Hey,
browsing the forums I found missing thumbnails to be an issure for many years now. I can't believe that it still hits me with the latest version (PSE 2018) ...
What did i do:
- My computer runs Windows 7 and never had PSE installed
- I installed Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 in december 2017 and created a new catalog.
- Imported ~8.000 jpg-images from a network drive unsing UNC path
- Moste files where taken using an Olympus TG-5 having an IPTC creators tag. Hence there were also some images from my TG-3, iPhone or modified using gimp.
What happend:
- About 5% of the files (~400) show up with a broken thumbnail in the viewer.
- Enlarged view for these files is broken as well
- All files open correctly using PSE, Windows Viewer, ...
- Windows explorer thumbnails are all fine.
What I tried / checked for the affected files:
- all files are images files (jpg)
- most of them were taken using an Olympus TG-5. But there thumbnails missing for files from other sources as well
- There are often 5-10 images taken in a row (same settings, same motive), and only one or two show a broken thumbnail
- all images are available and accessable for the organizer
- all images are less than 5 MB large
- Its not an UNC-Path issue. I made a copy of some files to a local path, renamed the files, import as new images. Thumbnail still broken.
- I updated the thumbnails by right-clicking on the broken image. Questionmark for some seconds. Thumbnail still broken.
Workarounds:
- For some of the files (~30 out of 400) it helped to rotated the image using the PSE Organizer (selecting images rotage clockwise/rotate back). Afterwards the thumbnails shows correctly. Hence many are still broken afterwards.
- For ALL IMAGES it helps to open the file in PSE and do a "save as" without any changes. Hence that is quite a hassle and takes a lot of time.
- For MOST IMAGES (390 out of 400) it helped to change the IPTC data. Hence not every image requires the same changes: Most of the files can be fixed by adding "-" as an additional creator. For some files I need to do this multiple times, before the thumbnail shows up.
Good news:
- This last workaround can be applied quite quickly even for many images (once you tagged them all).
- Works for 99,9% of my broken thumbnails
Bad news:
- I still have 10 out of 8.000 images that won't receive a thumbnail, after changing IPTC data in many ways.
- Sometimes an existing thumbnail breaks again when changing IPTC data.
Open questions:
- How can I easily identify all files having broken thumbnails? Is there search configuration I could use? (Workaround: Select images once an tag them!)
- WHY is this an issue at all? I cannot believe that a professional software like PSE can't work around this on its own ...
- Is this an IPTC data issue? Or a file size/format/... issue that is fixed by changing the file size?
Example image
The following image cannot be fixed using the IPTC data workaround. I'm pretty sure it will be modified by the forum software (which might fix the issue), so if you need files to debug the case send me a PM. Its also not a photo from a camera, but that shouldn't matter (I have proper photos as well).
Chris
9
Replies
Sure enough the file comes across as broken, and....
Wow, even my trick of saving the file optimized did not work, as PSE 2018 Editor would not even open the test.jpg file. It had always worked on the broken images before. So while the Editor jpg decoder is much Much beter than that of the Organizer, it is still not perfect.
I had to resort to using Acdsee to open it and then just save it "as" again calling it test2.jpg. Of course now Organizer sees it just fine.
Maybe we should try rebooting the computer?
Test2 jpg attached, this one imports and shows just fine. Curiously after Acdsee saved it, the organizer asked about whether to import it with cracked2 or cracked3 category. When it tried to import the original test.jpg file, it did not ask anything/
Just a note about your test image.
- it does not open in the organizer, it does not open either in the editor.
- it does open in other softwares as you have tested; I have also tried On1 and Faststone.
What is interesting is that it does open both in Photoshop CC and in Lightroom.
And both programs show what is the problem in the metadata.
Both fields (Instruction and Référence de diffusion) include coded information.
I don't know what those fields are for (some kind of watermark ?) but clearly most other softwares completely ignore it and don't resave it, which explain the resaved version can be opened in the editor and organizer.
That's a very long time that Photoshop and Elements were known as being extremely 'picky' about the metadata standards. The workaround to open in any other 'basic' editing tool before resaving is known from that time.
In this case, both Photoshop and Lightroom can deal with the problem, so it seems perfectly doable to fix the problem in Elements.
OK, let me provide you with another example.
Attached you find one images, taken with my Olympus TG-5. The original had my clear name as a "creator tag" in the IPTC data and showed up with a broken thumbnail. I do not provide this image publicly.
test1.jpg shows a proper thumbnail, after I removed all IPTC metadata using PSE Organizer:
test2.jpg is a COPY of test1.jpg but I added a creator name again ("test") using PSE Organizer. This breaks the thumbnail generation.
test3.jpg is a COPY of test2.jpg where I simply changed the creator name from "test" to "test1". Guess what: Thumbnail is working again.
Looks like it has something to do with the length of the IPTC content ...
Could someone please fix that and give me a free lifetime licence for PSE for spending so much time in debugging that nasty issue?
Regards
Chris
cz35895897 wrote
I think Both you and Chris deserve some kind of lifetime reward or other for the time spent on this.
I must say that I am a bit worried about the future of forums. There were some very useful independent forums for Elements which had to be closed recently because of the decreasing participation. They say it's because of the competition from 'social media' or because of increasingly aggressive or immature behaviour of participants who have nothing to share or ask for.
You should ask yourself what's special about the twenty or so active Adobe user to user forums (Elements is only a minor one...)
Yes, those forums are a great help to Adobe:
- an amazing number of questions and answers are already available and that reduces the task of the help desks.
- discussions about bugs or feature requests are extremely useful for improvement of the software
All the strengths of those forums come from the participation of volunteers, some are real experts recognized by Adobe and pros.
Some of those experts have an obvious interest in showing their expertise if they publish books or manage training courses for instance. But many helping volunteers are only there for the only reward of being helpful and sharing a lot with their peers (I dare say, all those who help in this Elements forum). The degree of usefulness is recognized by grateful users who mark answers as correct or helpful.
I believe that arshla Jindal (staff) may be/was looking into this issue. Perhaps we should be cc'ing him on all future observations
What's special with the Elements forum is that it is much more closely followed by the product team (in India) and that there is much more direct help from the staff than in other forums. You should keep in mind that:
- Staff members helping here are from the help desk. They are not those who make the decisions nor implement new features or correct bugs. They are not allowed to talk "officially" for Adobe. Don't imagine you are talking directly to Adobe CEO...
- The Elements product is far from being an important source of income for Adobe. The "official" word is that it is the 'consumer' version of 'pro' softwares like Photoshop or Lightroom. Just imagine a faithful user as updating every four years on average... and compare with the income from the subscription model. Very far from Lightroom in terms of user number if I can judge by the participation in the feedback forum.
- In the range of photo editing products, Elements and Organizer must be kept as 'consumer' products and must not compete directly with the 'pro' softs. It's not the 'crippled' Photoshop version as some would describe it. It retains a selection of the best tools and adds features the 'amateurs' are eagerly wanting like face recognition and geotagging (not my own concern...)
Anyway, all the efforts and time you invest into 'debugging' a problem like this one is certainly appreciated. Especially if that comes to a positive solution...
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