"Unable to Render Image" for a bunch of .psd's

[SzurszewskiJ]

I pointed PM at a folder of almost 200 Photoshop format files, and close to half are not rendering thumbnails, showing instead a completely black thumbnail with the text, "Unable to Render Image", or in some cases, a completely white thumbnail with what appears to be extremely tiny text in the center that is too small to read. 

The only thing I can surmise is that the files that are not rendering thumbnails were created in older versions of Photoshop (CS or CS2).  Is this a known issue with PM? 

I am happy to upload files that exhibit this problem.

I am running PM 4.6.2 on OS X 10.5.8 on a PowerPC machine. 

[Kirk Baker]

I pointed PM at a folder of almost 200 Photoshop format files, and close to half are not rendering thumbnails, showing instead a completely black thumbnail with the text, "Unable to Render Image", or in some cases, a completely white thumbnail with what appears to be extremely tiny text in the center that is too small to read. 

The only thing I can surmise is that the files that are not rendering thumbnails were created in older versions of Photoshop (CS or CS2).  Is this a known issue with PM? 

I am happy to upload files that exhibit this problem.

I am running PM 4.6.2 on OS X 10.5.8 on a PowerPC machine. 

It is likely that the images were not saved with a composite preview.  You must save the PSD images with 'Maximize Compatibility' turned on in order for Photo Mechanic to be able to render them.  Without the composite preview, Photo Mechanic would need the capabilities of Photoshop to render the PSD files.  Adobe doesn't license their Photoshop technology to other companies.

Try opening up some of those images and then save them again with the 'Maximize Compatibility' option turned on.  They should render just fine then.

There are a few formats of PSD files that cannot be rendered even with the composite preview present.

-Kirk

[SzurszewskiJ]

Thanks, Kirk.  I resaved the first .psd of a bunch that weren't rendering, and sure enough, it now renders in PM just fine.  The weird thing is that the next 5 .psds in the group that hadn't been rendering now are, albeit in a very blocky, pixellated way.  These 5 files appear to have been the ones on-screen when I resaved the first .psd.  If I then restart PM, these 5 files plus a bunch more that didn't previously render are now rendering in pixellated form, although there are still some that don't render. 

I understand the 'solution' is to resave all of these with 'Maximize Compatibility' turned on, but if PM is able to SOMETIMES show some kind of thumbnail (even if very pixellated) for non-compatibility maximized .psd files, why doesn't it always show it?

Thanks!

[Kirk Baker]

Thanks, Kirk.  I resaved the first .psd of a bunch that weren't rendering, and sure enough, it now renders in PM just fine.  The weird thing is that the next 5 .psds in the group that hadn't been rendering now are, albeit in a very blocky, pixellated way.  These 5 files appear to have been the ones on-screen when I resaved the first .psd.  If I then restart PM, these 5 files plus a bunch more that didn't previously render are now rendering in pixellated form, although there are still some that don't render. 

I understand the 'solution' is to resave all of these with 'Maximize Compatibility' turned on, but if PM is able to SOMETIMES show some kind of thumbnail (even if very pixellated) for non-compatibility maximized .psd files, why doesn't it always show it?

I don't know.  Perhaps you've set your Photo Mechanic Memory Cache too high?  What are your Caching settings (see the Caching tab of the Photo Mechanic Preferences dialog)?

-Kirk

[SzurszewskiJ]

From top to bottom, my cache settings are 2048, 1024 and 1024.  How could ANY cache settings, low or high, cause PM to sometimes be able to extract a preview from a .psd that doesn't have a composite preview in it?

[Kirk Baker]

From top to bottom, my cache settings are 2048, 1024 and 1024.  How could ANY cache settings, low or high, cause PM to sometimes be able to extract a preview from a .psd that doesn't have a composite preview in it?

You should set your Memory Cache to something lower like 700 MB instead.  Bigger isn't necessarily better in this case.
PM cannot show a high-resolution preview from a PSD that doesn't have a composite preview in it.  It can access the low resolution thumbnail if it exists and that is likely what you're seeing.

-Kirk

[SzurszewskiJ]

OK, makes sense.  Are there recommended values for the disk cache settings?

Thanks!