Slow working with 16 bit TIFFS

[pwp]

I'm running the most up to date version (PM 4.6.6) on a new, Win7-64, quad core, 8Gb PC. It's a bright and shiney performer built with premium components, optimized for Photoshop/Lightroom.  Speed and a high degree of functionality is important as I handle a high volume of 16 bit files most days. A couple of weeks ago I bought a fresh licence for Photomechanic after a number of years with Breezebrowser Pro.

Today I'm working through a folder of 280 16 bit TIFFS and every step, command, refresh etc lags a quite a few seconds slower than the expected "almost instant" response. Loading a folder of TIFFS into contact sheet is glacial. Sometimes this radical performance hit happens, sometimes it doesn't. Unwelcome restarts don't seem to help. There is only one contact sheet tab open at a time. "Sort by Filename" is checked. Non essential programs are shut down to aid performance. I'm out of ideas. All other programs absolutely rip on this machine.

Several years ago I used Photomechanic, loved the functionality but couldn't cope with how slow it was. So I reverted back to the less functional but supremely fast BreezebrowserPro. I've always valued Photomechanic's sensibilities, values and particularly the strong community. So three or four very meaningful computer upgrades later, it was time to try again. Surely 2011 processing power would just have to punch past the previous laggy behavior, but frustratingly it seems not to be the case.

This erratic slowness has me bewildered. Is Photomechanic best suited to Macs rather than PC's? I hear constant reference to how speedy Photomechanic is but this has not been my experience. I really want to stay with PM because it does everything else so well.

Help!

With thanks,

Paul Wright

[Kirk Baker]

Paul,

I'm running the most up to date version (PM 4.6.6) on a new, Win7-64, quad core, 8Gb PC. It's a bright and shiney performer built with premium components, optimized for Photoshop/Lightroom.  Speed and a high degree of functionality is important as I handle a high volume of 16 bit files most days. A couple of weeks ago I bought a fresh licence for Photomechanic after a number of years with Breezebrowser Pro.

Today I'm working through a folder of 280 16 bit TIFFS and every step, command, refresh etc lags a quite a few seconds slower than the expected "almost instant" response. Loading a folder of TIFFS into contact sheet is glacial. Sometimes this radical performance hit happens, sometimes it doesn't. Unwelcome restarts don't seem to help. There is only one contact sheet tab open at a time. "Sort by Filename" is checked. Non essential programs are shut down to aid performance. I'm out of ideas. All other programs absolutely rip on this machine.

Several years ago I used Photomechanic, loved the functionality but couldn't cope with how slow it was. So I reverted back to the less functional but supremely fast BreezebrowserPro. I've always valued Photomechanic's sensibilities, values and particularly the strong community. So three or four very meaningful computer upgrades later, it was time to try again. Surely 2011 processing power would just have to punch past the previous laggy behavior, but frustratingly it seems not to be the case.

This erratic slowness has me bewildered. Is Photomechanic best suited to Macs rather than PC's? I hear constant reference to how speedy Photomechanic is but this has not been my experience. I really want to stay with PM because it does everything else so well.

The speed of loading TIFFs is limited by the facts that they're large (disk size) and don't have JPEG previews in them.  The entire image has to be loaded, decoded, and scaled to size.  How large are your TIFFs?  Are they compressed or uncompressed?

There is no appreciable difference in speed on PCs vs Macs.  The same code is used on both platforms to load and scale TIFFs, JPEGs, PNGs, etc.

If you use Breezebrowser Pro on this same set of images (after a fresh start so the system's disk cache isn't helping out unfairly) does it render them lightning fast?

What are your Caching preferences in PM?  Feel free to post a JPEG screenshot of the Caching tab of your Photo Mechanic Preferences dialog.  Use the 'Additional Options...' link when you're composing your reply to this message and there you'll be able to upload your JPEG format screenshot.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[pwp]

Hi Kirk,

Thanks for the speedy response. Much appreciated.

The uncompressed 16 bit TIFFS are from Canon 1DMk4, 91.5Mb. Photoshop CS5 uses 75% of available RAM (total 8Gb). PM "Generate High Quality Thumbnails" is checked. Thumbnail size is slightly bigger than default.
I just timed PM taking 5 seconds to respond to a Tag (T) command in a folder of around 250 TIFFS. I've just worked through a folder of just 16 TIFFS and PM functions were instant. It looks like PM chokes on big folders of TIFFS, even after it's been open in Contact Sheet for +20 minutes.
My experience with Breezebrowser Pro is that it hardly blinks if I throw a folder of several hundred TIFF files at it. Rendering, commands as basic as Tag, Rename are done in Olympic qualifying time. I expect PM will match this when properly configured.

Here's a screenshot of the PM cache prefs.

Cheers, Paul

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[Kirk Baker]

Paul,

The uncompressed 16 bit TIFFS are from Canon 1DMk4, 91.5Mb. Photoshop CS5 uses 75% of available RAM (total 8Gb). PM "Generate High Quality Thumbnails" is checked. Thumbnail size is slightly bigger than default.
I just timed PM taking 5 seconds to respond to a Tag (T) command in a folder of around 250 TIFFS.

