An option to enable LUT thumbnails

[Gripsholm Lion]

I very rarely ask for anything, but this issue is a long time itch which I cannot scratch.

Would Serif consider adding a preference to re-enable LUT thumbnail previews in the adjustment panel?

Because I really miss them. I often use LUTs as a quick and effective way of finally unifying photos for websites, but that has become so needlessly awkward since the thumbnails were removed quite some time ago (late version 1, I think?). As a consequence, I trimmed the list to an absolute minimum and renamed some, but it is hardly ideal.

If there was a performance problem, then I can empathise with that (although my old Intel Macs never struggled with the previews – they run Affinity pretty well).

But please provide the option to enable the previews for those of us who use LUTs.

Apologies if this has been requested before, but I searched and found nothing here.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, GripsholmLion said:

Because I really miss them. I often use LUTs as a quick and effective way of finally unifying photos for websites, but that has become so needlessly awkward since the thumbnails were removed quite some time ago (late version 1, I think?).

They were removed in 1.9 (if I remember correctly) and, yes, it was due to performance problems. Users like to install hundreds or thousands of LUTs, and in that case generating the thumbnails takes a very long time, causing complaints. The "fix" for the complaints was to stop generating the thumbnails at all.

An option might be nice, but probably it would need to have some way of reducing the number of thumbnails that will be shown/generated at one time.

[Gripsholm Lion]

In that case, my fix would have been to discourage those people from importing such a crazy and unnecessary quantity of LUTs.

[Bit Disappointed]

On 1/13/2024 at 5:10 PM, GripsholmLion said:

In that case, my fix would have been to discourage those people from importing such a crazy and unnecessary quantity of LUTs.

Wow, so knowledgeable customers are kept down and in the dark at the lowest common denominator thanks to fumbling beginners installing all sorts of fonts and LUTs and brushes and what not. The goal as a software provider should be to solve the problem, not create a variation of it.

• Make thumbnail preview default
• Let an algorithm disable LUT thumbnails if it seems there are many LUTs installed.
• Then show a warning and explanation - let the customer decide if it should be enabled
• Make it a setting also in preferences

This approach is one I've seen in several programs. Sanctions only when there's a reason, and even then, choice.

It's too unserious to completely remove it from the product, only to possibly reinstate it later, or perhaps not, while the customer has no idea what's happening or when something might happen.