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Any experiences with editing 50+ MB files.

Hi,


I'm thinking about getting a new camera later this year which outputs file sizes of 50-100 MB. This would mean that I also have to upgrade my Mac since I feel that my 2008 C2D (8MB ram and SSD) has reached it's limit at 25MB (16 MP) raw files.


Does anyone have experience with such large files? What Mac do you use and what would you recommend in terms of performance? I'd love to have a MacBook Air but it might not be powerful enough. Not sure about that. How big is the practical difference in performance between the MBA, MBP, Mini, iMac?


Thanks for any advice...


p.

MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008), OS X Mavericks (10.9), 8 GB, 1TB HDD + 256 GB SSD

Posted on Apr 17, 2014 3:31 PM

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Posted on Apr 17, 2014 3:48 PM

Not sure what camera you might be thinking of with files that size, unless having the camera save images as TIFF?


I shoot a Nikon D800, which probably has the biggest RAW file (about 50 MB) of any DSLR. I have tested with images from a Hassy that are bigger.


I believe such image can really overload a lot of Macs. I sam some issues while still using my old Mac Pro, which could update no farther than Lion.


My rMBP did better, with it 16 GB of RAM, and having the managed Library on a TBolt drive, did much better.


My new Mac Pro, with 32 GB of RAM and two graphics cards does the best of all I have tested with the RAW files from my D800.


Whatever, you need to be ready with a good storage strategiy a good graphic card or cards and lots of RAM.


Ernie

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Apr 17, 2014 3:48 PM in response to papalapapp

Not sure what camera you might be thinking of with files that size, unless having the camera save images as TIFF?


I shoot a Nikon D800, which probably has the biggest RAW file (about 50 MB) of any DSLR. I have tested with images from a Hassy that are bigger.


I believe such image can really overload a lot of Macs. I sam some issues while still using my old Mac Pro, which could update no farther than Lion.


My rMBP did better, with it 16 GB of RAM, and having the managed Library on a TBolt drive, did much better.


My new Mac Pro, with 32 GB of RAM and two graphics cards does the best of all I have tested with the RAW files from my D800.


Whatever, you need to be ready with a good storage strategiy a good graphic card or cards and lots of RAM.


Ernie

Apr 17, 2014 4:14 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

My experience is much less, but fits in with Ernie's perfectly. I have worked with Phase One files (c. 10,000 x 8.000 px, not RAW) on my early-2013 rMBP w. 16 GB RAM and a 500 GB SSD, as well as with very large pictures stitched from multiple camera files (many c. 20,000 x 20,000 px, also not RAW). This works OK -- for occasional use. Were I too spend all my time in Aperture working on these files, I would purchase whatever Mac Pro Ernie recommends.


My standard files are 24 MP/25 MB. I don't need a faster machine to process them in Aperture.

Apr 18, 2014 2:27 AM in response to papalapapp

Thanks both of you, this gives me some orientation. I'm thinking about the Pentax 645z, and what I read so far is the raw file size is ~75 MB at 51 MP.


It seems to be a bigger challenge than I thought. I think I'll have to investigate in how much a difference the graphics card makes in photo editing (iris vs. iris pro vs. HD 4000 vs. geforce 750).

Apr 18, 2014 5:34 AM in response to papalapapp

As Kirby hinted, it is the repetition of adjusting many images than might lead to trouble on some Macs. Singleton images will probably get handled on a wide variety of Macs. With this medium format camera -- looks really interesting as I had recently read a review of it -- you may not shoot images in the 100s as is more typical with a DSLR. But a fashion shoot, might get there?


Of course, the 645z is not yet on the list of supported camera RAWs, but I suspect it will be added pretty quickly after it becomes readily available.


More important might be storage. I would not recommend having the library on the computer, but rather on an external like a Thunderbolt drive. My alpha library consumes over 2.5 TB. I was already using TBolt drives with my rMBP as I waited for the new Mac Pro. When it came, I simply plugged them into it, and continued on seamlessly.


Ernie

Apr 18, 2014 7:48 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Doesn't the external library slow down editing? Maybe I'm not up to date here...My library with recent photos is on my HDD (that's why 1TB added the 256 Gig SSD). The older shootings are archived on external drives. If the external Thunderbolt connection isn't a bottleneck, then the mass storage could be scaled really easily. That sounds great.


Usually I shoot 100-200 photos per session (product/food) where around 20 will be edited in detail for final results. The quicker the better. What stresses my Mac most is applying multiple brushes selectively like tweaking different contrasts or sharpenings in each shadows, midtones and highlihgts. I don't know yet whether that is handled by the graphics card or the cpu.

Apr 18, 2014 9:09 AM in response to papalapapp

Let me explain where I have come from in reaching the decision to host a Managed Library on a TBolt drive. With my old Mac Pro, I always had the primary Library on a dedicated internal disk drive, and not on the boot drive (although I tested small libraries on the boot drive to no benefit.)


When the old MP would not boot to run either Mt. Lion or later Mavericks, I began to use my rMBP (quad-core with 16 GB of RAM) and TBolt drives. Everything I can read, and my own experience, says that a TBolt connected drive is just as fast and efficient as a SATA internal. (I find this true for video editing in FCPX as well.)


So never a backward thought on using the same with the new Mac Pro.