Were you tagging one photo, or all 250 of them?

I've just worked through a folder of just 16 TIFFS and PM functions were instant. It looks like PM chokes on big folders of TIFFS, even after it's been open in Contact Sheet for +20 minutes.

This is likely because your system's disk cache has nearly all of the data for each file still in memory.

My experience with Breezebrowser Pro is that it hardly blinks if I throw a folder of several hundred TIFF files at it. Rendering, commands as basic as Tag, Rename are done in Olympic qualifying time. I expect PM will match this when properly configured.

How long does BBPro take to set IPTC data on several hundred of these large files?  I don't mean just tagging, but setting an IPTC caption.

Rename should be fast on PM as long as you're either not using variables, or if you're using variables and PM has had time to get metadata (EXIF, IPTC, XMP) from the files prior to the rename command.
Tagging should be fast on PM as long as you haven't told PM to put 'soft edits' in IPTC/XMP for all files.  In that case, PM just has to update the end of the file.  If on the other hand you've told PM you do want soft edits written to IPTC/XMP for all files, then PM has to modify/embed metadata into the middle of the file.  This takes much longer as the file needs to be expanded in the middle of the file.  Many megabytes need to be moved so that new space is created.  This same process is done when any of the soft edits are made with this preference set (tagging, rating, color class, and cropping).  Once this expansion is done, further updates shouldn't take as long.

Here's a screenshot of the PM cache prefs.

I'd definitely set your Disk Cache to something larger like 1024 or 2048 MB.  And as far as Photoshop goes, does it really need 6GB of your RAM?  That doesn't leave much room for your OS or other apps.  I think 50% should be quite adequate for Photoshop's needs on your system (8 GB of RAM).

-Kirk

[pwp]

Hi Kirk,

I'm tagging single images to identify files that have been run through Photoshop.

<Tagging should be fast on PM as long as you haven't told PM to put 'soft edits' in IPTC/XMP for all files>

I'm not clear on what is meant here. I can't find any reference to this in the full length user guide. I've attached a screenshot of my IPTC/XMP prefs.

Also, I've attached a screenshot of my custom Info Text. Does too much data here slow things down?

BBPro and PM each took 6 seconds to set IPTC data on a folder of 798 Canon 1DMkIV .CR2 files.

I've adjusted PS CS5 down to 55% and upped PM Disk Cache to 2048.

Thanks for this Kirk, hopefully we'll be running fast and smooth by today.

Cheers, Paul Wright





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[Kirk Baker]

Paul,

I'm tagging single images to identify files that have been run through Photoshop.

<Tagging should be fast on PM as long as you haven't told PM to put 'soft edits' in IPTC/XMP for all files>

I'm not clear on what is meant here. I can't find any reference to this in the full length user guide. I've attached a screenshot of my IPTC/XMP prefs.

In the Files tab of the Preferences dialog there is a setting for putting soft edits (tag, rating, color class, etc.) in IPTC/XMP.

Also, I've attached a screenshot of my custom Info Text. Does too much data here slow things down?

No, and you certainly don't have what I would consider to be a large amount of variables in your Info Text.

BBPro and PM each took 6 seconds to set IPTC data on a folder of 798 Canon 1DMkIV .CR2 files.

CR2 files should be fast.  It's the TIFF files that I would want timing information on.

I've adjusted PS CS5 down to 55% and upped PM Disk Cache to 2048.

Thanks for this Kirk, hopefully we'll be running fast and smooth by today.

While I'm hopeful, I don't know if that will happen.

-Kirk

[pwp]

Kirk,

In the Files tab of the Preferences dialog there is a setting for putting soft edits (tag, rating, color class, etc.) in IPTC/XMP.

So do you suggest this setting (see screenshot) should be set to Never or Only When Updating? The default looks like it's Always for All Photos.

Working with a folder of 260 TIFFS PM took 17 seconds to set IPTC data. BBPro took 5 seconds.

Cheers, Paul

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[Kirk Baker]

Paul,

In the Files tab of the Preferences dialog there is a setting for putting soft edits (tag, rating, color class, etc.) in IPTC/XMP.

So do you suggest this setting (see screenshot) should be set to Never or Only When Updating? The default looks like it's Always for All Photos.

Working with a folder of 260 TIFFS PM took 17 seconds to set IPTC data. BBPro took 5 seconds.

Everything has tradeoffs.  If you set it to Never, then you should get the best performance, but if you edit the image in other apps like Photoshop, your soft edits will be lost.  If you set it to Only When Updating, then your soft edits will be retained as long as you update the IPTC/XMP data at some point before you edit the image outside of PM.

It's up to you and your needs.

-Kirk

[pwp]

Kirk, you're the best. I'll call home when I've got clearer, real time, real work,  performance reports.

Cheers, Paul