High Sierra photo editing slow

I must say I hate, HATE, Photos since I've done the update to High Sierra 10.13.2 and Photos 3.0. Editing a photo is ridiculously slow. Like impossible to get results. I take photos in RAW so they're large files. In the previous edition of Photos I was able to edit seamlessly. Not so with the upgrade. Very frustrating. I've read through the replies on this thread and have found no useful fix. If things (such as face recognition) are happening in the background and slowing down the editing process, that is unacceptable. This is the first time I've ever been truly disappointed and frustrated with an Apple upgrade.

Hi All,

I've been debating whether to upgrade my mid 2010 iMac to High Sierra for months and finally took the plunge on Friday.

As discussed above most things work fine but Photos (which was one of the main reasons why I decided to upgrade) is unusable. I've noticed just this morning (Sun 7th Jan) a software update for photos is available so I'll try that, but I'm not hopeful 😟

So my question is if I decide to invest in a years' subscriptions of Lightroom will I have the same speed issues? I don't want to invest more money if Lightroom room will be just as slow.

I'm going to seek advice at the Brighton Apple Store this morning so I'll feed back any information I get from them.

Yep, You're right, thats the version I have to: Version 3.0 (3251.12.190).

Not sure what the update message was then. Something came up in the top right corner so I just selected it.

Photos seems to be a bit faster today but I suppose that could have been down to what others have said about the upgrade eventually finishing all it's work.

I'll keep posting

I had the same experience -- I spent much of Thursday and Friday nights this week online and over the phone with Apple experts, who in the end, told me there wasn't any problem on my iMac (because it didn't stall or quit when they were online with me). I think the last person totally ignored the fact that Photos had crashed TWICE while we were trying to figure the problems out. I think they either don't want to acknowledge that the Photos app is faulty, or they don't know how to fix it so they pretend there's no problem. I've been a life-long Apple buyer, but this has been frustrating to the point where I don't know if I even want to invest in another Mac in the future.

I actually had the opposite reaction from Apple support this weekend. I called on Saturday and explained my problem and frustrations. I was on hold for 30 minutes (which was annoying) but an actual human being kept interrupting the hold music to tell me they were still with me. However, after 30 minutes I hung up, intending to call back at a less busy time than a Saturday morning. However, someone from Apple called me back within 5-10 minutes, listened to my complaint, and connected me to a support advisor. The advisor listened to my complaints and asked me if he could connect to my computer and view what was happening in Photos. He spent 30 minutes on the phone with me as I demonstrated the problems I’m having with Photos (he was taking notes the entire time). He had me replicate the problems with RAW files and jpgs. He had me create a new Photos library to see if the problems occurred in it (they did). He had me login as a new user and replicate the problems in a Photos application under that new user (once again problems were the same). Eventually he had me

run diagnostics (activity monitor) as I was editing photos. This I uploaded to him at Apple’s website. He acknowledged Apple is aware of the problems and the engineers are working to correct. The diagnostics he collected were sent to the engineers to help determine a solution. Although he couldn’t provide me with a solution at this time he did provide me with his contact information and said he will contact me if further info becomes available. He offered to help me reinstall the system, although he said others have done so to no avail. I didn’t see a need to reinstall the system. So . . . my Photos problem is not solved at this time, but I am hopeful because it seems to me Apple is

well aware of the problem and eager to fix it.

I, too, have some hope now after connecting with a senior Apple advisor who spent a couple hours with me last night and had me upload a screenshot movie of the crashing and other problems. She will give all this information to engineers who will hopefully get another persons view of the Photos problems we're all experiencing. We'll see what happens.

I've been having exactly the same problem and must rely on my iPad and iPhone X to perform daily business which they are ill equipped to perform. Do I assume correctly that the only way to be aware of Apple's success is by monitoring this web site?

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.

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.

Downgrading to Sierra is only a viable solution IF you have a full backup of your photos library under Sierra and you are willing to loose all modifications since you did the High Sierra upgrade (photo edits, etc).

The High Sierra Photo Library will not work in Sierra and there is no way to "downgrade" the photos library.

Thanks, Carlos, for sharing those very important problems inherent to Sierra downgrading. Losing all those Photo Library modifications doesn't bear considering. So unless Apple or some other wise user comes up with a solution we're doomed to depending on totally inadequate computers. Makes one consider purchasing a second hand unit capable of running Sierra and just loading it with all data except that for Photo. Carbonite could probably handle that chore. That way I'd have a viable computer whose data could be used to update my hopefully repaired iMac with all its photos intact. Does all this make sense?

Yeah I was lucky. When I upgraded to High Sierra late September I noticed the problem in Photos straight away so I got my last Sierra backup from time machine and copied it to my older Sierra iMac so nothing lost.

What is weird is that I actually have to consider building a Sierra Virtual Machine to run under High Sierra, just have use Photos under Sierra...might actually get around to doing it, considering I have 16 Gb of RAM, so it should behave ok.

I am fortunate to have two Macs, and only upgraded to High Sierra (on a whim) on my large screen iMac. After seeing the Photos problem happen right away, we chose not to upgrade the laptop, so at least I have that to edit current photos on. But I want to see them on the iMac, so I have to transfer them to that to view in Preview at full size. Maybe if you can get access to a MacBook Pro in Sierra until they fix the Photos app, you can at least keep everything intact.

Cynsha can you afford iCloud Photo Library?

I have 150gb and it took weeks to upload from the Sierra but was well worth it. Photos works fine in the High Sierra iMac as long as you don’t edit. You can still organise and title photos etc and with iCloud any changes you make on either Mac are reflected in both macs.