These large pixel dimension images cannot display natively on any display, even if we were to have 4K displays, so I am of the opinion that rendering the result of adjustments to our displays is the hardest thing Aperture has to do, and for that I believe the graphic memory is a key factor. I am pretty sure that without adequate graphic memory, other memory had to be substituted, and the management of that memory in the older MP was a disaster when adjusting huge images one after the other. Same with any Export of many images to JPEG. I could watch the Activity monitor and see both Active and Inactive memory grow to where Free Memory went to a nominal zero amount. Although Inactive memory should have been surrendered when needed, with Aperture it simply did not happen. Mavericks seems to handle it all very differently, but plenty of RAM is still a really good thing, and virtual memory from disc (this presumedly is on the boot drive regardless of where the library is) when minimized is a good thing. I am no expert, but I can tell you with confidence, that when I started editing NEFs from my D800 vs those from my D300, the dynamics changed radically.


Ernie

Apr 19, 2014 7:16 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Ernie, thank you for these first hand information.


I have done some more reading on the graphics card thing. What I understand is that an advanced graphics card is relevant for photo editing while the higher-end cards are primarily laid out for 3D and video editing.


The way Aperture works is that it constanly renders and saves the adjustments on the fly (as you said) every time when adjusting or selecting an image. So the graphics card might be more relevant than I thougt.


At this point I would tend towards the 15'' MBP. It has a quad core, the GeForce 750M and 16 GB RAM. This seems to be sufficient and I would retain mobility for tethered shooting (Although 32GB would be nice). However, I am curious whether there will be relevant updates for the MBPs around June/July.

Apr 19, 2014 6:05 PM in response to papalapapp

My Retina 15" MBP is a beautiful machine, and I think the latest version is a slight upgrade from mine. It will do what you express wanting to do. I used my TBolt display connected to it very nicely for both photo and video editing.


I simply didn't want to have it always on, and always connected to my TBolt drives, and wanted a true desktop with all the same interfaces -- thus the new Mac Pro, and it will feed my network 24/7 and 3 Apple TVs when I finish all integration of it into my workflow.


Ernie

Apr 20, 2014 11:56 AM in response to papalapapp

We do not know specifics of how Aperture utilizes discrete graphics cards but in the past solid graphics were a necessity. E.g. Apple's strongest G5 tower would not run Aperture until an upgraded graphics card was installed. Boxes that rely only on integrated graphics like MBAs and Minis are not recommended.


Usually a good general feeling of relative graphics performance can be obtained by diligently perusing the tests at barefeats.com. Note that Aperture-specific testing is IMO only marginally relevant, but overall graphics app performance is IMO very relevant.


I use a 17" i7 MBP with SSD and 16 GB RAM. It works well as a desktop-replacement box, but my RAW files are only 20-30 MB size. My Aperture/Photoshop workflow was paging out at 8 GB RAM before I upgraded to 16 GB RAM. Odds are that 16 GB will work fine with your big files but if I was moving to a MF DSLR I would be a bit concerned about only having 16 GB RAM as the maximum available.


Personally to obtain mobility I would sacrifice the ability to to exceed 16 GB RAM but I would only do it with Apple's strongest mobile GPU available at purchase time. I.e., the top MBP.


If you do choose to give up mobility plan on a 32-GB box when price comparing. Personally I would go with a cylindrical Mac Pro not an iMac because the stock Mac Pro graphics are far stronger and the Mac Pro is upgradable.


All the good choices (MP, top MBP, top iMac) all have more than enough CPU. IMO in 2014 we can mostly ignore CPU as regards purchase decision making on the top boxes.


512 GB SSD for boot is IMO a mandatory minimum for any new Aperture box in 2014. Note also that if you do create a RAM-intensive workflow that does page out 16 GB RAM the deleterious effects of paging out are substantially ameliorated by SSD.


My 02.


-Allen

Apr 20, 2014 3:34 PM in response to papalapapp

Kirby, Ernie, Dragon, thanks for your advice, it helps a lot. Everything seems to piont into the same direction. I agree that in terms of cpu the lower versions would be ok while the gpu should be the high-end. I also came across the barefeat site and intersting performance discussions in the MBA and MBP forums at macrumors.


I would like to remain mobile. Unfortunately the MBPs now have fixed built in RAM that can't be upgraded any more. That makes me a little cautious. As RAM equipment seem to double every year, I would rather wait for a 32 GB option.

Apr 21, 2014 4:57 PM in response to papalapapp

papalapapp wrote:


...I would rather wait for a 32 GB option.

Me too.


Or if Apple would ever get serious and provide the long overdue ability to single-user synch a Library between a laptop and a tower I would go back to a two-computer workflow like I had in the previous decade. I would buy a new MP. Apple's unwillingness to provide single-user synch costs them a Mac Pro for this user.


-Allen

Apr 22, 2014 2:12 AM in response to SierraDragon

Yes, I also thought about the small MP for editing and my current MacBook for tethered shooting. Editing on the move isn't a priority, at least not heavy editing. But my MacBook doesn't have Thunderbolt to share the library. A good solution for that would be the 11'' MBA. No syncing would be required. But that would be beyond any reasonable budget for me.

Apr 27, 2014 9:44 AM in response to papalapapp

Just a quick update. My current C2D isn't doing doing so well. These graphical glitches showed up the first time a few weeks ago in Numbers (when these floating formula panels pup up). Now they also occur in Aperture. So I decided it's better to upgrade now since this is my everyday workhorse.


Thinking it through back and forth, mobility is a must so I went for the 15'' MBP 2.3 GHz Quad-Core, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M. It was even available on the refurb store for € 400 less. My Apertrure libraries will go on an external TB drive.


I'm pretty excited for the PCIe based SSD, I've heard it is even faster than the SATA connected drives. I hope it will be sufficient for the 50 MP RAWs, but we will see that later this year.

🙂


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Any experiences with editing 50+ MB files.

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