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need tips with thumbnails!

danlindberg

Well-known member
I am going nuts here. I typically have 300-400 raw files in a folder before I build a new one. I have the same kind of raw files in each folder. Could be Credo 60 files, Hasselblad x1d files, Sony A7r files.
It has always been a little tough on displaying thumbnails, but managable. Now it is impossible! I have cleaned out the Mac quite a bit and have been in to preferences and tested several different settings but it is dead-slow to show. In Bridge I have set it to 'prefer embedded' for faster show, but no....
Any tips? All I want is to see which image is which, simplest, fastest is ok!
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
Just to test with less quantity in a folder. I copied 100 Credo files into a new folder and pointed at it in Bridge. To show 100 thumbnails, it took 9 minutes. :mad:
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I don't think there's an easy answer to this, given that the Finder isn't really a photo browser. I never look at my files as thumbnails in the Finder. I look through my photos in Lightroom or whatever other image editing software browser I'm using.

I'm surprised you find Bridge to be slow at this; it seems plenty quick even on my 2012 Mac mini running Mojave. But then that is a personal assessment, and my notion of "quick" may differ greatly from yours. That said, it's very rare that I have more than 20-40 raw files in a folder.

G
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
Thanks Godfrey.

I copied over 87 raw Credo files to the Mac's internal SSD disk, thinking my external harddrive could be the bottleneck. But......it took over 7 minutes to show 87 thumbnails. There must be something wrong, be it settings or something.
I googled and got a tip to download Phiewer. Does not show a single thumbnail. Finder is just as slow.
 

Bill Caulfeild-Browne

Well-known member
Although Phase One no longer supports it, I use Media Pro. I find it fast, versatile and I can't live without it!
In my case, I keep all my files on a hard drive by month - so current pix, for example, get uploaded from the memory card to 2019.12. After editing in CI, I import to Media Pro where I can see thumbnails by month, day, camera or keyword. The thumbnails take a moment or two render into full size but I rarely do this - they can be directly opened in C1.

The important thing is that the thumbnails are visible immediately.

Not sure if this helps you much, Dan, as I think your methodology is a little different. (I don't use Bridge, for example.)
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Dan,

Any recent system or software updates? Time machine backups not yet moved to disk? (They accumulate and take up space until the backup volume is mounted.) Deleting caches helped a lot with loading large files in LR and PS. Also changing the Cache size from 5GB to 30GB, but that wouldn't affect the Finder.

Is Spotlight updating? Does Activity Monitor show anything hogging the CPU? I'd watch Activity monitor while the window is making thumbnails and see what's running.

And then there's rebooting...:ROTFL:

Best,

Matt
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
I just opened a few folders in finder. I don’t have any with that many images, but a folder with 68 IQ4150 files, all the thumbnails are drawn in a couple of seconds. If I resize the thumbnails so they are large, it takes about 10 seconds for all of them to redraw. If I hit the space bar to see one, it takes about 2-3 seconds to show.

Tried this with GFX 100 files, and see no thumbnails, maybe MacOS doesn’t support those yet?

using 10.15.1 on a 16” MacBook Pro
 

MartinN

Well-known member
I use FastRawViewer on all my computers, some notoriously old, but the program is SO convenient.
It has focus mask and raw histogram. Worth every cent.
https://www.fastrawviewer.com/

They have volume licenses if you have more than two computers (default license) and
it works on Mac and Windows systems.
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
I have deleted 50gb of unnecessary files and run cleaner programs and rebooted, even did a virus check. Nope!

I have tried so many different settings now in preferences in Bridge and Photoshop I don't know where I am, but no matter the setting, it is extremely slow. It does not matter if I make a test folder with only 40 files, it is just as slow. But just counting 8000 raws from the Credo, that would mean if I only put 100 in every folder, I would have 80 folders....and that is just for the Credo files not counting the Leica M9, Sony, Aptus, Canon, Hassy files.....

