MacOs Ventura Affinity Photo thumbnails

[tomber]

Can't see the thumbnail of AffinityPhoto files (.afphoto) in Finder. 

("Save thumbnails with documents" is marked in Preferences.)

Any hint? 

 

 

[MikeTO]

Hi Tomber and welcome to the forum. I'm not experiencing that problem. Which version of Affinity photo are you using?

Is this happening with all images? Can you upload a sample afphoto file?

Cheers

[R C-R]

Each Finder window  can be set to show icon previews (thumbnails) independently of other Finder windows. One way to turn them on is to open a Finder window, & from the View menu select Show View Options (shortcut is CMD-J) & tick the Show icon preview box.

You can also tick the Use as Default box to make it the default for new Finder windows.

[j3rry]

Log out and again log in should cure this problem if you have if with all files. I have never seen this failure only with .aphoto files.

[tomber]

11 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Hi Tomber and welcome to the forum. I'm not experiencing that problem. Which version of Affinity photo are you using?

Is this happening with all images? Can you upload a sample afphoto file?

Cheers

Thank you MikeTO,

I am using Affinity Photo 2.0.0 (just bought it, hence I'm new to AP), macOS Ventura 13.0.1 on an Intel Mac. 

It happens with all .afphoto files, but not with other image files like .png, .jpg. 

8Ball.afphoto uploaded.

Cheers

8Ball.afphoto

[tomber]

9 hours ago, R C-R said:

Each Finder window  can be set to show icon previews (thumbnails) independently of other Finder windows. One way to turn them on is to open a Finder window, & from the View menu select Show View Options (shortcut is CMD-J) & tick the Show icon preview box.

You can also tick the Use as Default box to make it the default for new Finder windows.

Thank you R C-R,

In all my folders the icons/thumbnails of image files are displayed (I'm using Macs since quite some time now).

Attached a screenshot of a folder.

Cheers

 

[tomber]

Btw, just realized, also the dimension of the .afphoto is not displayed.

[R C-R]

17 minutes ago, tomber said:

Btw, just realized, also the dimension of the .afphoto is not displayed.

That much I think is normal. At least I have never seen the dimensions displayed in Finder windows for any Affinity native format files, even hen "Show Item Info" is set for that window.

But I have no idea why the preview icon previews are not showing for you, unless there is some setting somewhere in Ventura that enables that that is not turned on.

Edit: FWIW, this is what your 8ball file looks like on my desktop folder:

[tomber]

8 hours ago, j3rry said:

Log out and again log in should cure this problem if you have if with all files. I have never seen this failure only with .aphoto files.

Thank you j3rry,

Did it, did not help.

However, I somehow get the feeling that it might not be a problem of AP2, but of macOS. Because, if I create a new document and store it (as .afphoto) and export it (as .jpg and .png) then the icons/thumbnails of the exported docs will be displayed in Finder, while for the afphoto-doc still only the AP logo is shown. 

Maybe my recent update of macOS from X to 13 - and so skipping several macOS versions - did not run smoothly enough? Hence, macOS (my installation of macOS) does not understand .afphoto icons/thumbnails?

Just a thought...

Cheers

 

[tomber]

5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But I have no idea why the preview icon previews are not showing for you, unless there is some setting somewhere in Ventura that enables that that is not turned on.

Thank you R C-R,

I guess you are right, it could be a Ventura problem (see my other post).

But how to solve this then?

Cheers

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, tomber said:

But how to solve this then?

I can't offer much help with that because I am still running Catalina on my Mac. But maybe look around in system preferences for something relevant, perhaps in the Security & Privacy area like Full Disk Access or whatever the Ventura equivalent might be?

[tomber]

39 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I can't offer much help with that because I am still running Catalina on my Mac. But maybe look around in system preferences for something relevant, perhaps in the Security & Privacy area like Full Disk Access or whatever the Ventura equivalent might be?

Thank you R C-R,

Actually I would have done the same (staying with the older macOS Version), but I like AP2 and it does not run on X.

I checked all the settings in Privacy&Security, but AP2 is only listed in FilesAndFolders (access DesktopFolder). It is not added under Photos and it is not possible to add it there. In other sub-categories AP2 is not listed. I will not allow AP2 FullDiskAccess, because that would allow AP2 access to e.g. Mail, Messages and Backups.

Btw, I checked folders with older photos. The problem (no icon view) exists also with another file type: .ORF (Olympus raw data). Hence, the problem seems to be a macOS problem, and not of AP2. Guess I have to check with Apple support... ;-( 

Cheers

Edited December 3, 2022 by tomber
spell checking

[tomber]

Figured it out!

