems correct with just the correct 33 images.
What did I likely do wrong? Should I now be suspect of the catalog (which I backup multiple times a day) or just chalk it up to a fluke of sorts? I've never seen something like this before. Thanks.
Dilip

Hmm, that does seem strange. So you're seeing old images already in your catalog in the import dialog screen's previews along with the new images you're importing from a card, or disk, and you're sure the "import source" location does not contain originals of these older images? Has this happened more than this one time?
Maybe someone else has experienced something similar, or has a better idea of what might have happened.
Sorry I don't have any other ideas (like if deleting your prefs or going to 2.1RC would help, or if it might be some kind of memory issue, but I don't know) - Good luck.

LIbrary thumbnails not rendering

I have dozens and dozens of thumbnails in library grid that do not render. The boxes show up as empty grey squares with keyword icons among others. There does not seem to be any pattern or reason that some photos render fine and others do not. If a photo is taken to develop mode then the thumbnail renders as the photo loads in the main window, otherwise the same photos that are all grey in library view are grey in develop view until the individual photo is loaded. Closing LR and reopening it seems to cause any photo which was originally not rendered but then forced to render in develop to go back to the unrendered state.
This is driving me crazy as I cannot count on LR to display the images I have in the catalog. Syncing a folder which has many of these unrendered previews does not indicate any missing files.
Help.
Lightroom 3.2 64 bit
Windows 7
Catalog w/ about 18000 images upgraded from LR 2.7

Check other threads in this forum. I recall this is usually caused by a bad display colour profile. This is apparently more common with some Windows systems.

Thumbnail Generation Logic is weird?

I have been spending some time on Aperture for the last couple of days with Trial version 2.1. As you know, if thumbnail is not generated (and cached of course) for an image, Aperture will show a fuzzy/blurred image in Browser Mode, and that will get clear as Aperture generates the thumbnail. As far as I can see here is how thumbnails (rendering/generation/caching) work on Aperture:
1. Aperture has some kind of a "smart" algorithm (which really is not that smart at all, at least for me) to select candidates for thumbnail generation (will go into this a bit more below)
2. Menu option: Images -> Generate thumbnails is quite useless in that it does not care what images you select (almost none) if you select more than 5-10 images. For example, select 500 images and hit Images->Generate thumbnails, it ignores what you selected and goes with its own selection algorithm. Having said that, selected images might have some kind of an influence on this, but it definitely does not render it for all 500 images, e.g. it will render 10-20 images around the current window...
3. "Smart" selection algo is not that smart I said, because it tries to select images around what you are viewing, but keep failing to do so. For example, in brower only window, hit page down couple of times, and it starts generating thumbnails for a few items on the current window/view pane, but not all!... So, it ends up generating thumbnails for like 3-4 only out of 20, and you end up with a page that has 80% broken thumbnails, 20% properly generated ones.
4. For the 80% in (3), you click on one of the images, then it starts rendering/generating the thumbnail for that particular image. Sometimes it does this in batches, e.g. you click on one and it renders that one, the one on the left and right as well, but sometimes only the one you clicked.
5. Sometimes for the same 80% in (3), you select a few images and it renders these as you select them. Sometimes it just does not. If it does not, you can hit Generate Thumbnails and it will generate it for the few.
6. What is even weirder is that, for the 80% in (3), you select some images, and it does nothing. But, then you change the focus (e.g. alt+tab to a different window) and come back to Aperture, and it will start rendering...
All in all, it is quite annoying to have inconsistent behavior like this, and the fact that Generate Thumbnails is useless is something I find really stupid! If it is there, it should work, if it is not intended to what it does, you should remove it...
I am soo ready to buy Aperture, but this thumbnail generation stupidity and constant fight with Aperture to get proper thumbnails is driving me nuts...

I really need to use a program that allows call via command line as ImageMagick to use it in an application .Net, I can generate the thumbnails with Illustrator CS5 files, but can not generate from Illustrator CS6 files, this error only appears with files from CS6, as if you know help me thank you.
Already gratefully,
Miranda

Bad video thumbnails in iPhoto

Hi gang,
When I take video on my camera, I use Image Capture to get stuff off of my camera. If I have a video that's flipped 90 degrees, I use Quicktime (Movie Properities) to flip it upright. However, when import videos that I've flipped, the thumbnails get messed up (see screenshot here: http://www.gdbdp.com/temp/bad_thumbnails.jpg). Any ideas what I can do to fix this / keep it from happening?
Thanks
Dan P.

