Generating Thumbnails

[gdjoslin]

My 6.0 keeps generating thumbnails. I had a trail version of this program on the computer earlier and did not have this problem. I did have a hard time installing the cd to upgrade to the full version.

I am running xp 1gb mem, 150 gb freespace on the hard drive.
I tried making a new catalog with only a few thumbnails (200 and it still does it).
Any help would be welcome

[johnrellis]

Some troubleshooting questions:

In your test catalog of 200 photos, how many were raw and how many were JPEG?

Do you have a multiprocessor? Go to the Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and look at the Performance tab to see how many processors you have.

[gdjoslin]

Some troubleshooting questions:

In your test catalog of 200 photos, how many were raw and how many were JPEG?

Do you have a multiprocessor? Go to the Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and look at the Performance tab to see how many processors you have.

I do not have any raw in the test catalog. I do shoot raw but let those out. I also do not have any avi files there. They are all jpeg.
Yes I have a multiprocessor. I have 44 processes running. I have been booting in the simple mode for now. I have done everything that it says in this link (http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/www.adobe.com/go/kb402520)
BTW what is it doing when it generates thumbnails? How long should it take to generate say 25,000? Where does it store these?
Thanks again.

[johnrellis]

Yes I have a multiprocessor. I have 44 processes running.

I think you may have looked at the number of processes rather than the number of processors. On the Performance tab, you’ll see on vertical bar graph for each processor. My computer has just one:

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/17q3E2AjgPAvdBnbnZw1sc9TrzBnD1_thumb.png (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=17q3E2AjgPAvdBnbnZw1sc9TrzBnD1)

If your computer has more than one, you’ll see more than one bar graph.

It’s important to know the number of processors, because PSE 6 has a serious bug with respect to thumbnails and multiple processors. A work-around exists for this problem, but it’s only been confirmed so far with raw files, not JPEGs.

When PSE is generating thumbnails, it is making the small-sized thumbnail images that the Organizer uses to display your catalog. By computing these ahead of time and saving them in the file “thumb.5.cache” (see below), the Organizer can let you browse your catalog much faster.

As a very crude rule of thumb, PSE can generate thumbnails at the rate of about 10 to 20 GB of photo files per hour (e.g. 10,000 1.5-MB JPEGs). So depending on the size of your JPEGs and the speed of your computer, taking several hours to generate thumbnails for 25,000 photos wouldn’t be unusual. (The CPU should have a pretty high utilization and your disk light should be flashing steadily.)

If it hasn’t stopped generating thumbnails after many hours, then try rebuilding the thumbnail cache:

1. Help > System Info to find the folder containing your catalog.
2. Exit PSE.
3. In that folder, delete the file “thumb.5.cache” (this is a cache of Organizer thumbnails).
4. Restart PSE.
5. Edit > Select All
6. Edit > Update Thumbnail.
7. Let it run overnight.

I suggest first troubleshooting everything on your small test catalog first.

[gdjoslin]

I do have a multiprocessor. It show two bar grafts.
I know in my test catalog there are 209 images. I can also count 209 thumbnails in the organizer, yet it keeps generating. I have gone to the test folder to make sure there are not other type of files are hidden files. Some of my images are small from a 1 mp camera, some are from a 10.1 mp camera.
Side bar. Even if the raw or avi. was causing the problem isn't 6.0 suppose handle this type of files?
Also my main catalog is on an external hard drive. That is the main reason I ran a test catalog. I put it on the c drive. However the trail version had worked on the external drive, as does Elements 6.0 on my laptop with Vista.

Again thanks for your help.

[johnrellis]

PSE 6 does handle raw files, but on a multiprocessor like yours, you'll need to use a work-around:

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b53a81

But before trying that, I suggest that you first troubleshoot your test catalog by regenerating the thumbnail cache, as outlined in the previous message.

[gdjoslin]

I will try that over the weekend. Thanks

[gdjoslin]

How do you tell if this worked and the computer is running in a single mode? It still has two bar grafts. Also I tried both 0 and 1.
Thanks again
Gary

[johnrellis]

Setting the affinity of PSE will cause just PSE to run on a single processor. Windows and the rest of the programs you run will use both processors.

You can tell if it is working by rebuilding the thumbnail cache, as described in a previous message. While the rebuilding is going on, you should see one processor with utilization (70 to 100%) with the other processor at low utilization (0 to 15%).

When you rebuild the test catalog, does "Generating thumbnails" stop after 5-10 minutes?

[gdjoslin]

I never could get into the Edit Tab. The computer kept freezing. We left for Fresno today and I left the Organizer "Generating" with out using the Edit Tab since it kept freezing. By mistake I left it on a large Catalog, 44,000 files, no raw, but a few avi. It generated all of them. Now everthing seems to work, however if I choose any of the top tabs..File,edit, find view, window, help, it takes a good 45 seconds for the tab to drop down. and about that to to respond to and of the choices. Right click and other functions seem find.

Thanks
Gary

[gdjoslin]

It is now going into all tabs. I cleaned up the disc and a few things, not sure what made it start working better.
John I am not sure what I did wrong, but I am sure it is in the 2 processor mode, however it is working fine. I just made a catalog of 2500 +- raw files. It did just fine dealing with them.
Should I update the Raw plug in, and if so how do I do that.
BTW is there a way to do a search for a certain lens, say Tamron 18-250, or Canon 50. I know I can search for 50mm but that will bring up all lens that were shot at 50mm.

Again thank for all your help, you are great.

[johnrellis]

That’s good that it’s working.

To update your Adobe Camera Raw plugin, see:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3896 (http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3896)

That will also tell you about the changes made to later versions.

[gdjoslin]

Thanks again John. Are any other plug in I should install or update?
Is there a way to search for a certain lens that was used for a photo?
I would like to make a catalog of stuff shot with a 18-250 lens, my 50mm, the 28-135.
Is there a way to do this.

[johnrellis]

There are gazillions of add-ons for the Editor that others here know much more about, but for basic Organizing and Editing, you just need a recent version of ACR for raw files.

Is there a way to search for a certain lens that was used for a photo? I would like to make a catalog of stuff shot with a 18-250 lens, my 50mm, the 28-135.

The Find > By Details command will let you search many, but not all, of the metadata fields of your photos. For example, you can search by focal length used for a photo, but not lens type. You can see the metadata of a photo that the Organizer lets you search via the Properties window, on the Metadata pane (click the “i” and make sure to select Complete at the bottom).

You could use a third-party tool like “exiftool” to search your files for a particular metadata field and then apply a tag to the matching photos. But there’s a pretty steep learning curve to “exiftool” – it could take many hours to get up to speed with it if you’re not very familiar with photo metadata.