Photo's retouch tool stops working after multiple touch ups on same photo

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Photo's retouch tool stops working after multiple touch ups on same photo

I have Ventura and iMac with lots of memory. I will start retouching a photo where there are many dust specks from scanning old negatives or slides. I can get about 30-40 retouches done and then no more will happen. The touch up starts to slow down where I will click touch up and about 3-4 seconds later it will stop. I can click a blemish but the blemish remains. Sometimes I will click "done" and come back to the photo later to continue and edit, retouch and the retouch tool doesn't work at all at that point. I run no other apps at the same time so it's not the memory or disk space. Is there a limitation with Photos Retouch Tool?

Posted on Nov 30, 2023 9:51 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

215,196 points

Nov 30, 2023 12:13 PM in response to alanfromthemoon

With 16GB of RAM I'm able to do over 70 retouches without an issue. Stopped at 70. I did notice that when I applied the retouch a white circle appeared and remained until I made the next retouch.

Where is your library located? If on an external drive how is the drive formatted and connected to your iMac?

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following;

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

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Answer 2

Dec 1, 2023 9:43 AM in response to alanfromthemoon

I had 200 GB available on a 1 TB drive, and I saw these slowdowns. Usually quitting and re-starting Photos didn't help too much, but re-booting did. I dumped another 300 GB, and Photos sped up considerably. Photos seems to be doing a lot of disk swapping of files. I'd say you should try relieving pressure on the hard drive storage-- way more than you'd think.

And oddly, when I removed 300 GB, it took maybe a day for that to show up on any of the "free space" indicators. At one point, after emptying the trash of 100 GB, my "free space" went down!

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

215,196 points

Dec 2, 2023 10:02 AM in response to alanfromthemoon

The 133,000 photos shouldn't be a problem but as a test export one of the scanned images as originals to the Desktop, create a new library and test the retouch tool there.

Additionally, if you get a EHD get one that is self powered. These from OWC (MacSales.com) are excellent drives for Time Machine: OWC Mercury Elite Pro.

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

215,196 points

Nov 30, 2023 2:06 PM in response to alanfromthemoon

Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint. Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Former Malware Distributor Kape Technologies Now Owns a Number of Public VPNs and a Collection of VPN “Review” Websites.

I'd uninstall the VPN app according to the developer's instructions. Then test to see if there's any change in performance.

Also give the Safe Mode a try.

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Answer 5

Dec 17, 2023 8:52 PM in response to Old Toad

In general I have found that if I wait a few seconds (about 10) after removing many dust spots the system "catches up" and I can continue to remove these. I tried Adobe Photoshop and there is no lag whatsoever and so I am not sure why this is happening. I have noticed from time to time it looks like the picture is "loading" with a white circle in the lower right like a clock filling up and once complete the picture is available to edit. But after many clicks the system slows down and I have to wait 5 seconds between clicks to catch up. Must be the way Photos' works. I'm not going to worry about it anymore. I will likely use photoshop which has no lag and then re-import the photos back to the system. Thanks all for the help.

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Answer 6

Nov 30, 2023 1:35 PM in response to Old Toad

I have 128GB of RAM, and the hard drive is the one that came with the compute (solid state, 2TB). there is 270 GB of space left on the drive. Yes, after a lot of retouches I get the white circle.. then I slow down and that seems to fix that. Since these are dust specks on the photo I guess I am doing over 200 fixes per photo. I also notice if I click "done" then I can never restart by editing the photo again and get rid of more spots. Must be a start once and finish. Did the whole safe mode and that did not help. I have no cleaning, optimizing or speed up or anti-virus. I do have a VPN but only turn that on occasionally. Thoughts?

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Answer 7

léonie

Level 10

200,513 points

Dec 2, 2023 1:07 AM in response to alanfromthemoon

" I'm looking about for an automatic scratch/spot remover. I see a lot advertised but don't know anyone that has used them. "

I am quite satisfied with the dust spot removal in Luminar Neo. it is working quite well on my scanned slides. But it might be a bit over the top to buy a complete image editor just to get the dust spot removal.

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Answer 8

Dec 1, 2023 5:04 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Thanks - I have 256 GB free of a 2TB solid state drive. I dumped all the videos I had and freed up about 40GB. Didn't help. After about 100 touch ups the cursor allows one to select the spot but nothing happens. It does slow down before the total failure. Hmmm. I do have 133,000 pictures in Photos. Wonder if there is an upper limit on that I don't know about. I'm looking about for an automatic scratch/spot remover. I see a lot advertised but don't know anyone that has used them. I did have a lot of photos professionally scanned (negatives and slides) and they sent me a few "if you pay to retouch it will look like this" which was awesome by prohibitively expensive. I suspect they use an automatic software, don't know which one. My next stop is to off load a LOT of info onto a temporary drive and then see what happens. Very frustrating. I see nothing in any of the Apple manuals/instructions/etc that this is a problem.

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Photo's retouch tool stops working after multiple touch ups on same photo

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