Found the solution on: https://www.jgoode.com/easy-fix-for-mac-finder-preview-thumbnails-not-displaying/

Following helped (at least with the .afphoto files, but not with the .ORF files):

1. Open to the Preferences folder of your home directory
(your home > library > preferences)

2. Delete com.apple.finder.plist

3. Right click on Finder icon and select Relaunch. (You can also open the force quit window and relaunch Finder.)

So, it was a macOS (Ventura) problem...

However, I'm happy now :-)

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, tomber said:

Following helped (at least with the .afphoto files, but not with the .ORF files):

AFAIK, RAW files do not show previews or thumbnails in Finder windows, so it is no surprise the fix did not change that.

[tomber]

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

AFAIK, RAW files do not show previews or thumbnails in Finder windows, so it is no surprise the fix did not change that.

Thank you R C-R,

Looks to me like Finder can not display thumbnails for some raw photo files, but can do so for other raw files, e.g. .crw, .cr2 and .cr3 (Canon raw formats). 

Btw, the fix does not work correctly. After restart the .afphotos thumbnails are again not displayed. (Luckily it is not necessary to restart often anymore. 🙂) Nevertheless, a quicker/another way is to open ActivityMonitor and to ForceQuit the process "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent" and to Relaunch Finder.

Still, I wonder why I have this (little) problem with .afphoto thumbnails... 

Cheers

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, tomber said:

Looks to me like Finder can not display thumbnails for some raw photo files, but can do so for other raw files, e.g. .crw, .cr2 and .cr3 (Canon raw formats). 

I only have a few CR2 files on my Mac, all from web sites, & some do display a preview while others do not. I wonder if this has something to do with how they were saved originally? Same with a few other RAW formats.

11 minutes ago, tomber said:

Still, I wonder why I have this (little) problem with .afphoto thumbnails... 

So do I. From what I can tell very people have that problem with their Macs.

[deeds]

2 hours ago, tomber said:

Looks to me like Finder can not display thumbnails for some raw photo files, but can do so for other raw files, e.g. .crw, .cr2 and .cr3 (Canon raw formats).

Have a read of this woe: 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254004895

 

 

[tomber]

19 hours ago, deeds said:

Have a read of this woe: 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254004895

 

 

Apple arrogance? 

At the end I don't care too much if finder can show thumbnails of photo-raw-files - it is only unattractive.

More important would be a photo file browser (like Adobe Bridge) that could show thumbnails and previews of 'any' raw file. Hallo Serif, do you hear this? 🙂 

[deeds]

3 hours ago, tomber said:

Apple arrogance? 

At the end I don't care too much if finder can show thumbnails of photo-raw-files - it is only unattractive.

More important would be a photo file browser (like Adobe Bridge) that could show thumbnails and previews of 'any' raw file. Hallo Serif, do you hear this? 🙂 

It's not just Apple arrogance.

Every company with compression/decompression patents/technologies and transport protocols and even different port and communication hardware, has been battling to get relevance, traction, lockin and/or payment for their facilities. The most infamous of these endeavours is the last 25 years of Sony, but they're not unique in the manner, just the scale.

This goes way past still images, and has been an extreme battleground for both video and audio for decades.

Apple, in all fairness, has been much more giving in terms of the provisions of ways for unique users (like Olympus and Yamaha as two examples) to support their upcoming operating system versions, often close to a year in advance, but companies like Yamaha dig their heels in and hope that they can niggle them by not supporting their endeavours with their facilities, therefore disquieting end users - like you. I'm not as sure as to why Olympus hasn't been more supportive of Apple and even Windows users of their image codecs. I've known some of the lead designers and researchers at Olympus over the years, on their camera tech teams, many beers together in summer months, and they're good guys that work very closely with their manufacturing teams to make their cameras as light, fast and cheap as possible. There must be something odd on the software side as this behaviour is at odds with their camera making philosophies.

A lot of this niggling of Apple behaviour by third parties is supported and encouraged by the two big rivals of Apple (Android/Google and Windows/Microsoft). They know the convenience not being there is a reason for prosumers and professionals to switch, and that these users have more influence on causal users than anything else. So they try to help 3rd parties have reasons to not update for MacOS... etc 

So there's never an easy route if you're on the outside of this, with something like Olympus RAW files, you're basically going to have to setup some kind of conversion facility that batch converts the files to something more compatible, if you want a convenient work flow.

