Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hello.

A couple of questions:

1/ Are the saved jobs in Q1 compatible with those of QU to the extent that the job files can be transferred?

2/ In Q1 for windows I've noticed that thumnails of large panoramas are not generated whereas they are in QU. Does this represent a thumbnail and printing limitation?

Regards

Peter

Hi Peter,
On item 1) I just did it, so I know it does work. I moved some jobs from Q1 to QU (Save folders) and they now appear and open in either program.

On item 2) The largest pano I have is 9000 x 4000, and that opens fine in Q1.
If yours are a lot larger, we will have to wake up Mike and ask.
You could shrink your file as a test and see if it opens.

I just did the opposite. I increased the pano size by 400 %  20,000 x 7000
It opens fine.

Hope all is well.
Fred

Peter,
Try a Thumb rebuild.
  VIEW  Rebuild Thumbs

Fred

Thanks Fred.

The cross compatibility of jobs is good news.

The panoramas that don't have thumbnails are in the order of 14900 x 10000. No problem with these large files in QU and Q1 (mac). Smaller panoramas are fine in all QI versions.

The fact that your 20k x 7k image works adds to the mystery. However my images are 16 bit TIFFs: are yours 8 bit?

Cheers

PS I had already tried the thumbnail rebuild!

Peter,
Mine are 8 bit. and Q1 for PC
Better wait for Mike.
Fred

Just for  grins, I converted my pano to 16 bit. Filesize is 826 mgs.
Still no problem, but we have to have Mike look via MAC version.
Fred

Okay!

Yes, the files I have are up to 1 GB.

Just to be clear, the problem I experience is only with the Q1 windows version.

Incidentally the bad thumbnails state "Image Read Error" in red. When I drag one of the images to the page view the same message is transferred.

Peter

Peter, I read this, and took it that you were running Q1 for Mac
No problem with these large files in QU and Q1 (mac).

The view in the page editor is also the thumbnail.  Click the HQ  button, it should show OK

Fred

Q1 Windows and QU share the same code so as long as you are running the latest version of both, they should both build thumbnails the same.  If it is working in QU and not Q1 Windows, maybe your Q1 Windows is a version behind?

Regards,
Mike

Thanks Mike.

Using QU 112 and Q1 118 on the PC

The PC is windows 10 32 bit.

Regards

Peter
 

Latest QU version is 117.

Peter, I know it's a "pain in the lower neck", but the simplest and fastest way to find the right answer is to use WE TRANSFER (FREE under 2 gigs) and send the offending TIF to me and I pass along to Mike instantly.
Of course, you can send it directly to Mike, but he gets a ton of email a day, and finding your notice of file sent, might not be as quick and sure as sending to me first.

my email is, wathree.ssz@verizon.net

The web address for we transfer is https://wetransfer.com/

Fred

Thanks Fred.

This morning I decided to do some more investigating.

1/ I regenerated the thumbnails in QU in the PC and to my surprise the thumbnails now showed the same errors as for Q1 on three of the large panoramas.

2/ I then went to my main workstation, a Mac Book Pro (the PC is used as a backup system) and:
         a/ I successfully regenerated the thumbnails of the same image set using Q1.
         b/ Opened a Windows 10 64 bit virtual machine on the Mac and ran QU to regenerate the thumbnails, also of the same
             image set. No problems!

3/ Went back to the PC (32bit) and regenerated both sets of thumbnails, on Q1 and QU. Same errors but sometimes not all of the 3 panoramas showed errors, it seemed to change. I then:
         a/ Reduced thumbnail size to small (from medium) on Q1, regenerated the thumbnails, and everything was fine.
         b/ Likewise reduced thumbnail size on QU but similar error!

4/ Now, almost midnight, I repeated "3/" above and both QU and Q1 produced the thumbnails errors.


My questions are: Is there a common thumbnail cache for both QU and Q1? If so, can I manually delete it? Maybe QU and Q1 shouldn't be run on the same machine?

Regards

Peter

Q1  History menu... Thumbnails
QU Utilities menu    Explore Thumbs

Fred

Peter,
Could you be tight or short of memory in the 32 bit machine?

Hello Fred.

