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[park]

Hi,
I've seen on several photo websites the ability to see a magnified version of the photo by just hovering over it, or clicking on a small maginifying glass icon at the bottom of the image.
Here is an example:
http://www.dreamstime.com/

I would love to see a little magnifying glass icon on images in MC. When tagging photos, often you just want to see them bigger than thumbnail size. They dont have to be full screen. A simple one click to preview, one click to get rid of the preview, workflow would be really good.

I know that it is possible to play all the files in a slideshow, and tag them there, but I prefer to use "Tagging mode" and tag directly into the panes.

Thanks.

[marko]

using MC to preview images is still really awkward, and to be honest, I'm not sure what the answer is.

I think it was yourself park, that started a thread a while ago that resulted with general opinion being that we set up a separate "image playback zone" in order to get a decent preview.

I stuck with that for a while, but seriously, for me, it's far from an ideal solution, and when I need a quick preview, I still use "Right click > send to (external) > AcdSee"
Once that's open, I can scroll through the images in that folder with the mouse wheel before going back to MC. I long for the day I can ditch that "Send to.." command!!!

Back in October last year, I found something similar to your request somewhere else:

I installed a trial copy of yet another image manager program the other day and so far, I've not done a whole lot with it....

I was poking around in it this morning, clicking this, clicking that, you know, like you do, then I paused, wondering what to do next, and got pleasantly surprised by what came next. I'd left the mouse resting on one of the thumbnails....

Now, if MC were to have something like that, I reckon I'd be happy(er)
I'd expect the MC version to allow me control over how big the preview would be. I think that popping up like a tooltip is probably not the best idea, but I'm sure JRiver could come up with a workable system.
I think that previewing images for tagging with MC is one of the toughest things to achieve (easily) with MC, bearing in mind that invariably, there will be music playing at the same time.
Sending them to a different zone is all well and good, but then we don't have panes for tagging and are bound to the AW, which gets tiresome quite quickly.

While we're on the subject of image tagging, am I the only one that would be overjoyed to receive a "tag painter" like Lightroom and Picture It have?
You know, you attach the tag to the cursor, then just click on each image in turn to apply the tag.

Another option I've thought that might work would be if the maximum thumbnail size set by the slider would cause the selected/first image to fill the entire list pane (maintaining aspect ratio). The image being shown would always be the "selected" image, and the mouse wheel could then be used to advance through the list. I like this idea. I've thought about it a fair bit and I can only see positives, no negatives, but of course, I don't need to write the code do I

-marko.

[park]

Tag painter sounds like a nice idea. Currently I select multiple files, turn on tagging mode and then just check the boxes in the panes. It's the fastest possible way to tag lots of files at once I think. But that assumes that all the files you selected will be tagged with the same values. The tag painter could be really good for attributing a value to lots of files that are all different from each other.

MC is lightyears ahead of lightroom etc. for organization and finding photos quickly. It's just the image preview that lets it down.

[marko]

MC is lightyears ahead of lightroom etc. for organization and finding photos quickly. It's just the image preview that lets it down.

agreed.

You think this might work?

Another option I've thought that might work would be if the maximum thumbnail size set by the slider would cause the selected/first image to fill the entire list pane (maintaining aspect ratio). The image being shown would always be the "selected" image, and the mouse wheel could then be used to advance through the list.

[park]

Not sure if i follow completely, but it seems that the slider would be controlling the size of the "main" photo. Dont know how you'd resize the smaller thumbnails underneath, or how you'd get rid of the main photo if you want to see just thumbnails.

[JimH]

When tagging photos, often you just want to see them bigger than thumbnail size. They dont have to be full screen.

I hit Enter or use a double click to get to full screen.  You could also use the thumbnail slider to enlarge the thumbnails.

If you'd like to discuss this and propose a solution most people like, we'll consider a change.

[johnnyboy]

for me the biggest issue with images is the fact they disappear from 'playing now' as soon as audio is added.
Often I want the audio as background music while I am dealing with the photos and trying to tag/organise/etc them but as soon as I add music, all playing now details for the pictures goes which doesn't help at all.
MC is just presuming that to me the audio is more important, which, back in its day when it was an audio jukebox, might make sense, but these days as a multimedia jukebox, isn't logical.

What I think would be ideal would be if playing now showed all files added and had a filter like there is for MC in the whole. It'd have three buttons:  Audio | Image |  All

If I clicked image it would only show me the images and not show me the audio.
If I clicked audio it would only show me the audio and not the images (how it currently is now)
If I clicked all it would show me them both mixed in together. I could choose tracks that would play for specific images by ordering the images relative to the pictures so that if I had an audio track, then 10 pictures, then another audio track, then 10 more pics, after MC has displayed the 10 pictures, it then changes to the other track before playing the next 10 giving me in effect a timeline from the 'playing now' files.

