Preview app applies an automatic enhancement to each image when viewed

[jm31828]

I just upgraded my 2017 27" iMac to Ventura this week, and am noticing an oddity that I don't really care for.
When I insert a memory card from my camera that has a few RAW images on it, and open them with the Preview app to scroll through to get an idea of what I have as I've always done for many years- I am noticing that now as I scroll through these images, each one pops on the screen and then changes, looking worse like it is somehow being overly processed somehow (you see the image as-is appearing, and then it flickers a second later to an enhanced version of the image).
Has anyone else noticed this? And more importantly, is there a way to turn off that enhancement that is happening?

Thanks!

 

[ignatius345]

I don't think so. What happens if you highlight the image in the Finder and hit space bar to get a Quick Look window? Does it do the same thing?

If not, selecting a bunch of images at once and hitting space bar will give you a quick contact sheet type view that might be useful for what you're doing.

 

[jm31828]

I don't think so. What happens if you highlight the image in the Finder and hit space bar to get a Quick Look window? Does it do the same thing?

If not, selecting a bunch of images at once and hitting space bar will give you a quick contact sheet type view that might be useful for what you're doing.

I just gave that a try, and interestingly it does the same thing. With each image, when its contact sheet comes up, the original image is there, then it appears to refresh- taking a split second and the image changes a bit, as if MacOS is somehow trying to apply automatic improvements to the image. The same thing I was seeing in Preview.

It's odd as that never happened on the previous OS versions I had on this machine.

It's not a huge deal, as I use this view really just to see which images I feel were somewhat decent and worthy of diving in and editing in my Luminar AI app- but it's just rather annoying.

Thanks for the advice, though- I was not aware of this contact card method, and I will definitely do it this way going forward.

Edit:
I went through a few more of these, and it is interesting- it doesn't do this on every RAW image, but most of them. And when I went through my processed JPG images, it doesn't do anything to those.... so I have to assume it's just some added complexity added to how it previews RAW images given that they do have to be rendered and processed somehow to see anything in the Preview- and I will just ignore it at this point.

 

[ignatius345]

I went through a few more of these, and it is interesting- it doesn't do this on every RAW image, but most of them.

Weird. I wonder what triggers it. I've seen that over-sharpening as well, and it's pretty nasty, even if it is leaving the original file untouched.

 

[jm31828]

Weird. I wonder what triggers it. I've seen that over-sharpening as well, and it's pretty nasty, even if it is leaving the original file untouched.

Ah, I'm glad you've seen it as well and I'm not just losing my mind. lol
Yeah, I am glad it's leaving the original file untouched- that is indeed the most important thing.