Fuzzy previews from camera to select to import on Mac Air

[Barb Wallace16E5]

Hi all I used to use a Microsoft laptop and could view my pictures at a lower quality before I imported them to Lightroom CC. With the Mac and the newer version The pictures are so fuzzy that I can't tell whether they are good enough to take off the camera. I have to import them all and then do a Col but with my other computer and an older version I can decide which ones to import as I can tell if people's eyes are open or closed. Is there something in the settings that I missing?

[KR Seals]

It's not a good idea to work with the images on the camera. Use Lightroom/Lightroom Classic to import them to the folder/drive of your choice. The alternatie procedure is to copy all the images from the camera/memory card directly to the folder of your choice on the computer. If you do that, you would then import into Lightroom/Lightroom Classic from that folder.

Unless you have thousands of images to review for import, just go ahead and import them into Lightroom or Lightroom Classic. Do your review and rejection process in the Librar/Loupe View. In the Loupe View, it's possible to zoom into the image to see how the details look to help you decide whether to save it or not.

If you happen to actually have thousands of images to review and import, then look at Photo Mechanic for a very fast way to review and reject/delete images before import.

[Barb Wallace16E5]

Hi I am connecting my camera and importing them to the first view where you select all to import or you select the ones you want to import - on my old computer (HP)I can click on the individual view and move through deciding which to fully import and what to not bother but on my new Mac with the updated light room it is so blurry you can't see if eyes are open or closed on people!

[GoldingD]

I assume that in the import screen the thubnail previews are too small for your liking. 

Bottom right, well near to, slider to adjust that

[Barb Wallace16E5]

Yep it's even fuzzier when I click that or make it bigger, I will try and take a pic! 

[Barb Wallace16E5]

 

 

[GoldingD]

Ah, with the screenshot, I understand your issue. Quality of the preview in the import screen. Not an issue with size, but clarity.

Generally, I do not give much of a look at those thumbnails other than to make sure I am not about to import something I know I do not want. I just import them to a folder and grade them after the import is accomplished and the previews are created. 

At the import screen stage, you are looking at the embedded JPEG fir RAW images ( the option to use the embedded files and create side car files has nothing to do with that). So you are looking at small files. For those of us that have older cameras those embedded files are very small (hence I do not select the embedded option) with those cameras the preview you see on the import screen can be worse.

[Barb Wallace16E5]

Yeah that's my issue I identify whales so intake lots of pics but don't want to import them all and take up the space! It works perfectly fine with my camera and older version of photoshop on my other computer! It's puzzling me it must be a setting! Thanks for trying to help

[GoldingD]

1. In your older computer, in the Windows computer, how were you viewing the photos before import?

2. On your MAC have you set it up to run LrC in low resolution mode?

[Barb Wallace16E5]

Maybe I have I'm new to Mac so that may be the issue I will try googling that! I just viewed them in exactly the same way on the other computer so it must be a setting as the MAC has better specs according to my son lol thanks for the idea! 

[KR Seals]

@Barb Wallace16E5  Hi Barb, I wonder if you are waiting for the jpg to fully load from the camera when you are viewing in the Import preview screen. The reason I ask this is that the speed of loading the preview from the camera is going to be much, much slower than loading a preview from a drive in the computer.

Given your comment about shooting many whale photos, I strongly recommend that you give Photo Mechanic a try. The procedure there would be to have Photo Mechanic "Ingest" (same as importing) your images to a drive in your computer. Then, in Photo Mechanic, scroll through the images (which is EXTREMELY fast) to tag the ones you want to keep. At that time, you can immediately delete the untagged photos which will accomplish your goal of not filling up the drive with photos you will not want to keep.