Dan:
I get the same phenomenon with iPhoto 7 (08). I don't know if there's anything you can do as you probably have the latest version installed, etc. Definitely a bug in the thumbnail rendering. You can report it to Apple via http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html but since iPhoto 8 (09) is out it won't get any attention from the developers. This does not happen with iPhoto 8.
I did think of a possible workaround.
1 - import your movie into iPhoto without rotating.
2 - once in iPhoto rotate the movie and save back to its location in the Originals folder.
You'll have to live with an incorrect thumbnail (it can't be rotate) but it will be intact.
You might make a test library and try it out on one movie before working on your primary library.
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier versions) database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. There are versions that are compatible with iPhoto 5, 6, 7 and 8 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. Just put the application in the Dock and click on it whenever you want to backup the dB file. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
NOTE: The new rebuild option in iPhoto 09 (v. 8.0.2), Rebuild the iPhoto Library Database from automatic backup" makes this tip obsolete.
Message was edited by: Old Toad

Build thumbnail image does not take AnalogBalance into account

When I build a thumbnail, it does not take AnalogBalance into account.
dng_image_preview thumbnail;
dng_render render (host, *negative);
// Build stage 2 image.
negative->BuildStage2Image (host, ttShort);
// Build stage 3 image.
negative->BuildStage3Image (host, ttShort);
render.SetFinalSpace (negative->IsMonochrome () ? dng_space_GrayGamma22::Get () : dng_space_sRGB ::Get ());
render.SetFinalPixelType (ttByte);
render.SetMaximumSize (256);
thumbnail.fImage.Reset (render.Render ());
thumbnail.fImage.Get()->Rotate( dng_orientation::Mirror90CCW() );
thumbnail.fInfo.fColorSpace = thumbnail.fImage->Planes () == 1 ? previewColorSpace_GrayGamma22 : previewColorSpace_sRGB;

The AnalogBalance is going to affect the mapping between temp/tint values and camera neutral values. If the white balance values are already stored as camera neutral values, I would not expect it to significantly change thumbnail rendering.
It sounds like you do not understand AnalogBalance correctly.

Thumbnails must render before export? Need workflow advice.

I am trying to figure out if there's a way that I can speed up my workflow.
1. Shoot a timelapse sequence (let's say 500 frames)
2. Import as .dng with 1:1 preview & smart preview generation
3. Make edits to frame #1
4. Copy settings on frame #1
5. Paste settings to all frames
Now here's the tricky part. I will wait for the progress bar to declare that it has finished pasting all of the settings to the remaining frames BUT the gallery previews still look like they did at import. LR5.5 dutifully begins to render the changes one by one.
If I have 50 of the frames visible then the 50 thumbnails will get updated. If I command-A (select all) and export all 500 frames at this point then I will always have some of the frames come out completely unprocessed - just as they were at import.
The only way that I have figured out how to avoid this is to scroll down in the gallery to a fresh set of 50, wait for them all to get new thumbnails rendered, scroll to the next set of 50, and so on. Once I've confirmed that all of the thumbnails have rendered then I can export with 100% success.
Is this expected behavior? What can I do to speed up this painful workflow?
I am working on a brand new Mac Pro 6,1 (cylinder) with 6-cores and 32GB of RAM. These files are stored on thunderbolt 2 while the previews and library are stored on the very fast built in flash storage.

I am trying to figure out if there's a way that I can speed up my workflow.
1. Shoot a timelapse sequence (let's say 500 frames)
2. Import as .dng with 1:1 preview & smart preview generation
3. Make edits to frame #1
4. Copy settings on frame #1
5. Paste settings to all frames
(2.) Why make 1:1 previews on import? They are only used when you zoom to 1:1 in the Library. If you don't create them at import, LR will make one for that specific shot if you zoom into it in the Library loupe view. There will be a few seconds delay while the preview is being created (whereas if it was created at import there will be almost no delay) but on the other hand you are not lumbering your system with hundreds of big previews that you don't need. Same question regarding Smart Previews. Why? They are used to stand in for the original shots only when the originals are not available, for instance because you are away from home and the storage drive. Do you really need them?
(3-5.) Select all the frames (Ctrl+A). Use the toggle switch on the Sync button to make it Auto Sync. Any edit you make to frame #1 will immediately be done to all the frames.

Should poster frame be rendering as the file icon?

I am self-taught in AE and must have missed something basic here.
I am simply trying to set which image (frame) will appear as the icon for a renedered comp. I understand how to set the poster frame for a comp, and I get the desired result in the project window when the comp is selected. I "set poster time" while the timeline window is selected as well, but when my comp is renedered the icon is always the frame at 10 seconds on the timeline.
I've done quite a bit of research, but must be missing something obvious.
Thanks!

I don't think these features ever worked right in any version of AE. It's definitely broken for Quicktime output and this may be the same for AE's own internal thumbnail rendering. Though, admittedly, I never much cared for that and couldn't tell you what's right and what's wrong. I'd have to check this specifically.
Mylenium

Lightroom 3 super slow on new Windows 7 64 bit...Why?

