Embedded thumbnail in linked RAW image

[stuartbarry]

In my continuing quest to match Lightroom features I have found that using a linked RAW image gives me a small enough file that I can use it in Neofinder to display the edited view of a RAW image. This leaves me clear to leave all the original RAW files as archive files and just work on the very much smaller linked images without saving a huge afphoto file. There is one problem left - if I hit spacebar on Mac to preview the original RAW file I get a reasonably large and clear preview. If I do the same with the linked file the preview is tiny and fuzzy. I cannot see anything that lets me control this embedded thumbnail size/quality. Am I missing something?

 

[walt.farrell]

On 1/3/2023 at 1:41 PM, stuartbarry said:

I cannot see anything that lets me control this embedded thumbnail size/quality. Am I missing something?

Sorry for the delayed response. Apparently Serif is still very busy, and either none of the usual crowd of users (like me) who answer questions saw this one, or knew the answer.

As far as I know, there is no control over the size/quality of the thumbnail for the native Affinity files. So you're probably seeing something as good as you can get

[Dan C]

Hi @stuartbarry,

Thanks for your post and our sincerest apologies for the delayed response here. We are exceptionally busy following the release of V2 and we thank you for your continued patience and understanding here.

I have previously covered this in the below post and I will be sure to add your 'vote' to the improvement request with our developers, requesting an option to control the thumbnail size saved with the Affinity document - 

I hope this helps

[stuartbarry]

On 2/21/2023 at 3:41 PM, Dan C said:

Hi @stuartbarry,

Thanks for your post and our sincerest apologies for the delayed response here. We are exceptionally busy following the release of V2 and we thank you for your continued patience and understanding here.

I have previously covered this in the below post and I will be sure to add your 'vote' to the improvement request with our developers, requesting an option to control the thumbnail size saved with the Affinity document - 

I hope this helps

I think that this could actually be considered a bug, as it prevents the proper working of Studio Link. See my comment below.

This is also causing a problem in Affinity Studio. I am creating a photo book for publishing. I have some of the images as jpg, where I needed to do some extra work on them, but some just needed tweaking and were stored as linked RAW. If I import these into Affinity Publisher (makes no difference whether they are embedded or linked) the embedded RAW images use the tiny thumbnail and show up as horribly pixelated. I then have to discard them, go back to Affinity Photo to do my main editing, export them as jpg and re-import into Affinity Publisher. This completely defeats the aim behind Studio Link. If this were fixed by Affinity to make its own Studio Link work properly it would also work for NeoFinder, giving me a fantastic workflow.

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, stuartbarry said:

I think that this could actually be considered a bug, as it prevents the proper working of Studio Link. See my comment below.

This is also causing a problem in Affinity Studio. I am creating a photo book for publishing. I have some of the images as jpg, where I needed to do some extra work on them, but some just needed tweaking and were stored as linked RAW. If I import these into Affinity Publisher (makes no difference whether they are embedded or linked) the embedded RAW images use the tiny thumbnail and show up as horribly pixelated. I then have to discard them, go back to Affinity Photo to do my main editing, export them as jpg and re-import into Affinity Publisher. This completely defeats the aim behind Studio Link. If this were fixed by Affinity to make its own Studio Link work properly it would also work for NeoFinder, giving me a fantastic workflow.

I don't think your problem is related to thumbnails at all.

It would be better to start a new topic, and provide more complete details about how you saved the Developed image, and how you included it in Publisher. Ideally you would provide screenshots and more workflow details.

[stuartbarry]

19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I don't think your problem is related to thumbnails at all.

It would be better to start a new topic, and provide more complete details about how you saved the Developed image, and how you included it in Publisher. Ideally you would provide screenshots and more workflow details.

Yes it is. I have already received a message from Affinity confirming that the issue is thumbnails. They are aware of the problem, but are treating it as an enhancement request rather than a bug. Since it stops the effective working of Studio Link it is a bug.

[walt.farrell]

52 minutes ago, stuartbarry said:

Yes it is. I have already received a message from Affinity confirming that the issue is thumbnails. They are aware of the problem, but are treating it as an enhancement request rather than a bug. Since it stops the effective working of Studio Link it is a bug.

Is that something other than the message above? 

