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Permlink Replies: 12 - Pages: 1 - Last Post: 13 Mar 23, 16:14 Last Post By: davidekholm Threads: [ Previous | Next ]
justinhow

Posts: 48
Registered: 3-Apr-2020
Improve thumbnail quality in jAlbum
Posted: 2 Jul 22, 20:48
 
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Attachment Screenshot.jpg (748.7 KB)
I am finding that the quality of the thumbnails within the jAlbum UI is pretty poor particulary when I enlarge the thumbnail size using the slider.
Attached is a screen grab of one such thumbnail.
NOTE this is nothing to do with the thumbnails on the output website.
Can anything be done to improve this quality?

Edited by: JeffTucker on 2 Jul 2022, 17:20, to rephrase the thread title as a feature request
RobM

Posts: 3,815
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 2 Jul 22, 21:12   in response to: justinhow in response to: justinhow
 
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Just how big are those thumbnails?
justinhow

Posts: 48
Registered: 3-Apr-2020
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 2 Jul 22, 21:18   in response to: RobM in response to: RobM
 
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Attachment Screenshot.jpg (263.5 KB)
You mean how large are the thumbnails on the screen?
I attach another screenshot which shows some of the actual jAlbum UI and this is with zoom set to max. I use a 27" 4k monitor.
RobM

Posts: 3,815
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 2 Jul 22, 22:12   in response to: justinhow in response to: justinhow
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I'd not really paid that much attention to the thumbnail quality for a while, but they are indeed a bit on the poor side. Even at the 50% (reset size) the Sample Project images are fuzzy on my 15 inch HiDPI laptop. The result is the same going back to jAlbum 19, so it is not a new issue.
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 2 Jul 22, 22:51   in response to: justinhow in response to: justinhow
 
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Remember, the Explore thumbnail displays are optimized for speed, not quality. Otherwise, when you added 100 images, you'd have to wait for jAlbum to process all of them before you could do much of anything, just as they're processed for the album.

If the image has an embedded thumbnail, jAlbum simply uses it. Those are usually quite small (and have a limited file size, per the JPG specification), so it's no surprise that zooming in to one of them would look fuzzy. If there's no embedded thumbnail, jAlbum does a very quick routine to generate one (those get stashed in the .jalbum/cache folder). And those are only 160px square (max), so they don't tolerate being zoomed, either.

You're not doing any editing with them, so I'm not sure why the quality matters. They're just placeholders.
justinhow

Posts: 48
Registered: 3-Apr-2020
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 2 Jul 22, 23:05   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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Attachment Screenshot1.jpg (335.2 KB)
Attachment Screenshot.jpg (269.3 KB)
The product could easily cache these thumbnails to a reasonable quality when the jpg images are added. This would rarely be an issue in most instances when people are probably typically adding a few dozen pics at a time.
Many other apps deal with this just fine. See 2nd attachment (Screenshot1.jpg) from Photoscape X's viewer - a very inexpensive photo editor/viewer. In this app there is no significant delay when viewing many new images.
Even windows does a way better better job with thumbnails than this and it is not a specific photo related product. See attached for comparison (Screenshot.jpg)
TBH I have not seen such poor quality thumbnails on a photo related app in many many years.

jAlbum is better than this.
RobM

Posts: 3,815
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 2 Jul 22, 23:14   in response to: justinhow in response to: justinhow
 
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Maybe the best option is to post a feature request for improved thumbnail handling.
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 2 Jul 22, 23:20   in response to: RobM in response to: RobM
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RobM wrote:
Maybe the best option is to post a feature request for improved thumbnail handling.

Agreed - I'll just move the thread.

These days, PC's probably have enough horsepower to do some actual processing to generate the display thumbnails. It could be a background process so that, if you add 1000 images all at once, there's no long delay. Stash them in the cache directory.

Of course, someone will complain about the disk space. You know they will. ;)
davidekholm

Posts: 3,442
Registered: 18-Oct-2002
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 4 Jul 22, 16:31   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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I've taken note of this request. It's reasonable.
justinhow

Posts: 48
Registered: 3-Apr-2020
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 4 Jul 22, 16:32   in response to: davidekholm in response to: davidekholm
 
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Fantastic and thanks.
davidekholm

Posts: 3,442
Registered: 18-Oct-2002
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 13 Mar 23, 14:22   in response to: justinhow in response to: justinhow
 
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jAlbum 30.1 is now available and has high resolution thumbnails as default now.
justinhow

Posts: 48
Registered: 3-Apr-2020
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 13 Mar 23, 15:30   in response to: davidekholm in response to: davidekholm
 
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Hi David
I have indeed downloaded and installed 30.1.
A great update(the thumbnails look v good) and it is so good to deal with a software company that really listens to the feedback from their customers.
I also want to add that the recent Tiger skin update (3.25.0, Feb 7, 2023) which offered the new "justified" layout has made the Tiger skin website work SOOO much better on my (Samsung) mobile.
I would now struggle highlight any significant improvements I still would like to see in jAlbum.
Brilliant and thanks!
Justin
davidekholm

Posts: 3,442
Registered: 18-Oct-2002
Re: Poor quality thumbnails with jAlbum
Posted: 13 Mar 23, 16:14   in response to: justinhow in response to: justinhow
 
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Really happy to read this. Thank you Justin!
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