I've recently switched over to Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium, running 8GB DDR3 RAM, 1GB ATI Radeon 4800 series video card, 1920px monitor and have found the performance in Lightroom 3.4.1 much slower than I did on Windows XP, 32 bit running 2GB of RAM with a 128MB motherboard card (laptop to boot).
Why is this happening? The main issues are extremely slow imports (minimal previews set as default when importing), very delayed thumbnail (preview) rendering (the grid view sometimes sits with half the thumbnails rendered, and half not rendered, then all of a sudden, a minute or two later, all will be rendered...), and slow, in-consistent 1:1 rendering. I've tried all the different combos when it comes to preview rendering but nothing does the trick. I've even tried switching my 10GB LR3 (ACR?) cache to different drives but nothing does the trick.
Could this be an issue with the Catalyst Control Center (software controling my video driver)? It's all I've got left to consider but would very much like a resolution.
Thanks in advance.

Try the performance optimization tips here first:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/400/kb400808.html
Optimize your catalog(s), render 1:1 previews on import, and make sure your Cache folder isn't near the setting in LR preferences. If necessary, increase your Cache size and see if that helps.
If you regularly use Standby Mode to turn off your system, try shutting down Windows AND REMOVE AC POWER. If you have other connected devices (storage, camera, game, etc.) that use a separate power supply, disconnect them from AC power as well. Wait at least 10 seconds, then restore AC power to all devices, and reboot your system. This called a "cold boot," which will insure restoring ALL hardware devices, operating system, background applications and drivers to a known good state.
When I'm done for the day my OS is "Shut Down" and the main AC power strip turned off. It is the ultimate surge protection – NO CONNECTION. When I reboot the next morning I know all my system memory and other resources are freed up and available for my designated usage.
Following these guidelines I have absolutely no issues running LR 3.4.1 on my Windows 7 64 bit system.

Why won't Lightroom 3.3 send a dng file to Photoshop CS5?

I am using a Windows 7 64 bit platform, Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and Photoshop CS5 also 64 bit. I have my photos (from a Nikon D3100) in dng format but when I try to open it in Photoship using the Edit in command to send it either as a dng file or a smart object I get a notice that the file couldn't open because Photoshop couldn't be opened. In fact Photoshop does open (or it is already open). Sometimes, the file will eventually open in Photoshop, but it takes several minutes -- like 5 or more, other times it never opens.
Can anyone offer any suggestions or help?
P

Quote <Is there a setting LR or on the camera that I can use to allow LR to recognise (and render) the NEF file from the camera?>
No. LR will only show the thumbnail rendered by the camera,if it is possible. The better practice would be to download the files from the CF/SD card using a reliable card reader, this would be more efficient/faster and reliable. (use the camera to take photographs, rather than have it attached to the computer.)
A LR generated preview will only be rendered after the import of the NEF.

New Aperture photos not showing up in iLife browser

I recently upgraded from Aperture 2 to version 3. When I open the Media Browser in any of the iLife apps, I can see all the photos/projects which existed in Aperture prior to the upgrade, but any pictures I've added since do not show up.
I've tried all manner of repairing permissions, turning off face recognition, creating blank libraries, turning preview sharing off and on, but nothing seems to help.
Does anyone have a possible solution?

I had this problem, and what I actually did was a rebuild on the Aperture database which fixed the problem. I got it from Scott Bourne's link below. After rebuilding the Aperture database, I restarted iTunes and the Aperture libraries showed up with the correct count.
http://photofocus.com/2010/02/27/aperture-library-rebuild
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about this but I recently received a question for the podcast that might be answered here on Photofocus.com.
If you use Aperture (II or III) and you have a large library or make lots and lots of changes to even a small library, the Aperture library can bog down or even become unstable.
This has something to do with the database and can lead to symptoms like pictures not showing up or slow scrolling to occasional thumbnail rendering and overall slower performance. I personally also believe it’s tied to a memory leak in the program. In any event, when this happens, rebuilding the Library is often the fix.
Before you rebuild your Library, back up everything to your Vault. Then, quit Aperture. Press and hold Option + Command and launch Aperture by double clicking on the application icon. Follow the prompts to start the rebuild.
It will take some time for the rebuild to be complete. I have my images stored in multiple Libraries of 10,000 image. Rebuild time is about 45 minutes on average.
At the end of the process, you should see snappier performance. This can also be a fix if things are just going haywire without reason.
When you are confident that you haven’t lost any images, back up this newly-rebuilt Library to your Vault and you’re finished.
I recommend that you do this every three months or so and more often if you are a heavy Aperture user or have very large Libraries.

Thumbnail rendering

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