Nef-files in the quick viewer

[frlindla]

What settings are wrong when nef-files won`t use the whole screen in the quick viewer? Jpg-files maximize as they should. Also cr2-files.

[Mario]

You mean the Quick View Panel?
Define what you "whole size".
The aspect ratio of your image and the current zoom mode defines if the Quick View Panel shows "borders" at the vertical or horizontal...if this is what you mean?
Always helpful to attach a screen shot of what you are seeing. Use Windows key + Print to create a screen shot in the Screen shot folder. Or use Al+PrintSn to copy a screen shot into the clipboard. Use your favorite editor to crop and then save as JPEG and attach.

[Stefan]

What settings are wrong when nef-files won`t use the whole screen in the quick viewer? Jpg-files maximize as they should. Also cr2-files.

The quick viewer and full screen viewer use the embedded jpg-thumbnails that are embedded in the .nef and .cr2. This jpg-data is used for rendering the image and the raw data is not used. Those embedded jpg files have a lower resolution than the raw files. Could that be your issue ... especially if you are using a high resolution 4k monitor?

[frlindla]

Yes, I meant the quick view panel:)

Take a look at the attached files. As you can see, the nef-file has a lot of black border and the photo is much smaller (uses less of the screen-space) than the cr2-file.

What I mean with "whole size" is that the photo uses the whole screen, not so much borders around.

See what I mean?

[Mario]

This looks like the installed WIC codec on your system was unable to process the NEF file and thus extracted only a thumbnail?
Is this an older NEF file or one you have just added to your database?

Try this:

Select the NEF file and press Shift+Ctrl+F5. Select the "Force Reload" option.
Does this produce a full-size preview in the Viewer and the Quick View Panel?

If not, run a WIC Diagnostics on the NEF file.
Save the resulting text to a file and attach this file to your reply,
This will show us if and which WIC coded is installed and it it can process the image.

Also show us your settings under Edit > Preferences > Cache.
Just press Alt+PrintScn when this dialog is open, paste the image from the clipboard into your image editor, save as a JPEG and attach to your reply.

This will tell us what's going on.

[frlindla]

These nef-files are added recently from my nikon z6.

Shift+ctrl+f5 didn`t solve the issue.

See the attached files. Can you see the png-file?

I have tried to open the nef-files in a different photo program and it works there.

[Mario]

None of the standard Windows WIC codecs installed on your system handles the NEF format produced by your camera.
Have you tried the WIC codec from Nikon? They still provide them, other than Canon or Olympus.

But IMatch falls back to using LibRaw and LibRaw can read the NEF at 6064x4040 pixel so this is what IMatch will be using.

Set the minimum cache size (minimal storrrlse) to at least 1920 pixel (this is the default. 640 was the default several years ago).

Please switch IMatch to Debug Logging via Help menu > Support.
Then select the NEF in a File Window and press Shift+Ctrl+F5. Use "Force Update".
Attach the IMatch log file (see log file) to your reply.

IMatch should see that the WIC codec does not handle the file and use LibRaw instead. This is the default behavior.

[jch2103]

It seems very unusual that Z6 NEF files aren't recognized in your system. No issues with them on my system; I've attach WIC diagnosis from my laptop system in case it's of any help here.

[frlindla]

I have tried to do like you said Mario. See the attatched logfile.

Seems like you have given me good support as usual Mario!

When I choose a nef-file now and enter shift+ctrl+f5 and then "force update", then the nef-file comes up as it should in the quick view panel.

I guess I have to choose all nef-files and force update for all these files?

[Mario]

Not sure if this is really working.
I see the following entry:

D:\BILDEARKIV\2020\Mars\2020-03-07-FLI_2328-000250.nef with 1620 x 1080

this looks like IMatch was only able to load the file with a very small preview?
By default, IMatch uses a minimal cache size (Edit > Preferences > Cache) or 1920 pixel. This means that in the case of the above NEF file, IMatch would consider the embedded preview as too small and would instead process the full RAW to get at least a 1920 pixel image.

Can you please run a WIC diagnosis on this file so we see how large the embedded preview and full-size RAW is?
Usually all modern NEF files have 100% size embedded previews (same size as the RAW).
The Z series makes many things different and I'm not sure if the built-in WIC codec in Windows handles all variants (there are several NEF variants from Z models already in use).

Maybe the latest set of WIC codecs from Microsoft do a better job:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/raw-image-extension/9nctdw2w1bh8?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

Or, download the official WIC codec from Nikon from the Nikon web site in you country.

[frlindla]

See the attached wic diagnostic file for this photo.

This photo displays right in the quick view panel.

What should I do next? Download the latest wic codec from nikon?

[Mario]

This looks the same as before.
The NEF WIC codec does not understand the file format and IMatch falls back to LibRaw. This is OK and works as designed.
Who knows if and when Microsoft will add support for yet another Nikon RAW format to their NEF codec. Nikon has produced too many already...
If the images are large enough in IMatch, good.