Aperture is very slow with Snow Leopard

Every time there is any kind of update to OS and even without it, Aperture disappoints. Professionals should not have to find "work arounds" constantly. Who out there has time for that every few weeks. This is a program that everyone wanted to work flawlessly. It never has, and I don't think ever will. I think we (myself included) have been yanked about by Apple on this one. Not wanting to admit to ourselves and others that something is fundamentally wrong in the code of this application. I have been trudging along with Apple on this since its introduction, but I've finally had it. Until they can re-build/re-code it looks as though Photoshop regains another photographer. Sad really, but maybe if Apple put as much money into developing this as they did in promoting it, we all might have a program that lives up to Apples usual quality standards.

Guys remember that people come here to look for solutions to problems so what you are seeing is weighted towards negative experience.

I am running what would be considered a high spec machine, 10.5.8 and 2.1.4, I have 70k + images in my managed production library, 80% Canon RAW, remainder jpegs, images are stored on an external 1.5TB RAID, the Mac is a 2x 3GHz Quad Core, 5GB RAM, dual monitors off an ATY RadeonX1900.

Very occasionally I may get slow performance, but given I am working with a 21MP file from the 5D MKII, I accept that. Usually I am doing something stupid like stamping 100+ images with a half dozen adjustments. I think if I was trying to do this on a lesser machine I would be very frustrated, but if that is the case I should accept that I am asking quite a lot from my machine.

I have not upgraded my OS as this is a production machine and until I know for certain that all bugs are ironed out I will continue with a working system, I can not afford to have my production machine being used as a test bed.

I know that many of you who are having problems do not need to hear this now, but unless you are the sort who is prepared to do trouble shooting, read the manuals, do clean installs etc, next time hesitate and watch these forums to see what people are experiencing prior to doing an upgrade.

In the meantime ensure that you who are "testing" the new OS AP combination for me report your issues to Apple via the feedback pages.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

My experience with Aperture from the start has been very positive and sorry but many of the issues arise from not reading the manual, be it the AP, OS, or other device/software installed on the system.

Tony
(Rant finished, ducks his head expecting to cop flack over this one).

I fully concur. When possible, working pros should stick with existing working systems rather than jump on each latest OS or Aperture upgrade.

Aperture's speed is fine, but I can verify the post about deselecting black point compensation getting rid of a severe magenta color cast when printing. How weird is that? I hope Apple fixes this one at some point....

While I agree for the most part, it is not unreasonable to expect Apple to make an OS upgrade compatible with their professional software, nor is it unreasonable to expect their professional software upgrades to be compatible with their machine configurations. After all, they DEMAND through their EULA that their OS's be installed on their machines. What good is that if they haven't worked out the bugs in each release? I thought the benefits of owning an Apple were such things as good customer service, software/hardware integration and reliability.

It is not unreasonable to expect more from Apple than a competitor's product because Apple controls the entire chain...from hardware to software to the drivers that mate them. If Apple writes the graphics drivers, the professional software and the OS, then the blame lies squarely with Apple for any inconsistencies, incongruities or shortcomings between the three.

That's my take, and I'm sticking with it since it is the reason most people choose to spend the $ for an Apple computer and software in the first place.

Call me cranky, call me unrealistic but do not call me a dreamer for having higher expectations to go along with what I consider a higher but fair price for Apple products.

I also am having problems with Aperture and SL and any excuses about it being external drives is crap because i am working with files on my computer. Also whilst it is true that leaving cropping etc till last helped in the past this is not the issue either. I really want to use Aperture but this current situation is a joke, the programme has always been a resource hog and hardly speedy, but as it stands now I am thinking about switching to lightroom, what are peoples experiences of doing this re: importing images, adjustments etc? Is it doable with out too much grief?

leex wrote:
but as it stands now I am thinking about switching to lightroom, what are peoples experiences of doing this re: importing images, adjustments etc? Is it doable with out too much grief?

You can import the images just fine and, if you tell Aperture to export XMP files along with the RAWs, you can import metadata. But no image adjustments will import.

A way to set things up is to have Aperture referencing files and then let Lightroom reference them from the same place so you don't have to duplicate your whole image library, if you don't want to.

Bob

It seems Apple posted some updates today to Snow Leopard, included printer driver updates. I was really hoping that by installing the latest HP drivers it would sort out this painful problem of printing from Aperture. The dialog box responds to adjustments SO slowly it makes it almost impossible to print anything!

Snow Leopard is feeling like a very untidy OS release.

C'mon Apple, fix the Aperture problems! It's horribly slow on SL.

Please??

Philip:
Noticed your tag says you're still on 10.6.1 - is that correct?
Just mentioning it because 10.6.2 fixed my printing problems with Epson. Might be worth a shot if you haven't jumped in yet.

Noticed your tag says you're still on 10.6.1

Ok... so does mine. Need to fix that 😉

oops, forgot about that, profile updated to show 10.6.2, but unfortunately the 10.6.2 update did not fix the problems.

I wonder if this is Apple/Snow Leopard/Aperture related or whether the blame should be on HP and the drivers they provide?

I really wish I could see the back of this problem, every time I have to go into Aperture, there's an audible groan!

Anyone else using HP printers? Mine is a HP C6380 Photosmart.

You should not expect Aperture to work flawlessly whithout clean Snow Leopard install. I've upgraded my MP(3rd edition), and had tons of problems with pro suites. I decided to do clean install onto new disk, and use Time Machine to restore account, files, and all apps. All problems disappeared. However, 2 days ago I've updated to 10.6.2 (Pro Apps update was included), and noticed Aperture slowing down when bringing up menus related to source of master versions. That brings some questions to apple development team... I keep all masters on iScsi storage, which outperforms local drives (raptors), and i know for sure it was online. I've tried reboot, but still same issue. After running benchmark on iscsi it came out working properly. I'm going to rebuild the library again, and see if that helps...
Anyways, this problem is not that big of a deal. I move masters only when creating new projects, and this 30s delay is acceptable.
My library contains about 50k raw pics, and is working flawlessly when making pic adjustments. That proves things do work, but it all depends on individual setups. I strongly suggest clean install of SL.

This is overkill, as advice goes, and is simply not true. Doing a complete format and install is not going to give you appreciably better performance with Aperture over the standard install (which behaves like the 10.5 "archive and install" option).

Given the complexity of your environment, it could be related to iSCSI which is not supported by the OS itself. Something could be affecting you specific to your drivers, which would not affect the rest of the user base (iSCSI use is quite rare on OS X, and I can't see how it would be faster than a local Raptor drive as it has a theoretical maximum of 1 Gbps throughput, which is less than the 100+ MBps an internal drive can offer… I have 2 drives mirrored and can read > 110 MBps in that setup).

When I moved to Snow Leopard I did a clean install onto a freshly partitioned drive. So I'm not sure formatting and re-installing SL will solve the awful slow-down in Aperture.

I'm almost tempted to go back to plain old Leopard for it's stability and relatively bug-free Aperture operation. But this isn't a solution, it's a compromise.

I don't think Apple is taking this issue seriously enough. It is not just confined to a few individuals. If it weren't for Aperture I'd be abandoning Mac and heading back to Windows, seriously.

SL in general does not feel as stable as Leopard and it's claims of being faster and more efficient appears unfounded. Perhaps that's what you get for being an early adopter.

As a test I renamed my original Aperture library and created a fresh one in the hope that this might improve things. Unfortunately there was no improvement. I imported a single image into the new library and immediately noticed the slow down in Aperture. Printing was as usual, treacle slow.