Speeding up viewing large folders of JPEGs ?

[Henry Gilbey]

Please excuse this question if it's as dumb as I have a horrible feeling it might be, but when I am using Photo Mechanic as a pure "image viewer" for example to sort and choose any number of processed JPEGs to go off to my clients, is there way to significantly speed up the "rendering" (not sure of the right word) of the images ? I either have to walk away from my PC as PM "renders" the folder, and even then it's guesswork for me when this might be completed, or otherwise I access the folder's images immediately and the programme really struggles.

RAW files aside completely, I tend to store my processed images (JPEGs mainly) in various folders - and most of these folders remain in place with the same name for ever. But i often need to go back through them to grab images. So is there a way like I think Adobe Bridge does where PM might insert some kind of "thing" in the folder that means the folder's images are not having to be "rendered" by PM every single different time I want to go through it ? I think it's called "Bridge cache" or something in Bridge itself, from memory though as I use PM all the time for this kind of thing. Just want to speed things up.

If such a "thing" exists, I accept that the first time I go back to one of these folders and PM is going to have to go through "rendering" my JPEGs, but it could really make like a whole lot easier for me in the long run.

My thanks for all help in advance.

[Kirk Baker]

Henry,

Please excuse this question if it's as dumb as I have a horrible feeling it might be, but when I am using Photo Mechanic as a pure "image viewer" for example to sort and choose any number of processed JPEGs to go off to my clients, is there way to significantly speed up the "rendering" (not sure of the right word) of the images ? I either have to walk away from my PC as PM "renders" the folder, and even then it's guesswork for me when this might be completed, or otherwise I access the folder's images immediately and the programme really struggles.

RAW files aside completely, I tend to store my processed images (JPEGs mainly) in various folders - and most of these folders remain in place with the same name for ever. But i often need to go back through them to grab images. So is there a way like I think Adobe Bridge does where PM might insert some kind of "thing" in the folder that means the folder's images are not having to be "rendered" by PM every single different time I want to go through it ? I think it's called "Bridge cache" or something in Bridge itself, from memory though as I use PM all the time for this kind of thing. Just want to speed things up.

If such a "thing" exists, I accept that the first time I go back to one of these folders and PM is going to have to go through "rendering" my JPEGs, but it could really make like a whole lot easier for me in the long run.

My thanks for all help in advance.

The main thing you can do is adjust your Caching settings in Photo Mechanic to allow it to utilize more of your computer's resources.  What are your current Caching settings for Photo Mechanic?  (Edit->Preferences->Caching tab)

The second thing that can dramatically affect speed is the Sort type you have set by default.  Filename sorting is the fastest, Modification Time is second fastest, and all of the other Sort methods are much slower.  What is your default Sort type?  (Edit->Preferences->Contact Sheet)

-Kirk

[Henry Gilbey]

Kirk - thanks so much for the reply. My default sort is always set to "Filename", and I have increased the Cache settings - what are the max I can set them to.

So what happens now ?

In a perfect world I would like to be able to keep the Cached settings for all my processed JPEGs that I come back to again and again to pick and choose and send to clients..................I don't want them removed as I want that "speed" when I do this. Hugely important to me not to have to wait around while a huge amount of JPEGs have to keep "rendering" time and time again.

But for all the photo shoots that I process from RAW through to JPEG and the various steps in between, I don't want them Cached long term, only the completed JPEGs stored on my hard drive (as above) - if I don't clear the Cache of these shoots, surely this will build up over time to a vast Cache that becomes unviable ?

So how would I clear the Cache of all that mess, but keep the Cahce info for all my processed JPEGs ? Is there an easy way or am I barking up the wrong tree completely ?

Thanks so much.

[Kirk Baker]

Henry,

Kirk - thanks so much for the reply. My default sort is always set to "Filename", and I have increased the Cache settings - what are the max I can set them to.

That's a hard question to answer without knowing how much RAM you have installed on your system and how much RAM you need to dedicate to other applications like Photoshop.  Don't set the Memory cache any higher than 1024.  I also don't recommend setting the Disk cache higher than 1024 either.

In a perfect world I would like to be able to keep the Cached settings for all my processed JPEGs that I come back to again and again to pick and choose and send to clients..................I don't want them removed as I want that "speed" when I do this. Hugely important to me not to have to wait around while a huge amount of JPEGs have to keep "rendering" time and time again.

But for all the photo shoots that I process from RAW through to JPEG and the various steps in between, I don't want them Cached long term, only the completed JPEGs stored on my hard drive (as above) - if I don't clear the Cache of these shoots, surely this will build up over time to a vast Cache that becomes unviable ?

So how would I clear the Cache of all that mess, but keep the Cahce info for all my processed JPEGs ? Is there an easy way or am I barking up the wrong tree completely ?

It's not possible to keep some and delete others in a defined manner like you described.

How many images do you have in a given folder?  I can open up a folder of thousands of images and use PM for most any need before the images completely load.  You don't have to wait until all images load in order to work with them.

What are the specs on your computer?  How many CPUs?  How fast are they?  How much RAM do you have?  What size are the images (width and height)?

-Kirk