Has Lightroom got rendering problems or...?

spraynpray

While looking at macro shots today I noticed again a problem that I have been meaning to ask a you all about for a while now. As it is macro we are talking about, pixel peeping is not a symptom of OCD and can be forgiven (I hope)

The problem is that the image is blurred in some preset magnifications on my PC at home. If I go to the 'fit' preset view, the image is blurred but if I go to - say - 1:4, which is almost the same size on the screen, it is sharp. Another weird thing is that when viewing a blurred image, as I click on it to change the view, it sharpens up for a fraction of a second BEFORE it increases in size. This is really weird and has me confused as I have never heard of it happening before. No matter how many times I go back and forth between a sharp and a blurred view, they always stay the same.

Anybody got any ideas what the heck is going on?

Killerbob

Assuming a few things; that you are talking D810 NEF files, and that you are using the latest Lightroom CC...

Adobe has acknowledged that they have screwed up the latest update to CC. They effectively deleted the preset for Nikon D810, which means all NEF files are converted using Adobe Std. Flat. This means all RAW conversions look terrible, and the only current fix is one suggested by Adobe, which is not a permanent fix.

Now I don't know if this is what you are talking about, but it sounds like it could be:)

PB_PM

@Killerbob IIRC @spraynpray has D7100 and D750.

jonnyapple

I saw that the newest versions of LR can use your graphics card's GPUs to help accelerate rendering in some situations. I'm not sure it's related but try disabling it to see if that fixes things.
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html

spraynpray

PB is right, D7100 and D750. Same problem with both bodies so it isn't that.

Thanks @Jonnyapple, I'll look into that and come back.

I am on LR 5.7 on my main machine and LR 4 on a laptop - they both do it on all sorts of bodies.

spraynpray

I saw that the newest versions of LR can use your graphics card's GPUs to help accelerate rendering in some situations. I'm not sure it's related but try disabling it to see if that fixes things.
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html

Erm, either I'm being thick (easily possible) or they've got it wrong, because there is no performance pane in the preferences on my LR5.7 8-}

bald_eagle

I saw that the newest versions of LR can use your graphics card's GPUs to help accelerate rendering in some situations. I'm not sure it's related but try disabling it to see if that fixes things.
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html

Erm, either I'm being thick (easily possible) or they've got it wrong, because there is no performance pane in the preferences on my LR5.7 8-}

No SnP, you're not being thick... the option to use the GPU (and hence the performance pane) is only available in LRCC and LR6.. LR5.7 doesn't have it...

I sometimes have problems viewing images in LR5.7 where they appear blurred, but after several seconds the suddenly sharpen up even though my laptop is not in the least busy (loads of free RAM and CPU activity around 15-20%, no noticeable HDD activity)...

Do the images remain blurred on yours indefinitely (unless you change the zoom)? Is it only these macro images?

Cheers,
Baldy

jonnyapple

That's a puzzle, Andrew. Perhaps a post on the LR forum would get it straightened out? They've been really good over there whenever I've had questions/issues. (I started with version 1, which was not as friendly as later versions have been.)

Is it something like these?
https://forums.adobe.com/message/5757197#5757197
https://forums.adobe.com/message/6565189#6565189

Spy_Black

FYI there is an article over at Photography Life titled "Lightroom 6 Bugs and Performance Issues", you might want to take an Internet walk over there and see if any of that may be associated.

spraynpray

@bald_eagle: Thanks for that. I also get the usual pause while the low res thumbnail is viewed full size before the PC renders the full res image, it isn't that. The images stay blurred for as long as they are on screen and as I said above, no amount of clicking between image magnifications changes that.

I have to say that Jonnyapple's post above that links to a list of 'approved' graphics cards reminds me of the bad old days when everybody was complaining about the speed of Lightroom and Adobe gave out a list of 'approved' PCs.

I have posted in the Lightroom forum, we will see what happens.

spraynpray

Hmmm, @Johnnyapple: I see that last post is dated July 2014 and is unanswered so I don't want to hold my breath for a response from them!

jonnyapple

That's a really good point, Andrew. I stand by my statement that I have had good (and fast) responses, but maybe I was asking questions with easy answers. I'm interested to know what you find out.

Ironheart

@spraynpray I assume this effect is fairly subtle, if so, I have seen it but I assumed it was normal due to the following. There is a reason that there are only so many options available in the "Navigator" control in the "Develop" module. This is because they want to keep the display rendering reasonably fast. If you notice, they almost are all multiples of 2 (i.e 1:2, 1:4, 1:8...). By using "Fit" or "Fill" you are forcing a "harder" ratio for display (i.e. 1:4.152). It really has no choice but to loose sharpness when doing that, because the pixels have to go somewhere, and neighboring pixels will get smashed into each other to "fit" the ratio you have requested.
The reason you see the jump when you click on it, is that it is actually rendering the standard ratio multiple, before it resizes the overall image.

Let me know if this jives with what you are seeing. My guess is everyone here would see it if they started with a really sharp image and looked very closely at the difference between a "Fit" and 1:4 with the right size image.

The "fix" would be to compute a "resize" of the image when you request an odd ratio, but that would take as much time as a "resize" option in photoshop, and they'd have to give you a range of options and algorithms to fit different needs, and it would take ~30seconds each time you did it.

spraynpray

@Ironheart: That jives EXACTLY with what I'm seeing! What I don't get is how come on a forum of pixel peepers nobody else has bought this up because my macro shots look like hell on certain magnifications.

Yoodaman Ironheart!