Windows displaying raw thumbnails...

woof woof

woof woof

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Alan
Edit My Images
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A while ago Windows decided to display a thumbnail picture of all of my raw files and this wasn't what I wanted at all as I keep my raws in the same folders as my tiffs/jpegs and if the raws display the picture I could and did mistakenly click on the raw now and again and instead of seeing the picture in a few seconds I'd have to wait for it to be opened in CS5. All rather annoying.

I managed to disable this but today Windows has updated and done it again. I've done the same thing to try and stop it but it's only partially worked this time and I get a thumbnail picture but with a blue square in the corner with PS in it... This is good enough as it allows me to tell raws from jpegs pretty easily.

If anyone else is bothered by this this is what I did...

in regedit go into the following and anything else that looks suspicious and delete the file extensions you're interested in such as DNG etc...

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.css
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.rwl

This worked last time and has partially but good enough worked this time but if anyone else has come across this and has a full fix please let me know :D

It's just another reason to dislike Microsoft :D


PS.
I noticed that files not processed today don't have a raw picture thumbnail so I opened a raw taken today and resaved it with no changes and after doing a page reset the picture raw thumbnail is gone. Doing a batch at a time didn't work and each raw had to be individually opened and saved and once I'd done them all I did an f5 to refresh the page and all of the raw picture thumbnails disappeared.

What a faff on.

Hope this helps someone :D
 
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Are windows thumbnails still stored in the (hidden) Thumbs.db file located in the folder with the images?
IIRC, you delete that file and refresh, they all disappear.
 
No idea :D

But I'd imagine that doing it that way you'd have to unhide and delete the file every time you load some new raws and a new thumbs file is created? If that's the case I'd rather do it the other way as it's a one time fix until Windows updates it again.
 
Well it looks like you've found a way to stop windows generating them for raw files, so if you delete the cached copies, they shouldn't come back when it refreshes.
 
Can you use Adobe Bridge alongside your copy of Photoshop CS5? I find thats a better way to review your pictures than using Windows Explorer, it can filter between raw and jpeg and you can also mark which pictures to edit etc
 
Yes I can use it but it's horrendously slow and clunky and makes a sleeping snail look like Usain Bolt.
 
You could sort your folder view by file type, so that raws are located together in a single block.
 
Rather than using Windows Explorer, if that's what you're doing, there are I think lots of image file viewers out there in which you can choose what displays, as iterated for Adobe Bridge above. Look at Faststone, for instance. Certain old versions of Bridge could get very slow (something to do with their thumbnail cache I seem to remember), but Bridge CC is free and pretty slick. Having said that, I can't get it to remember what file types I want to see, so I have to filter them on every viewing of a given folder.
 
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Thanks guys but these work arounds and extra steps don't seem to work as well as deleting the extensions for me. I have Bridge but it's an extra step and a slow and clunky one at that and I have Faststone too which I use all the time but it has problems I'll describe in a bit... Yes I could sort the folder by type but I like having the raws and jpegs next to each other as if I decide to work on a picture it's right there and I don't have to go looking for it or resort the folder.

My issue is that when processing or viewing pictures I use Windows Picture Viewer as that seems the best option for me and I want to see the raw thumbnail without the picture and the jpeg thumbnail with the picture as this seems to be the quickest and easiest way for me and deleting the extensions as I described is the only way I know of at the moment to easily achieve this.

Bridge is another step and it's just too slow and clunky but I do use Faststone for slideshows all the time but I don't like it for viewing single pictures as it's just too slow to allow zooming in and looking around the picture or moving backwards or forward, Windows Picture Viewer is much quicker for this.

I like to have a slideshow running and I look at it when coming in and out of the room or having a break etc. I used to use Windows Picture Viewer for this but that stopped working after an update a long time ago and now shifts pictures down and to the right and so has become completely unusable for slideshows. It's my best option so far for other things though.

Anyway, I may be the only one who sees this issue and need to delete the extensions as a fix but if anyone else is as bothered as I was I hope my little suggestion helps.

PS.
I've just Googled this and it looks like I'm not the only one who was looking for a way to disable raw thumbnail pictures :D
 
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woof woof said:
Bridge is another step and it's just too slow and clunky but I do use Faststone for slideshows all the time but I don't like it for viewing single pictures as it's just too slow to allow zooming in and looking around the picture or moving backwards or forward, Windows Picture Viewer is much quicker for this.
Click to expand...

Try Bridge CC if you haven't already tried this version - I certainly have no speed issues, it's very fast and snappy and will do everything you need. The Filmstrip view is the best for reviewing pictures
 
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