On some of my projects I take a lot of shots - Like I was shooting an airshow on saturday and after that I imported about 4600 files into Aperture.
I am not sure whether it was because of this but I started having issues with Aperture hanging.
Two questions really:
1 using Nik plugins which convert the file to tiff and on average these are more than 100megs - does aperture display the tiff in the project or a jpeg of the tiff like it does with raw files.
2 Is there a max size for an aperture project? Do big projects slow the system down - is it better to break them into smaller projects?
Well, there’s no such thing as “4500 pics open at once”… I suppose by that you mean that there are 4500 photos in a single Project? Aperture doesn’t “open” any file; it draws it to screen and stores it in VRAM as you move through more images, until it needs more space for another photo and purges the oldest data.
However, in earlier version of Aperture I found that smaller projects were better. I have on old one that’s actually right around 4,500 photos and it’s a bit sluggish. Since then I started making a new project per day, and if you are shooting that much in a day, find a way to break it into events. But ultimately all that matters is your own experience. Does it feel like it’s slowing down? Then break it into multiple projects. If not, don’t worry about it.
@PhotoJoseph
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Ok thank you, that makes sense.
I was not that worried by my library size - although it’s already 175 gig but I know I can fix that by following the routines. I was wondering about project size. Does the fact that there are 4500 pics open at once make a difference.
Walter,
1. The image you see in Aperture, whether the original is RAW, TIF, or even JPEG, is not a JPEG file. It’s a real-time rendering of that file from the source (Original), with whatever Adjustments you’ve added, applied to the image you see on screen.
You can choose to have Aperture create JPEG file (the Previews), but even when they exist there’s only a stage of the drawing-to-screen process where you see that. (Their real purpose in life is to easily share the images with other applications). By the time the image is done drawing, you’re looking at the highest quality image possible. You can test this yourself by setting your Preview settings to the lowest size and quality, deleting and regenerating the preview for any image(s) you like, and looking at them in Aperture — they will still look their best. Yet if you drag that image to the Desktop and open it up, you’ll see the low quality, compressed JPEG that is the preview file.
2. No fixed max size, and every user has a different experience on what point they need, if ever, to go to a new Library. Overall speed shouldn’t be affected much by the size of your Library however, although switching between projects can be a bit slower if you have thousands instead of hundreds. But even then it should be minimal. If you’re seeing overall slowdowns, it’s more likely due to other issues. Check the FAQ for a series of routines you can run to clean things up a bit.
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks for your assistance - I am running short on internal system space running with 85 gig free 175 gig library. There re sill some of your recommendations to try. As I understand it now even if I delete all the jpg I will still see the adjusted image rendered on my browser. For some reason I thought what I saw we’re jpegs thanks for clearing that in my mind.
Joseph said :
Are you sure about this Joseph? I understood that Aperture built jpeg pyramids like PS and my good old chum LP.
Grant,
I don’t think so… if it did, you’d be seeing your adjustments applied to JPEGs and rendered repeatedly as you made changes. Think of dragging curves all over, and how the image changes dramatically. It’s all a realtime render.
There are various sizes of the preview, yes… thumbs are up to 1024, for example, and other sizes under that, but what you see on screen isn’t just the JPEG preview. If you enable preview mode, then you’ll just see the previews. Otherwise, it’s full quality.
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks Joseph. I am trying to isolate why my Aperture3 seems like it is on Valium and why it keeps on hanging and why sometimes I get the rainbow wheel when I am trying to edit. I have tons of RAM on my MacBook Pro. I have repaired the database and permissions. I thought it may be the size of the project - but it appears not.
I do have a project a day - I like your file naming convention ( but when I am shooting something like an airshow and I have jet fighters flying at pace I do tend to fire off a pile of shots)
My images are stored on a series of external hard drives
The next thing I will look at is the integration with Facebook and Flickr - I don’t know what I am doing - just trying to eliminate causes.
Walter,
Certainly you can experiment. Move 100 photos into a new project and see if that’s faster. Export the entire 4500 photo project as a new library, open that up on its own and see if things are better. Even try making a new user account and copying your test 4500 project-as-library there to see if its better. Also how much free space is on your internal (system) HD? Too-low space can have a big impact on speed.
@PhotoJoseph
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