If it's only that message, I still don't think it's related to this different issue you're reporting now.

The thumbnails are not used when you Place Affinity files into a document, in my experience. Instead, you get a rendering of the Placed file at the size you Placed it. This is not the file's thumbnail.

[stuartbarry]

On 4/25/2023 at 2:39 PM, walt.farrell said:

Is that something other than the message above? 

If it's only that message, I still don't think it's related to this different issue you're reporting now.

The thumbnails are not used when you Place Affinity files into a document, in my experience. Instead, you get a rendering of the Placed file at the size you Placed it. This is not the file's thumbnail.

If you create a document in Affinity Publisher then drop an image into a placeholder the image is: clear when it is from a dng, jpg or other original image; pixelated when from a .aphoto image that is a linked raw document. Wherever Publisher is picking up the image from in order to display in the document it exhibits similar characteristic to the pixelated thumbnail problem reported elsewhere. It does not matter what size the image or placeholder space is - the image is not properly rendered and is pixelated.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, stuartbarry said:

If you create a document in Affinity Publisher then drop an image into a placeholder the image is: clear when it is from a dng, jpg or other original image; pixelated when from a .aphoto image that is a linked raw document. Wherever Publisher is picking up the image from in order to display in the document it exhibits similar characteristic to the pixelated thumbnail problem reported elsewhere. It does not matter what size the image or placeholder space is - the image is not properly rendered and is pixelated.

It works fine when I try it. That is why I think you need to provide more details, and preferrably in a separate topic so it gets the best attention.

[stuartbarry]

30 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It works fine when I try it. That is why I think you need to provide more details, and preferrably in a separate topic so it gets the best attention.

I have just tried some further tests and it is random - sometimes it works, sometimes it does not, so I'll try to narrow it down.

[stuartbarry]

I have carried out various tests. In Affinity Publisher using picture frames seems to produce random results. I set preferences to linked for all images and re-set any that were not in the resources manager. The main problem seems to occur with .aphoto images that are linked raw. Sometimes the image is rendered correctly sometimes not. When enlarging the page the image normally appears clear, then goes back to pixelated when returning to a smaller screen size. One image might react differently by placing it in a different page position. The layer descriptions are also fairly random, sometimes appearing as 'linked image' with the correct file name, sometimes with a X and no file name.

Whatever appears on the screen the resulting pdf appears to be correct, so at least I might be able to publish the book. I can just about work with this and do not want to waste any more time on it, so will just fiddle around with enlarging/reducing screen size to check that all is correct, even though this is not a satisfactory way to work.

[Old Bruce]

2 hours ago, stuartbarry said:

The main problem seems to occur with .aphoto images that are linked raw.

What you are asking the application to do is read the raw file (linked) in the .aphoto document (linked) and then render the image onscreen. If you then change the zoom factor the files have to be recalculated for the new zoom level. If the .aphoto document has any adjustment layers or Live Filter layers then those have to be calculated as well as the Development adjustments on the raw file. That is a fair amount of work, especially if there are more than one in the area you are viewing.

[stuartbarry]

5 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

What you are asking the application to do is read the raw file (linked) in the .aphoto document (linked) and then render the image onscreen. If you then change the zoom factor the files have to be recalculated for the new zoom level. If the .aphoto document has any adjustment layers or Live Filter layers then those have to be calculated as well as the Development adjustments on the raw file. That is a fair amount of work, especially if there are more than one in the area you are viewing.

Maybe that's what the program has to do but the results are inconsistent. If I place image A and image B (both linked raw images) in separate placeholders A might appear clear at the zoom level in use at the time of placing, but B might be pixelated at the same level. This is without any adjustment layers. If I increase zoom then generally A stays clear and B usually becomes  clear at one increase in zoom level. When I decrease zoom it goes back to where it was, with B pixelated. It possibly has something to do with the placeholder size. I have found that if I place image A into placeholder positions X & Y they both render clearly at all zoom levels. But if I place image B in either X or Y it is always pixelated until the zoom level is increased.

As I say, this is inconsistent behaviour. Those images that end up clearly rendered do sometimes take a second or so to get there. That is not a problem. The ones that are badly pixelated never get there without the zoom level being increased.