batch processing bug in Portfolio 8?

[rpasley]

I'm certainly no power user of Portfolio, but I'm helping someone who uses it and we've run into a problem.  He has a slew of slide and neg scans that were done at 4000ppi (the default for his Nikon scanner) that Portfolio turns into highly pixelated Preview images (evidently, the software scales Previews based on the output size, not the image size).  The simple fix is to batch convert these files to 300ppi using the built-in batch processor, but when this is done, the program takes the 1.5" x .9" images at 4000ppi and samples down to 72ppi, leaving us with a 400pixel x 280pixel image file, no matter how the conversion is configured.  BTW, we had done this successfully using batch converter in Portfolio7, but that's been replaced by 8, which I cannot get to work properly

I spoke to tech support and they suggested that the 5000+pixel image size might be too big, but I countered that that's not so big...it's just a stinkin' Nikon scanner.  Their suggested workaround was to do all the conversions from 4000ppi to 300ppi in PS! Thanks a lot, guys.

Has anyone else encountered any problems with the batch converter along these lines???  

RP

[johnbeardy]

You have hit a bug. Throughout the life of version 7, power users reported it formally and informally to Extensis and asked for it to change. Given the few changes that Extensis made with version 8, you've got to wonder what their programmers have been doing for 18 months....

If you're interested, the fault is essentially that their resizing calculation assumes the originals are at 72dpi. Now don't ask me the relvance of resolution when your program is just resizing images to fit into a given number of pixels. The proof is at http://www.portfoliofaq.com/pfaq/downloads/prevSizeCheck.htm.

As for a fix, I change my film scans' dpi to 300 in Photoshop. Maybe your problem is that you have left Resample Image ticked?

John

[MarkAnderson]

I believe Portfolio v8.1, now out for Mac and soon for Windows, fixes this issue. V8.1 is a free update for registered v8.0 users. I say 'believe' as without access to the OP's problem files to test myself I can't be definite, although discussion with Extensis implied one of the v8.1 fixes addresses this.

[MarkAnderson]

FWIW, the cause of the original bug wasn't as I'd surmised over the years.  It appears the person coding the preview routine was more woried about retaining the print size than worrying about the on-screen effect.  Given that the code was written back in the mid-90s, print output issues probably did seem the more relevant at the time.