Anyone have more than 50,000 images in a single library?

[peskaa]

I have around 120k images in my Aperture library, with no issues - but, its main home is on a Mac Pro with a dedicated hard drive. I use my MBP for mobile work and it is noticeably slower in every respect - so I can easily imagine your MBP choking on such a large library.

Thomahawk: Aperture does the same, just within a package file (you can just open up your Aperture library and see the folders), so no, what you suggest wouldn't change a thing.


Basically, Aperture is a resource hog. The bigger your library the harder your system has to work - I'm probably going to migrate to a RAID system in the near future to try and stop my hard disks thrashing quite so much.

 

[Grimace]

I have around 120k images in my Aperture library, with no issues - but, its main home is on a Mac Pro with a dedicated hard drive. I use my MBP for mobile work and it is noticeably slower in every respect - so I can easily imagine your MBP choking on such a large library.

Thomahawk: Aperture does the same, just within a package file (you can just open up your Aperture library and see the folders), so no, what you suggest wouldn't change a thing.

Basically, Aperture is a resource hog. The bigger your library the harder your system has to work - I'm probably going to migrate to a RAID system in the near future to try and stop my hard disks thrashing quite so much.

You hit the nail on the head for all three - great post.

 

[Phrasikleia]

Thanks, peskaa. It sounds as though the answer is to split up my library, alas.

 

[nutmac]

Basically, Aperture is a resource hog. The bigger your library the harder your system has to work - I'm probably going to migrate to a RAID system in the near future to try and stop my hard disks thrashing quite so much.

I am curious as to why this is. I keep all my photos organized into projects and since I only open one or two projects at a time, I would think it shouldn't cause too much strain. But it is slow, growing slower as the library grows. Why does Aperture need to hold onto so much stuff in memory when I am working on just one or two projects with few hundred photos?

 

[Grimace]

I am curious as to why this is. I keep all my photos organized into projects and since I only open one or two projects at a time, I would think it shouldn't cause too much strain. But it is slow, growing slower as the library grows. Why does Aperture need to hold onto so much stuff in memory when I am working on just one or two projects with few hundred photos?

Again, previews take up a huge amount of space - don't render them if you don't need them! Note: I don't mean the thumbnail previews; rather, the duplicate preview that Aperture shares with iWork, Pages, iLife, etc. -- if each preview is 200kb, you are still talking about gigabytes worth of unnecessary previews.

And, you might try waiting it out for a few months for Aperture X (3). Optimization for Snow Leopard should definitely be on the docket, and each of the previous releases has sped up the program.

 

[Phrasikleia]

Again, previews take up a huge amount of space - don't render them if you don't need them! Note: I don't mean the thumbnail previews; rather, the duplicate preview that Aperture shares with iWork, Pages, iLife, etc. -- if each preview is 200kb, you are still talking about gigabytes worth of unnecessary previews.

And, you might try waiting it out for a few months for Aperture X (3). Optimization for Snow Leopard should definitely be on the docket, and each of the previous releases has sped up the program.

This sounds like very good advice, all of it. I don't use iWork or Pages or any of that, and I presume Aperture 3 will be out fairly soon.

 

[hakuryuu]

I had to finally start a new catalog in LR2 after getting my original one up to 292,000 images. It just got to a point of being too slow to work with. The LR3 beta is much faster (tried it with the same 8000 pictures imported into fresh catalogs for both LR2 and 3) and they can't finish it fast enough as far as I am concerned.

 

[mlblacy]

52k nothing unusual...

Hmm, I think even Lightroom will slow down when it has 52k RAW files , hmm, truthfully speaking, why do you have such a huge amount of photos? What kind of photography business are you running if you dont mind me asking.

about 65k in my Aperture library here, but I am holding off Snow Leopard for now as it seems to make things even slower. It works, but does creak here and there at times. Many pro shooters I know regularly run through 2-6gb a shoot (and thats jpegs and not raw). Most of my stuff is jpegs with a few raw ones thrown in.

Why is it everyone pushes Lightroom... even when the threadstarter remarked he used both, and preferred Aperture?? Just wondering... I too am sticking with Aperture, and will wait for version 3. The difference between 1 & 2 was huge, and I am expecting the same for this iteration.

Lots of good tips here otherwise... thanks

 

[onomatopoeia]

Many pro shooters I know regularly run through 2-6gb a shoot (and thats jpegs and not raw).

Pros use jpeg that much? (or at all)?