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Some Images Appear Small - Half of Original Size

Hi,


I have a retina MacBook pro running Mavericks (10.9.5) and iPhoto 9.5.1


It appears that some of the images in my iPhoto library are only appearing at half the size of the original file (found by selecting "reveal in finder" from the menu). So if the original file is 830px wide, it will load in iPhoto as 415px wide.


This only seems to happen for small images. Even if I copy the original file from Finder to another location and attempt to import it again, it will still appear small (in center of screen and surrounded by black) when viewing in iPhoto.


Rebuilding my library and changing the display resolution do nothing.


Is this some sort of built-in feature to maintain a higher resolution? If so is there any way to disable it?


Or any other ideas?


Thanks.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Feb 27, 2015 2:53 PM

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7 replies

Feb 27, 2015 3:07 PM in response to Nikolas73

Even if I copy the original file from Finder to another location and attempt to import it again,

Have you verified the pixel dimensions of the original file at that other location before importing again? You can use Preview to do that. What are they?


iPhoto does a byte by byte copy of an image file when it imports a photo into the library so the imported file must have the smaller pixel dimensions to start with.

User uploaded file

Feb 27, 2015 3:25 PM in response to Old Toad


iPhoto does a byte by byte copy of an image file when it imports a photo into the library so the imported file must have the smaller pixel dimensions to start with.

So I thought. But when I click File > Reveal in Finder > Original File the Finder sidebar shows the image dimensions as 832 x 624. But if I take a screenshot of iPhoto with the image selected, it is 416 x 312.


If I attempt to re-import the same original file, 832 x 624, the image still only displays at half of the original size.


Something else bizarre I just noticed - if I take a 416 x 312 screenshot of the image in the iPhoto window, then open the image in Preview, the saved screenshot has the correct (larger) dimensions! 😮


Also, if I try to crop the image in Iphoto, it lists 832 x 624 as the "original" size. Not changing anything and clicking "Done" will cause the image to quickly stretch to full size and then redisplay as half-sized...

Feb 27, 2015 4:29 PM in response to Old Toad

When viewing the photo in iPhoto how is the slider at the bottom left had corner of the window set?


As a test launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and create a new, test library. Import some photos and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it?

AH can't believe I didn't even notice the slider before. It is set all the way to the left. If I move it all the way to the right, then the size appears correct, filling the screen. And yet it resets to the left every time I switch between images.


I think in the last version of iPhoto I used (iLife 11?) the image size/zoom would automatically fit the iPhoto window. Is there a way to toggle this?


Same behaviour occurs in a test library, across multiple user accounts.

Feb 27, 2015 4:45 PM in response to Old Toad

Interesting. I don't know why this behaviour was implemented or at least made optional - I can't find any way to disable it. If the images have small dimensions then why not display them at their full size rather than making them appear even smaller? Was working just fine in the last version of iPhoto.


Oh well, thanks for your help!

Feb 27, 2015 5:21 PM in response to Nikolas73

Are you sure they are displayed at their full pixel dimensions. Earlier versions of iPhoto would scale up smaller image sizes to fill the window causing them to get fuzzy or pixelated. Now they are displayed at their pixel dimension by default like this 200 x 200 pixel image:

User uploaded file


It's not scaled up to fill the screen. This image is big enough to fill the screen, 1600 x 1200:

User uploaded file


In both cases the slider is in the far left position, smallest.

Some Images Appear Small - Half of Original Size

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