Hi,
Great site. Thanks.
I occasionally edit large format TIFF scans (11348 × 8982 (101.9 MP)) in Aperture 3 (currently 3.2.1). I do just basic color adjustments, sharpening, and retouching. My only problem is how slow these images are “loading” in Aperture - like 20 mins or more.
My setup is: 2010 Macbook pro 15”, 2.4ghz i5, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA Geforce GT 330M. All photos are referenced on an external Firewire 800 2.5” drive. Aperture library is 40GB on my internal HD, in it's own 150GB partition.
I've had this issue for a while, through many versions of Aperture 3 and can't figure out why. When Aperture is stuck “loading”, Aperture is taking up 100% (out of 4 cores) CPU, 2.2GB RAM, and is barely using the hard drive. I don't think it's a disk speed issue and I have about 2.6GB RAM available. Any idea how I can speed things up?
Would using a format other than TIFF help?
Thanks in advance.
Jason
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for the reply. I would say Aperture update 3.2.1 takes a lot longer to load (in fact, so long, I just quit) which could be a bug, as Ap 3.2 wasn’t this bad. Overall though, it’s slow relative to opening the same image in PS CS5.
Why does it just take seconds to open the same TIFF file in Photoshop but takes minutes in Aperture? I don’t understand what Aperture is doing when you load the full resolution image.
Hm, perhaps it was a little overkill to scan the 4x5” film to that resolution but I was archiving the photos for the future. My video card has 256mb VRAM.
From what I remember when using Ap 3.2, adjustments were tolerable and only had a slight lag when adjusting. Felt normal. The longest wait is just when I try to view my image at full resolution, 100% zoom.
I know the problem isn’t my library because I created a new library with just the one 11k photo and it still took a long time to load.
Regards,
Jason
Jason,
It definitely could be a bug then, if you’re seeing a big difference between Aperture 3.2 and 3.2.1.
As far as why it’s faster in Photoshop, PS works in a very different way. The adjustments in Aperture are all GPU based, which ideally allows adjustments to be applied in realtime as you move the sliders (at least that’s the idea; understood that on some super large files, like yours, this may not happen). For that to be actually realtime, you do need to have the whole image loaded into VRAM. Your system, with 256MB, is definitely low for that sort of thing. Most cards are 512 in higher end systems, or even 1Gb on the latest Macs.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Hi Jason,
My first question is if this used to be faster… the way I read your message, it sounded like it used to be quicker than this?
100+megapixel is one seriously huge file. Most high-end dSLRs are in the 20Mp range, so you’re definitely pushing things.
Also your setup may not be an ideal Aperture machine. You have the i5 processor, where the i7 is more designed for higher-end work, and while I’m not sure which graphics card your 330M is, odds are if it’s paired with the i5, it’s the lower end graphics card. Aperture relies heavily on VRAM, and that card may be lacking—especially for opening files that huge! It’s probably having to do a lot of disk swapping to load that file.
Once it’s loaded, can you make your adjustments with ease, or do you have to wait over and over again for it to load?
I’m about to get on a plane so can’t test your file on my iMac, but if you want to post one of these behemoth files somewhere for ApertureExpert readers to download, someone else here may be willing to try it on their system and clock the load time.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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