Tiny previews before importing

[gypsytan]

Why does this happen?  It was random a few months ago, now permanent.

I put my SHDC card in my computer, open Lightroom, click on Import and can't see neither Fit or 1:1 zoom.  All the previous are tiny in the center of the screen.  The only way to fill the screen is to zoom 11:1 which obviously is not going to help with culling photos before importing.  I'm using a MBP with MacOS, but others seem to have this problem with Windows too (see link below).

Note that I'm taking only RAW photos.  Files are ORF (Olympus).  LR Import settings are Build Smart Previous set to Standard and checkmark on Build Smart Previews.  (I found an old forum post 2014-15 on another forum with people mentioning this issue with different cameras and Windows:  http://www.lightroomforums.net/threads/tiny-previews-in-import-window.21110/

The only way to be able to see the my photos in the card before importing "fit" or "1:1" is to move to another directory in my hard drive as if I were to import from it, then move again to import from the card.

[dj_paige]

There's a slider at the bottom of the Import dialog box, to the right of center, that lets you change the size of the thumbnails. For example, see https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CwKTZnr4MQE/maxresdefault.jpg

[gypsytan]

Yes, thanks.  I'm aware.  It just doesn't do anything, unless I push it to 11:1   (1:1 is what gives me a very tiny preview in the center of the page).  11:1 is of course a blurred image.

[dj_paige]

Are we even talking about the same thing here? Are you talking about the Import Dialog box (as in the image I linked to), or somewhere else? I haven't used that slider in a while, but it's there and it doesn't say 11:1 as far as I can remember, it doesn't allow an 11:1 zoom in the Import dialog as far as I can remember. Can you show me a screen capture of what you are seeing?

[gypsytan]

Yes, it is the import Dialog box previews.  Here are a couple of screen shots.  First one is 1:1 and second one is the 11:1 shown in the slider

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" rel="nofollow">http://i68.tinypic.com/35ap55c.png[/IMG]

[dj_paige]

Well, I apologize, I'm not at my home computer where Lightroom is, I'm at work, and to be honest I have never seen an 11:1 zoom in Lightroom before.

May I ask what are the dimensions of this photo in pixels (width and height)?

[gypsytan]

No need to apologize.  On the contrary, thanks for trying to help.  I've been using Lightroom for about two years now (moved from Aperture), and rarely ask for help, but this time, I don't know what I may have changed in my settings for this to happen.   I thought I was shooting jpeg + raw and that was the cause.  But I went back and changed my camera settings, and also checked my laptop import folder and none of the photos are jpeg.

Dimensions of my photos 4608 × 3456. 

It's an odd behavior.  Like I mention in my first post, I found other forum posts with this issue.  From there was that I got the idea of moving back and forth from SDHC card to another folder and back, to be able to see a preview normally.

[Bob Somrak]

Having small previews AND/OR having to to switch folders to have the previews show has happened to me a few times.  Sometimes I even have to close the import dialog and reopen it to see the previews.  As you say it is random (although yours has become permanent.  The import does have some glitches/bugs, especially import directly from the camera.  On a positive note, for me it has been better lately.  DJ_paige, there is an 11:1 zoom in both the import and develop/library views although it is pretty much worthless for me.

[gypsytan]

Thank you, Bob !   It's so annoying to spend hours researching the net and find no solution.  I found another post on this forum, and an Adobe staffer saying that it's probably due to bandwidth  I can't image what bandwidth he was talking about.   import previews are small and low quality

I'm going to try cleaning Lightroom's cache to see if it helps.

PS:  No luck either with clearing LR's cache or deleting LR preferences.

[mcoopers]

Hi gypsytan

Same thing happened to me:

I was seeing what to import and suddenly, the same. Restart the Mac, nothing.

Now I can only see with very low quality

Update: I select all to import, then give me one error: cannot write in the destination (was my pictures folder).

Done a new import and now the previews are ok!! (don't have a clue what happened)