Thumbnail moire patterns

[BAC2500]

I have a crossplatform solution that manages lots of photos. FileMaker creates a thumbnail when it Imports From Folder.

The thumbnails look beautiful when the import/thumbnail creation process takes place on a Mac but are marred by relatively intense moire patterns when the process takes place on a PC. The effect seems to relate to the platform used for the import not the platform used for viewing, i.e., PC created thumbnails look like crap when viewed on a Mac and Mac created thumbnails look great when viewed on a PC.

Just for fun, I have tried resizing the thumbnail container to no avail...

Has anyone else noticed this effect, or have any ideas as to how to fix it? Is it a FM Windows issue or simply an XP issue?

Thanks

Brad

[Kent Searight]

I developed a cross platform solution that holds thumbnails of images also, and I don't get moires, regardless of platform created on/viewed in.

Have you tried making the thumbnails with the Troi File Plug-in? That's what I use. And are these images of previously printed matter or of low resolution? Moires are a result of matrices being resolved in new resolutions and/or new axes of resolution.

Edited March 18, 2006 by Guest

[BAC2500]

The images themselves are 5M digital photos all taken with the same camera. I first assumed that the what appear to me as moire effects may have resulted from different focal lengths combined with the patterning in the weave of the fabric in the photo. But I don't think so anymore:

As an example of the problem, I attached two thumbnail files, each of the same file imported into the same database. One was created during the import process on a PC, and one on a Mac. When I open them in Photoshop, they have the same pixel dimensions, although the document sizes and resolution are different.

In response to your question though, I guess I'm not exactly sure where the thumbnails come from... And that's probably part of both the problem and the solution. I simply have the "Image Thumbnail" import into the appropriate container field when I import a folder of jpeg files.

Thanks for the replies

Brad

[Kent Searight]

Yikes! I can see why you're concerned...that's pretty bad. Try out Troi File Plug-in to handle the creation of thumbnails. As I said earlier, that's what I use for thumbnail creation, as well as other things, in a media assets database I developed. It works flawlessly for me, regardless of platform.

You'll probably want to create a script to do your batch imports, as you won't be able to make use of the plug-in via the menu under File>Import, which is what I assume you currently do to import your images. Using FM 8 variables in conjunction with the plug-in makes it relatively easy to insert batches of images from folders while making thumbnails. You even get the option of generating various thumbnail sizes.

Hope this helps!