Digital image thumbails different than original images

[RedFive]

I am hoping to get answers regarding a strange issue that has come up today. A CD with latent print images was submitted to our lab. I copied the images to our network drive and worked from those images. When the images were viewed on the disc by a reviewing examiner, 4 of the 10 thumbnails were different than the original images. When he clicked on the different thumbnail the original image opened, not the image seen in the thumbnail. The disc showed the correct thumbnails on other computers. I created a Word doc with more details and screenshots (it's too large to attach); if you think you could help, let me know and I could e-mail it to you. If you've heard of this happening before, I'd like to hear from you. If you know why this happens and how to fix it, I'd especially like to hear from you.

[Boyd Baumgartner]

I don't know what your workflow is but, try clearing your image caches.


Windows

Adobe Bridge

Adobe Photoshop

We've had similar things happen when images from different photo sessions that had the same file name (e.g. DSC10001.jpg) were opened from a compact flash drive.

[Steve Everist]

What program are you viewing these thumbnails in? I generally use Bridge for previewing images that I'll be opening in Photoshop. Like Boyd said, the old thumbnails will often stay visible when you swap a CD, memory card, etc... that have the same file names (which often happens when you have your workflow set up to start each photo assignment/job back at 1).

You can clear the cache, but it may also be as simple as refreshing the window (in Bridge). You can go to View>Refresh, or simply hit the F5 key.

If you're not viewing them in Bridge, then go back to Boyd's instructions for clearing caches.

[RedFive]

Clearing the Windows thumbnail cache did the trick. Thank you for your help!

[josher89]

Back in the day, I took some photos at home and did some major manipulation in PS (on purpose, was adding things in images to make them funny). Anyway, the thumbnails of said images still showed the original image, without the additions. I never could figure out why that happened. I burned them to a CD, opened them on a different computer, and they were still incorrect.

Interesting to hear about this issue, in a different format, today.

[ER]

Probably caused from different computers having different preferences for whether to automatically embed a thumbnail into the image file. Windows probably uses that when available or makes its own when not. If someone else changes the image, but doesn't have the option to embed the thumbnail, I can see how this might happen.

-In the Save dialog box...
*Thumbnail (Windows only): Embed a thumbnail image in the file if you've defined thumbnails as optional in Photoshop's Preferences.

(from http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/h ... p-cs6.html)