Photoshop Elements 11 (Mac): low photo resolution in Organizer browser

[dmed1]

Hi

Resolution of photos in Organizer browser is OK, but when selecting an individual or series of photos, resolution is very low.

If I then select Full Screen mode, resolution is O.K.

Just upgraded to Mac OS Sierra 10.12, but problem existed also in Yosemite 10.10.

Any assistance or comments with this would be welcome.

[hatstead]

dmed1  wrote

i

Resolution of photos in Organizer browser is OK, but when selecting an individual or series of photos, resolution is very low.

What methodology are you using to determine the resolution, and what is the resolution that you so determine?

dmed1  wrote

If I then select Full Screen mode, resolution is O.K.

This maneuver is analogous to using a magnifying glass and does nothing to the underlying "document."

Please provide the information requested.

[dmed1]

Photos in browser, when clicked so that they open in full extent of Organizer window, appear blurry and pixellated on a 21" or 27" monitor. When Full Screen is selected from the View menu, the picture/s become perfectly sharp and clear.

However, on re-trying since the first post, this low resolution clears after about one second per image.

So I'm wondering if there is a key stroke or combination which may have been entered inadvertently to cause this.

[MichelBParis]

dmed1  wrote

Photos in browser, when clicked so that they open in full extent of Organizer window, appear blurry and pixellated on a 21" or 27" monitor. When Full Screen is selected from the View menu, the picture/s become perfectly sharp and clear.

However, on re-trying since the first post, this low resolution clears after about one second per image.

So I'm wondering if there is a key stroke or combination which may have been entered inadvertently to cause this.

The organizer stores thumbnails in a cache file within the catalog folder.

Those thumbnails are very small copies (max 240 x 360 pixels). Obviously, this is to enable browsing pages of many thumbnails rapidly, the organizer being an organization tool above all, and only a partial editing one (instant fix...)

When you set the slider for the zoom factor, first the thumbnail is enlarged, which is very quick but not detailed (blurry look). Depending on the speed of your computer, the original image is read again and displayed according to your setting to replace the enlarged thumbnail. Most of the time, that implies downsampling the original pixel size. Even if you choose to display a single image in the browsing space, a 6000 x 4000 pixels image will have to be reduced to much less to fit in a typical 1920 x 1200 pixels display.

The downsampling necessarily loses some detail. Even in that case, you can' see the full 100% pixels view in the browsing space. The downsampling is generally good enough for organization purposes.

When you use the full view (F11) mode, you can  not only fit each image in the whole display, but a simple click will zoom to 100% view so that one pixel in the display equals one in the original; which means that you only see a part of your image. The time to zoom to full view is short.

If you are working with big raw files (32kb for me), it takes a few seconds to read and convert the raw image with all editing settings applied. The thumbnail is updated to reflect those edits.

[dmed1]

Thanks for this information.

Replacement of the downsampled image was not occurring at all. The problem has been intermittent, but your reference to the zoom slider has helped.

If the blurry, enlarged thumbnail persists for more than a few seconds, moving the slider left briefly, and then back up to 100%, seems to fix the problem for the image onscreen and subsequent ones.

I will try this for a few days, and confirm if it is a fix for the problem.

[MichelBParis]

dmed1  wrote

Thanks for this information.

Replacement of the downsampled image was not occurring at all.

Not the downsampled image, you mean the replacement of the upsampled thumbnail (immediate, no time lag to display) by the downsampled version of the original image.

If the blurry, enlarged thumbnail persists for more than a few seconds, moving the slider left briefly, and then back up to 100%, seems to fix the problem for the image onscreen and subsequent ones.

This move may change the priorities for updating the displayed images. There a minimum delay, a few seconds for the first downsampled image to appear; the subsequent ones are pre-processed at the same time so that they will appear clearly shortly after you have taken the time to look at the first one. There is a lot of parallel processing to make viewing subsequent pictures without more than one or two seconds at most.

[dmed1]

Hello- your correction of my terminology is acknowledged.

Launching PSE today, the problem persists. However the fix I identified following your reference to the slider seems to work.

Thanks for your response which pointed me in the right direction.

For anyone encountering the same issue, the following appears to be the solution:

If the blurry, enlarged thumbnail persists for more than a few seconds, moving the [zoom] slider left briefly, and then back up to 100%, seems to fix the problem for the image onscreen and subsequent ones.