That's a possibility however the Windows 10 32 bit PC has 3.1GB of RAM whereas the Windows 10 64 bit virtual machine (with no thumbnail problems) has 3.4GB so not a lot of difference. Could it be the fact that the PC is 32 bit be a factor?

Just as a confirmation test, on the virtual machine I deleted the cache and rebuilt the thumbnails. Worked as expected, no errors.

Since the problem is on my backup installation of QU and QI it's not of critical concern to me. I guess the vast majority of PC based QI and QU users are now 64 bit.  

Regards

Peter

PS Checked RAM use on the 32 bit PC during thumbnail generation and it's less than 50%

Peter, by today's standards of how programs use ram, you are really short in my humble opinion.
My machine has 16.0 and my wife's has 8.0 gigs of ram, and they are not new machines.

All this can be solved in a moment if Mike had one image file.
Try turning off Photo Shop or any other program that might be using memiry.

Fred

Peter,
Try this:
Hold the Shift key down while you click on Analyze settings in the help menu.
See what the number are.
That is telling you how much ram QU has at its disposal
Fred

Thanks for your ongoing interest in this Fred!

Do the values represent free RAM?

Peter

As in the quote above, the numbers show how much RAM is available to Qimage to use right now.

Fred

Fred, was the QU memory screen capture you posted on your 16GB PC?

If so, why are the numbers identical to those on my 3.4GB (virtual) PC? Especially if the numbers represent "how much ram QU has at its disposal"?

Also, doesn't RAM extend to virtual/paging on disk if required?

Peter

Yes, the 16 gigs and 64 bit

Below I posted the same screen from wife's 32 bit machine with 4. gigs of Ram.
The numbers are not reflecting the ram in the machine, but what QU has available and what it needs to run based on its written parameters.
Right now, as written, approximate max size of a file that QU can open is around 1.2 gigs, as long as there is enough ram on hand that QU has all it can use.
The virtual paging is dependent on how the program is written.  I know that in many situations while developing QU, the sweating and hand wringing was due to finding the right balance between time to open an image vs impractical speed.
Anything more technical, have to refer to Mike.
Fred

Qimage is a 32 bit process and the maximum RAM that a 32 bit process can address is 2GB.  On a 64 bit operating system, the operating system can give every process the full 2GB of RAM so all 64 bit operating systems will give Qimage 2GB of RAM to work with.  On a 32 bit operating system, the operating system itself shares that same 2GB page size so it cannot give Qimage the full 2GB of RAM: it's closer to 1GB because the operating system itself can only address 2GB so it shares the same RAM space with programs.

64 bit Windows: has access to all your RAM so it can give all 32 bit apps their own unique 2GB "page" to work with
32 bit Windows: has access to 2GB of RAM at a time so can only give 32 bit apps what is left over of that 2GB (what the OS isn't using)

Mike

Thank you for the explanation Mike.

Peter

Hello Mike et al

Am interested to know if the updated fusion interpolation is or will be incorporated into Q1 Mac.

Also, are there any plans for poster mode be introduced into Q1 Mac?

I know I've mentioned this before (with some discussion, humor me), I continue to want to experiment with the 1200dpi printing option for the Canon Pro 1000. To me it's a pity that an option provided by Canon for that model printer is not offered in Q1 Mac (but is in QU).

I notice that the printing module in Capture One 11 on Mac has the 1200dpi option. However for me printing via Q1 Mac or QU PC is preferred. My main computer is a Mac and I prefer not to have to switch to PC for printing.

Regards

Peter

Hi Peter,

With Qimage One, we wanted a simple interface that produces optimal visual results without the user having to get into settings like "overdrive" or various resampling methods.  Honestly, we didn't even want users to have to contemplate the implications of changing settings like that in Qimage One.  Things like the 1200/1440 PPI overdrive are really not applicable to normal photo prints and that feature only comes into play for prints that might be examined under magnification such as possibly aerial photography or maybe something like microfilm.

Having said that, we have been looking into the possibility of a setting in Qimage One that would unlock some "super user" settings like overdrive and interpolation methods for the power users.  Stay tuned: we're alway improving the software!

Regards,
Mike