High Sierra photo editing slow

The problem with editing in Photos has not changed since the latest update for me either. The biggest problem I have is with the retouch tool which is basically useless. what I have been doing to cope with the problem is to use a program called Snapheal to do retouching (called erase in Snapheal) which seems to be as good or slightly better than Photos retouch (when it was working). I then reimport the photo into Photos to do the rest of the editing. Not ideal but it works. Incidentally I have tried all the fixes recommended over the past few months, none of which worked but only took a lot of time to do.

I'm not aware or familiar with any problems with iOS for iPhone or iPad. Slow editing in High Sierra has been reported by many users here and Apple is aware of the problem. Some have suggested that 10.13.4 fixed their problems editing jpeg files, but that is not confirmed. I have only had problems editing raw files from one specific camera and there has been no fix yet. The new version 3.0 Photos introduced with High Sierra around October does change the structure of the library database, so if you do revert to 10.12 Sierra and the older bug free version of Photos, you will not be able to open your current Photos library with that old version. Is your problem with jpegs or raw? My solution has been to shoot in raw+jpeg and just work with the jpeg files in Photos for now. If you have updated to 10.13.4 and are still having problems with jpegs, you can edit them with another program. I've used Pixelmator and DxO Optics. Both offer more tools than the editor inside Photos. There is also Affinity and Photoshop Elements, but I've not tried either. These options are not designed for organizing your photos like Lightroom or Apple Photos though.

I have found when working on raw images that Photo is even slower than when working on jpg images. It is basically unusable on High Sierra from my iMac. To be fair my iMac is from 2013 with 8gb of ram and a 1tb SSD. Not a high-end machine.

To test if it was the machine I just tried Adobe Lightroom CC -- and it is fast, works great. Clearly an issue with Photo and not an OSX or iMac HW issue.

I have over 10,000 images and not enough room on my Mac to export them all and import them to Adobe -- but I am considering buying an external drive and taking the time to do just this.

Very frustrating when a company that claims to make computers that "just work" releases software that just does not work.

I just updated to High Sierra 10.13.5 and the update has not solved my problem with slow editing in Photos with raw files. Photos app was 3.0 (3271.13.150) before and after the update. Apple Support told me they were aware of the problem many months ago. They keep saying they are working on a fix. It has been 8 months since this bug was introduced in Version 3.0 of Photos.

What version of the OS do you have? If you do not have 10.13.4 you should update to it

LN

Yes, retouching seems to be the main problem. I just confirmed your results on my 2014 Mac mini, and retouching is what seems to drive the memory use up very high. I crashed Photos three times pretty quickly by just retouching one photo. Memory utilization for Photos was over 300%.

Also the retouching tool doesn't work as well as before. When masking something out it leaves a distinct shadow outline of what was there. Or if attempting to duplicate another part of the photo, it's only a partially opaque.

This is very disappointing and bad timing by Apple, as I am attempting to clean up lots of old slides to make photo books for Christmas presents. This effort is now not possible until they fix these issues.

You should call Apple, explain what's happening and refer them to this thread and that there appears to have been reports called in for the exact same so you don't waste each other's time. You can ask them to follow up on the status of the bug if possible. Otherwise, you need to submit feedback to the Devs.

I also have the same issue - editing RAW images in Photos on High Sierra is almost unusable. I have another iMac still on Sierra and that works a dream - the changes you make are rendered instantly. On High Sierra The changes I make to the exposure or white balance for example take several minutes to appear, noise reductions does nothing, all of the filter previews are the same and cropping is severely laggy. This happens even if Photos is the only app open on a MacBook Pro 8GB RAM and SSD. If I try to use any other apps or the dock it hangs whilst I am waiting for the changes to render in Photos.

I have submitted lots of feedback reports and I have now opened a case with Apple Support. I agree it is not the Mac, it is High Sierra and the changes they have made.

I had a long chat with a Photos app specialist at Apple support. She is having the same problem with Photos herself and 10.13.3 didn't fix it for her either. She says she gets the spinning beachball and a completely unresponsive system trying to edit raw files. She noted that seconds on her menu bar clock stop counting while this is happening. She took information about the specific cameras and file types that are problematic for me and is reporting it to the programmers and keeping the case open. Clearly Apple is aware of this issue and I am just shocked at how long it is taking them to address it. More than three months! I only hope that more reports will motivate them to fix this. She was also aware of many reported problems with syncing photos via iTunes. It has stopped working for me and I only use iTunes sync for videos and music now.

Confirmed - Apple has captured a report from my box with Apple tools and you know what - Apple Support employee confirmed to me, that he experienced the same issue with Photo touching on his new built Mac. Keep the fingers crossed that Apple will find the issue. FYI - There is no issue with Adobe Lightroom...

Well I have found a way to speed it up agin

i create a new library and chose it as system library with no photos in it

then I start the library with all my raw photos now I got my speed again

I will say, that after leaving Photos open for a full day it seems to be running a bit faster. I wouldn't say it's on-par with something like Adobe Lightroom, but it's no longer locking up my computer. My guess is that there are some background processes going on that once complete, the performance improves slightly. Probably the face detection process...

Larry, I do confirm, that the CPU increases on my MacMini on the Photo app over 300% as well. It happens in editing a picture, especially in retouching the picture. After touching a picture 5-10 or more times (cause you want to remove some stuff like personal strictly confidential data), the CPU goes up to 300% and higher. You must close Photo going back to normal CPS state. That behaviour was not so strong/bad on the same box with 10.12.6. The upgrade from 10.12.6 to 10.13.1 changed it all. It becomes a very bad time consuming waiting time, especially if you run VmWare in parallel. The complete system feels like a frozen time. That has not happened before. Stopping VmWare or other processes do not stop that behaviour. 😟 😮

I'm not getting any returned calls from AppleCare Support. Somethings up...

My biggest fear is that nothings is being done about it and that some how its a fault at the users end.

So, as I've posted my work around (which I hope isn't permanent!) is:

* ALL photos are now in iCloud

* ALL photos (and Videos) display from iCloud identically in the Photos System Library on my Sierra source iMac (late 2009) AND my late 2014 High Sierra iMac where the Photos have been fully downloaded - 2 iMacs storing all originals

* I can do all my organisation of the Photos on the High Sierra iMac but avoid any editing

* I do most editing on the Sierra iMac

* both iMacs update of course via iCloud

* The output for most of my Photos is in iMovie and fortunately iMovie on the High Sierra iMac works perfectly EVEN accessing Photos from the High Sierra Photos System Library. I can even use the iMovie photos editing for most editing instead of using the Photos app BUT you can't retouch in imovie SO ALL RETOUCHING is done on my old Sierra iMac.

Its now 3 months... but those of you who have 2 good Macs and can get all your required System Library Photos into iCloud I'd do what I've outlined above if 10.13.3 does not fix our problem...

Yep... I posted it. Unfortunately the info about this problem is spread over s few threads and you can’t post more than once. But my temporary solution is to have my whole library in iCloud - 150gb uploaded from my older iMac running Sierra and then downloaded and kept in sync with my newer High Sierra iMac. All my retouching is done on the Sierra iMac and all the organising of photos is done on the High Sierra iMac. Opening a heavily retouched photo on the High Sierra still crashes or is very slow so I don’t do that but the thing I like is that IMovie is brilliant on the High Sierra iMac and the Photos system library is available and of course in synch with iCloud and and any retouching that may have been done on the Sierra iMac.

If I didn’t have 2 iMacs I would have downgraded to Sierra where everything works fine.