9 Replies Latest reply: May 22, 2012 10:58 AM by photodrawken RSS

    THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane

    janetinJer Community Member

      I have "Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. I had set up my Windows system to view many formats over the last couple of years and consequently was able to view image icons and image previews for psd files in Windows Explorer without problem. At some point that all changed---

       

      Now some (not all!) psd files have a generic icon and no preview in the Explorer Preview pane, while others have an image icon and an image preview in the Preview pane---sometimes within the very same folder!

       

      I usually use my Elements 1.0, but some files are from my Elements 8 (which I only used briefly because it was extremely difficult to see because of the dark gray/light gray/black interface of both of the two options). Have not found the viewing problem to be connected to version (as far as I can see).

       

      Any help would be appreciated!

       

      Janet

        • 1. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
          photodrawken Community Member

          Since Adobe has not provided the system DLLs needed to display thumbnails for PSD files in Windows Explorer, I assume that you're using a 3rd-party solution for that functionality.

           

          The PSD files that do not display thumbnail images probably have a saved selection (PSE) or a saved alpha channel (PS).

           

          Ken

          • 2. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
            janetinJer Community Member

            I have both Sage Thumbs and Thumbview Lite. I don't recall if I did any registry hacks as well like I did in XP. Don’t think so.

             

            What do you mean by thumbnail images having a saved selection?

             

            Janet

            • 3. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
              photodrawken Community Member

              I'm also using Sage Thumbs.   The first thing to try (and I got caught on this one) is to open the Sage Thumbs preferences and increase the size of the images that will have thumbnails generated:

              sage thumbs options.png

               

              Other technical details:

              I was referring to PSD files in which you have saved a selection(s) in the PSE Editor (or PSD files created in the "big" Photoshop with alpha channels saved).  In that case, the displayed thumbnail will not be accurate because the alpha channel is used as a mask when generating the thumbnail.  I've been in contact with the author of XnView (who supplied the image processing function used by the authour of Sage Thumbs) about this and supplied him with a sample PSD file.  There will probably be an update to Sage Thumbs to address this, but will undoubtedly take a while.

               

              Ken

              • 4. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
                janetinJer Community Member

                Ken,

                 

                In the Sage Thumbs preferences, increasing the size of the images that will have thumbnails generated indeed did the trick! MANY thanks!

                 

                Still curious about what “saving a selection(s) in the PSE Editor” is....Perhaps not available in PSE 1 (which is what I usually use)? All the files in question were single photos with two or more layers.

                 

                Janet

                • 5. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
                  photodrawken Community Member

                  Hi Janet,

                  Glad you've got the thumbnails, now.  That setting bit me, too.

                   

                  In PSE10, one can make a selection and use Select...Save Selection to save that selection with a name.  You can do that for several selections, and at a later time simply use Select...Load Selection to recall the selection for "face", etc., so you don't have to fuss around re-selecting it.

                   

                  Ken

                  • 6. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
                    janetinJer Community Member

                    WOW!!!!! That’s reason enough to use my PSE 8 (yes, I checked and it has that function)! I wish there was a way to give it a skin that doesn’t use black on charcoal gray for any parts....I saw a lot of complaints on forums, and seem to recall finding that there was no solution....Is PSE 10 the same?

                     

                    Many thanks for the tip on saved selections—you’ve encouraged me to look for other ‘new’ (after v.1    ) editing features (I don’t need the organizing side at all)....!

                    • 7. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
                      photodrawken Community Member

                      Hi Janet,

                       

                      Always glad to talk about PSE.

                       

                      No, the PSE10 interface can only be the default (excellent, as far as I'm concerned ) dark interface.

                       

                      Just want to re-emphasize what I said earlier -- if the PSD files have at least one saved selection, then the current version of Sage Thumbs will not display the correct version of the image:

                      thumbnails.png

                      "wedding dress 01.psd" is the original PSD file I worked on, including saved selections.  "wedding dress 01 copy.psd" is the same PSD file in which I deleted the saved selections.  (Those are the samples I supplied to the author of the graphics library so he can work on a solution.)

                       

                      Ken

                      • 8. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
                        janetinJer Community Member

                        >No, the PSE10 interface can only be the default (excellent, as far as I'm concerned ) dark interface.

                         

                        I find the white text on black bkgrnd fine (although harder on the eyes because not as crisp as black text on light gray bkgrnd.). What completely screws it up for me, is where they have black on dark gray—sometimes it completely blends in. Examples are all the little black triangles on drop-down and pop-up menus, and the outlines of buttons. I can see it would be fine if you already know what and where things are, but I found things you could click on from reading posts that were completely invisible on my screen! I guess it’s time to do a new gamma setting and other monitor calibrations..:-)... I also just discovered that even though my monitor has two settings (one for text, and a brighter one for graphics), the screen apparently dims after being on for a long time (I have it set on high contrast for graphics). If I change it to text and then back to graphics, the ‘new’ graphics setting is much brighter than it was---and those triangles and buttons show up much better! Also ambient lighting makes a big difference. Those black-on-dark-gray bits show up better in a totally black room—but I am a lover of daylight...:-)....I just find that if I then open up PSE 1, everything looks so clean and clear, and with no strain......  

                         

                        >if the PSD files have at least one saved selection, then the current version of Sage Thumbs will not display the correct version of the image...

                         

                        I was surprised to find that duplicating, flattening, and saving as a tif showed ONLY the saved selection as the thumbnail (as for the psd file)! I thought flattening would merge everything together into a regular tiff....

                        • 9. Re: THUMBNAILS and PREVIEW Pane
                          photodrawken Community Member

                          Hi Janet,

                          janetinJer wrote:

                           

                          What completely screws it up for me, is where they have black on dark gray—sometimes it completely blends in. Examples are all the little black triangles on drop-down and pop-up menus, and the outlines of buttons.

                          Yep, it was even worse in PaintshopPro X3 -- the "X" close button for the images was that black on dark grey!  Just had to keep clicking somewhere in the upper right corner and take it on faith that you'd eventually hit something....

                           

                          You're right about the screen brightness.  It's always going to be a compromise between setting up the display so you can see everything and being able to accurately judge colours and brightnesses in an image.

                           

                          janetinJer wrote:

                           

                          I was surprised to find that duplicating, flattening, and saving as a tif showed ONLY the saved selection as the thumbnail (as for the psd file)! I thought flattening would merge everything together into a regular tiff....

                          Flattening does merge everything in the layers, but saved selections are stored in a different place in the image -- a channel called an "alpha channel".  That's why you still have the saved selections to use even if your image is now a flat single layer.  It's the presence of that alpha channel(s) that gives Sage Thumbs fits because the alpha channel is used to define transparent areas, such as when creating masks (which is what a selection is, anyway).

                           

                          Ken