Affinity could include readers and decompressors for all the various still images, and even work with the makers of all cameras, but I don't think communication is their strong suit. 

 

 

[tomber]

2 hours ago, deeds said:

It's not just Apple arrogance.

Every company with compression/decompression patents/technologies and transport protocols and even different port and communication hardware, has been battling to get relevance, traction, lockin and/or payment for their facilities...

Seems to be miracle then that other companies (e.g. Adobe) can read raw data of such "unsupportive" companies and is hence able to show thumbnails and previews (and allow to edit raw data files). However, market pressure for photo files features is higher for Adobe than for Apple. Shame nevertheless.

2 hours ago, deeds said:

Affinity could include readers and decompressors for all the various still images, and even work with the makers of all cameras, but I don't think communication is their strong suit. 

As AP2 can read (and "develop") e.g. .orf raw data files, it would be no problem to display thumbnails and provide previews too. But, currently AP2 seems to use Apple's Finder function in the Open dialog - hence, only icons are shown.
If only 🙂 they would replace the actual Open dialog with their one file browser window...
Plus, such a dedicated file browser app could offer plenty of other features, like different sort functions (e.g. based on metadata), preview and selection of presets, selection of multiples files for batch processing (e.g. creation of panorama or HRD photos). And such a browser does not have to be limited to photo raw data, instead any AP document format could be supported - and I am sure there would be several useful additional features that could be linked to Designer and Publisher docs.
Plus, such a browser does not have to be freeware, I for instance would be willing to pay for it.

[deeds]

1 hour ago, tomber said:

Seems to be miracle then that other companies (e.g. Adobe) can read raw data of such "unsupportive" companies and is hence able to show thumbnails and previews (and allow to edit raw data files). However, market pressure for photo files features is higher for Adobe than for Apple. Shame nevertheless.

As AP2 can read (and "develop") e.g. .orf raw data files, it would be no problem to display thumbnails and provide previews too. But, currently AP2 seems to use Apple's Finder function in the Open dialog - hence, only icons are shown.
If only 🙂 they would replace the actual Open dialog with their one file browser window...
Plus, such a dedicated file browser app could offer plenty of other features, like different sort functions (e.g. based on metadata), preview and selection of presets, selection of multiples files for batch processing (e.g. creation of panorama or HRD photos). And such a browser does not have to be limited to photo raw data, instead any AP document format could be supported - and I am sure there would be several useful additional features that could be linked to Designer and Publisher docs.
Plus, such a browser does not have to be freeware, I for instance would be willing to pay for it.

I think you've just described ACDSee https://www.acdsee.com

[deeds]

1 hour ago, tomber said:

Seems to be miracle then that other companies (e.g. Adobe) can read raw data of such "unsupportive" companies and is hence able to show thumbnails and previews (and allow to edit raw data files). However, market pressure for photo files features is higher for Adobe than for Apple. Shame nevertheless.

You're making a wrongheaded comparison.

Adobe is a creative software platform provider, Mac is a hardware and OS platform provider.

It's for companies like Olympus to use the tools they're provided (by Apple) to create readers and writers of their various codecs, so that Apple can then include them in their OS releases. Olympus, and many others, have chosen not to do this. Probably the biggest contrarian to the Apple way is Yamaha, who steadfastly believe they've can be late in updating anything that relies on the MacOS. With the release of the M1 and M2, this is now working against Yamaha, as the new Apple platforms are now quite incredibly performant for music making.

Similarly, the M1 and M2 and their fast storage are great for photo work, so it behooves everyone making photo taking devices and codecs, and photo editing software, to provide the best possible codec support. 

 

 

[tomber]

40 minutes ago, deeds said:

You're making a wrongheaded comparison.

I did not start to compare Apple with other companies...

[deeds]

2 hours ago, tomber said:

However, market pressure for photo files features is higher for Adobe than for Apple. Shame nevertheless.

this is a direct comparison ^

48 minutes ago, tomber said:

I did not start to compare Apple with other companies...

 

[tomber]

2 hours ago, deeds said:

  2 hours ago, tomber said:

I did not start to compare Apple with other companies...

2 hours ago, deeds said:

4 hours ago, tomber said:

However, market pressure for photo files features is higher for Adobe than for Apple. Shame nevertheless.

this is a direct comparison ^

However - anyway, a little reminder, your post a few hours earlier:

7 hours ago, deeds said:

Apple, in all fairness, has been much more giving in terms of the provisions of ways for unique users (...) but companies like Yamaha dig their heels in and hope that they can niggle them by not supporting their endeavours with their facilities, therefore disquieting end users