Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Why do the images in the Preview and Full Editor look so bad?  On my calibrated monitor they are full of noise with very bad color.   The monitor and printer profiles are correctly specified. This doesn't happen with other software.

This problem has no effect on the prints, but makes any judgements about the quality of the images impossible in Qimage.

Wil

They look bad because they are low resolution images used to speed things up and just let you know which image you chose.
You can usually improve the thumbnail and the preview panel by clicking on VIEW, Thumbnail File behavior and then Thumbnail Quality.
Select the highest quality.

In the full page editor screen, you can solve it perfectly by changing a setting from Thumbs, small images, to ALL IMAGES, or you can click the Hi Quality button for temporary use.
See screen snap.

Fred

Thanks, but none of those actions improved the quality at all.  I don't remember this being an issue in the past.

Sorry, but I must ask some questions.
In the Full Page Editor screen is the HQ button grayed out or live?
If you hover the mouse over the thumbnail and click the spacebar, how does the image look?
Fred

One more question are these thumbnail images from Raw shots?
If so, do you have Quality selected in the Preferences Raw thumbnail settings under EDIT?
Fred

1.  HQ Preview is grayed out in the Full Page Editor.

2.  If I hover over the thumbnail and press the space bar, I get a full screen image that isn't sharp and has lots of noise.

3.  Imags are 16 (48) bit TIFF.  I don't use Qimage for raw files.  I consider it the best printing program on the planet, but not the best raw processor.

Because of health problems of my late wife, I have been away from printing with Qmage for some time.  These problems are new to me and are of great concern.

Thanks,
Wil

Wil,
If you get noise when using Qimage in the High Resolution viewer, then your image is noisy. What camera, and what is the current resolution?
Open your image using the Examiner. You can then use the center wheel to zoom in or out viewing the noise magnified.
If you don't have a center mouse wheel, then right click and select zoom in or out.

You might want to check the original image image from the camera to see whether that contained noise, or whether it was introduced when you converted it to a 16 bit image.
If it was a high ISO shot, you can try one of the noise filters in the Qimage batch filter screen.

I can't think of anything else to try at the moment.

Fred

Thanks for your efforts.

Qimage is the only software that has this problem.  It happens with any image no matter what the source --  Canon 5DII, 1D3, 10D, D30, Panasonic G,  many scanners, 8 and 16 bit TIFF, JPEG from conversion or the Internet, and on and on.  The ISO makes no difference with this problem -- ISO 100 is as bad as ISO 1600.  By the way, the problem is also present in soft proofing.

I know how to detect noise, and I try never to print images that have it.  This is not an image noise problem.  Lightroom and PS CS4 demonstrate that fact even at 200%. 

In addition, printing the same images with earlier versions of Qimage did not show this problem -- only the current ones.  I have printed a great deal in the past and introduced many to Qimage.  This is just a new Qimage problem with good images.

It is strange that the quality of the print is not hurt.

Thanks again
Wil

Hi Wil,

I hadn't noticed this before, but in the current version of qimage (2010.111) I have found the following -

Comparing size for size for the same tif image, and opening it in Irfan view, for example, and placing beside the same image opened in Qimage preview screen, there are a number of 'jaggies' on straight lines and other noise in the qimage preview image. In the full screen image editor of qimage, the lines seem to be much smoother, but not as smooth as the IV image at the same size, and much less noise than in the preview, but still noticeable. In practice, for what I use Qimage for, mainly final printing, it is not that important. It may be that IV applies smoothing to the image, and I expect its downsizing algorithm is different too, it is primarily an image viewer. I suspect you will get the same result when comparing any image between a photo-editor/viewer with Qimage.

This possibly doesn't help you much, except you are not alone in what you have seen.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray,

Your any my experiences are alike.  In the past, the images in Qimage were like those in PS, etc.  Like you, I use QI for printing only, so I already know what the image looks like.  When I first noticed this issue, I was afraid it would hurt the final print, but the good news is that it doesn't.  QI is still the best printing program on the planet.

Good Luck
Wil

I still have not been able to get anyone to send me a full size screen shot (or at least a 1:1 crop of the area affected) of the Qimage screen showing this issue.  I run 1920 x 1080 on my 24 inch monitor and the previews are just as sharp as the originals.  If you select "High Thumb Quality", the thumbnails are plenty large enough for previews.  I'd have to see an actual screen shot to really see what is going on here.  It could be one of many factors (both inside and outside Qimage).

Mike

Hi Mike,

I didn't know you were waiting for some images. I've just sent you some screen shots, but as mentioned, it does not particularly bother me (sort of like the poor quality images in the epson print preview screen do not bother me, it is just a check to show I'm likely to get the image I want in the position I want)

Best wishes,

Ray

Hi Mike,

Did you get the images? I think it may be due to the viewing software (Irfan view in that case) applying some smoothing, that the hq view in Qimage does not apply. I'm not too sure if the image editing view and the Irfan view were in the same colour space (IV was not set to colour manage) so that may explain some of the slight banding. Anyway, you can probably see what we were trying to explain, enough to test it out for yourself.

Best wishes,

Ray