[glynor]

What I think would be ideal would be if playing now showed all files added and had a filter like there is for MC in the whole. It'd have three buttons:  Audio | Image |  All

You'd need five choices (Audio, Video, Images, Documents, All) and since there'd be that many choices I think a combobox would be a better choice if this route were taken.  Don't know that I agree that it should be, just saying...

[glynor]

You'd need five choices (Audio, Video, Images, Documents, All) and since there'd be that many choices I think a combobox would be a better choice if this route were taken.  Don't know that I agree that it should be, just saying...

Going back to Park's original suggestion... I really like this idea:

I would love to see a little magnifying glass icon on images in MC. When tagging photos, often you just want to see them bigger than thumbnail size. They dont have to be full screen. A simple one click to preview, one click to get rid of the preview, workflow would be really good.

The truly slick way to do it would be "ala-Lightroom" where an overlay comes up over the thumbnail when you point at it giving you the Magnifying glass.  The overlays I mean in Lightroom are the Rotate, Rating Stars, Quick Collection, and Flag overlays (among others):



And it would come up just like the current Play, Tag, Menu overlay does (but maybe at the top of the thumbnail).  When you click it, "zoom" and show a bigger image (similar to Marko's screen) overtop of the rest of MC's interface.  I think the simple and intuitive way to make it go away is just to click on the image.  Changing the view in any way should also make the preview go away (so switching to a different view scheme or playing now or whatever).

So, all you'd have to do is point at the thumb you want to preview, wait a sec for the overlay Magnifier to appear and click it.  Check out what you want to check out, tweak the tags in the Tag AW, and then click on the preview image to make it go away.  If the cool, slick overlay button method is impossible due to MC's underlying display technology, a simple toolbar button and hotkey would suffice (but the overlay would be cool).

The reason I like this idea better than any changes to Playing Now or zones or anything is that the whole idea of wanting the preview is that you don't want to leave your current view.  You want a quick way to check out a picture bigger, while you are in the process of doing other work in the view.  Switching back and forth between the View and Playing Now is what is ungainly and makes it difficult to work with.

[bennyd]

I second the idea of the zoom icon

[Alex B]

for me the biggest issue with images is the fact they disappear from 'playing now' as soon as audio is added.
Often I want the audio as background music while I am dealing with the photos and trying to tag/organise/etc them but as soon as I add music, all playing now details for the pictures goes which doesn't help at all.
MC is just presuming that to me the audio is more important, which, back in its day when it was an audio jukebox, might make sense, but these days as a multimedia jukebox, isn't logical.

This changed in the latest build -- to worse in my opinion -- however, the change is intended to more or less take care of that problem. (I'm starting a separate thread about this change.)

It is possible (and has been a long time) to use a separate zone for image playback. It is enough to just create a new zone and play the images in it while the default zone plays audio completely separately. The active zone can be quickly changed with a shortcut or by using one of the several available buttons (= right-click on the DSP button, the standard top-menu item, the optional toolbar button)

What I think would be ideal would be if playing now showed all files added and had a filter like there is for MC in the whole. It'd have three buttons:  Audio | Image |  All

If I clicked image it would only show me the images and not show me the audio.
If I clicked audio it would only show me the audio and not the images (how it currently is now)
If I clicked all it would show me them both mixed in together. I could choose tracks that would play for specific images by ordering the images relative to the pictures so that if I had an audio track, then 10 pictures, then another audio track, then 10 more pics, after MC has displayed the 10 pictures, it then changes to the other track before playing the next 10 giving me in effect a timeline from the 'playing now' files.

The first two are posssible in a very usable way by using zones as I explained.

The third one is an interesting idea.

Personally, I would like to have have an automatic display plugin (or a track info templete) which would show all image files from the audio file folder in a configurable slideshow. Just before a track change it would query the next set of images and start a new slideshow when the track changes.

[Matt]

Personally I like the current system where double-click shows a nice preview, and double-click again returns right where I was.

However, as Jim said, we're open to ideas here if it's widely supported.

[glynor]

Personally I like the current system where double-click shows a nice preview, and double-click again returns right where I was.

However, as Jim said, we're open to ideas here if it's widely supported.

That only works if you have Options --> General --> Jump on Play set to Display View.  I keep mine set to Playing Now (because I prefer that for video and audio file types), so it's a pain.

[Alex B]

I have normally the options set to
Jump on play > None and Double-click > Add to Playing Now (to end).

When I organize and tag images I usually do this in a separate zone, in which I keep a detached display open and use right-click > play for a bigger image preview.

[sdgrizdan]

I like the option of a magnifying glass overlay as well!

[glynor]

I like the option of a magnifying glass overlay as well!

Patience Grasshopper.