So, it would be most interesting to see a few alternatives of how you guys manage large amounts of high res files? How do you organize them and how do you view them? How many raw files in each folder etc
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
I use FastRawViewer on all my computers, some notoriously old, but the program is SO convenient.
It has focus mask and raw histogram. Worth every cent.
https://www.fastrawviewer.com/

They have volume licenses if you have more than two computers (default license) and
it works on Mac and Windows systems.
YES! Downloaded it and it flies!!! I have checked all types of RAW's that I have and also folders with up to 600 files. It shows the thumbnails instantly. :clap::clap::clap:

Thank you Martin :salute:
 

gurtch

Well-known member
Yes, the LibRaw creators really know how to optimise for speed and small size of program:rolleyes::rolleyes:
WOW!!! $15.00 in the USA. VERY FEW converters, viewers etc support the Fuji GFX 50R RAF raw files, but this not only allows me to view them all in one click....it is lightning fast. This is the best software value, and surprise I have downloaded in years. Will allow me to not first convert to DNGs, as I do now, then view in Bridge, then use Photoshop to finish. I can now view my new shots in FastRawViewer, select which ones to work on, then use the converter of my choice, such as DXO Photo Lab 2, On 1 Photo Raw 2020, etc.
Thanks so much for the tip!!!
Dave in NJ
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I use FastRawViewer on all my computers, some notoriously old, but the program is SO convenient.
It has focus mask and raw histogram. Worth every cent.
https://www.fastrawviewer.com/

They have volume licenses if you have more than two computers (default license) and
it works on Mac and Windows systems.
YES! Downloaded it and it flies!!! I have checked all types of RAW's that I have and also folders with up to 600 files. It shows the thumbnails instantly. :clap::clap::clap:

Thank you Martin :salute:
Indeed! First I'd heard of that software, and it's great! What better time to find it than when I'm changing my entire image processing system for the new mini... and the coming Hasselblad 907x! :D

Thanks Martin!

G
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
I always go from card to LR. By the time the pics are copied to the computer, the thumbnails are visible. I've never tried to look at RAW files in the Finder.

Will give FRV a try if for no other reason than to support good software!

M

PS. Tried FastRAWViewer out. The focus masking alone is worth twice the price. The in-focus plane just pops out. Still playing around...

:thumbs:
 
Last edited:

Shashin

Well-known member
Dan, if you are talking about Bridge, you may have to clean out your cache. That should make things faster.
 

Destin

Member
Haven't read the rest of the thread so I'm not sure if this is mentioned but there's a bug with the latest version of bridge. The only work around I've found is continually deleting the cache.

I am going nuts here. I typically have 300-400 raw files in a folder before I build a new one. I have the same kind of raw files in each folder. Could be Credo 60 files, Hasselblad x1d files, Sony A7r files.
It has always been a little tough on displaying thumbnails, but managable. Now it is impossible! I have cleaned out the Mac quite a bit and have been in to preferences and tested several different settings but it is dead-slow to show. In Bridge I have set it to 'prefer embedded' for faster show, but no....
Any tips? All I want is to see which image is which, simplest, fastest is ok!
 

jng

Well-known member
This is definitely not normal behavior for Bridge - I have no problem with my IQ3 100 files loading into the viewer. This may or may not be related, but I recall Bridge consistently crashing upon launching on my Macbook Pro several (probably many many) updates ago. My workaround at the time was to revert to a previous version while waiting for Adobe to fix the problem, which apparently was a pretty well known secret at the time. Hope this helps.

John
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
I always go from card to LR. By the time the pics are copied to the computer, the thumbnails are visible. I've never tried to look at RAW files in the Finder.
How I work as well. I never do anything with files in the finder, that’s really the purpose of the Asset Management program. So I import straight from card into LR, letting LR create all the folders I might need. I move files from within LR, and if I need to move a folder or file to a different hard drive I do that from within LR. I really never do anything with any of my image files with the finder.

One of the reasons I haven’t embraced C1 more is I find it weak and cumbersome in this area. I use C1 for some processing of files, but still manage everything in the library module of LR.
 

gurtch

Well-known member
FastRawViewer is one of those small inexpensive programs that really works. Here is another that cost $6.00 called "Fences", which is really neat in keeping my desktop from being cluttered. Please pardon the picture was made with my cell phone.
Dave in NJ
small jpg FENCES.jpg
 
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