Editing Photos on an M1 Mac

[Clix Pix]

Absolutely!!!! I have books all over the house and yet....somehow at times I just don't have a thing to read!!! LOL! I use the library for a lot of my reading matter, or else the whole apartment would be totally full of books with no room for me. Even at that, though, I still buy books on topics of particular interest to me (photography, for instance), or books (fiction, autobiographies, biographies) which I love and know that I want to keep. During the time of the shutdown when the library wasn't available at all and then only had curbside pickup, I resorted to ordering fiction and such from Amazon, so now I've got a whole bunch of the read-em-once and pass-them-along sort of books to donate to the library once they begin receiving gifts again.

No one to whom to answer in this household when I get an itch to buy something new (and/or expensive)....but I do try to be reasonable about most things. Years ago I spent money on clothes and shoes along with cameras and other photo gear. These days it's cameras and computers.....

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Do you find yourself standing in front of them thinking I havent got anything to read? you know like when we stand in front of a full fridge and think I havent got any food to eat?

I’d have to take up reading first to have that problem! In the event I do read a book, I get a shocked look from the entire household. I feel I may have been type-cast.

 

[Clix Pix]

Hee, hee -- that sounds like the reaction my mother and I would have on the rare occasions we'd see my father with a book or magazine in hand! Wow, Daddy was READING.....!!!! He was an active man and interested in sports and other things; reading for pleasure just did not appeal to him. The daily newspaper was his only regular reading fare, and that he did peruse each and every day without fail.

In the meantime books were still scattered around the house, thanks to my mother and me.....it was clear from an early age that I would be taking after her when it came to a love of books and reading! When I grew up, I married a man who also loved to read and the two of us were perfectly content sitting in comfortable chairs reading our respective books after dinner......

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

All 3 kids love books, and Mrs Darmok buys quality stuff (don’t get her started on the state of modern kids books), so what can I even say about it? Being not a reader, I’m impressed with just how much they learn straight from these books, and their verbal skills and vocabulary range usually leave adults surprised enough to comment about it. They get read to every night as well. They don’t get it from me, that’s for sure. There must be something to this “book” thing.

 

[bunnspecial]

I tend to call them addictions rather than hobbies... I love fountain pens. I have a couple of Mont Blancs - which divide opinion but I like them. Having said that my daily writer is a Franklin Christoph 46.

No "divided opinion" from me. I'm an unapologetic Montblanc fan. I just sent my absolute favorite 146 off for a service(nothing wrong with it-just wanted to make sure it was in good shape for another 30 years...it's nearly as old as I am). The past week I've been enjoying my new 146 "Around the World in 80 Days" which I'm sending to get an OM nib as soon as my other 146 comes back. Next up in line for daily carry/use is one of my 149s. It will probably be the 70s B nibbed one, but I might do the newish OB.

 

[mollyc]

A wise man.... So does he prefer Stuttgart or Munich?

Oh, let's see i had to do some googling, but he started with Munich but has moved on to Stuttgart. ? but to be honest he also has a fondness for american trucks although we don't currently own one.

 

[||\||]

I use Adobe and they just released their “native” Apple silicon versions. I do t keep track but I believe most are supporting Apple silicon natively. That should be your first criteria.
I find the 16GB RAM Limitation in the M1 counter to editing, yea, it will work, but why do most of us have way more?
I will not upgrade to Apple silicon until those limitations have been removed and that hopefully happens later this year

Bragging rights? I don't know. There are cases where 32GB might be necessary for photo editing. It's not often and not common among those I see here boasting about their equipment.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

…but to be honest he also has a fondness for american trucks although we don't currently own one.

I think you missed his Father’s Day gift-idea hint. I guess he’ll just have to go buy one himself now.

 

[mollyc]

I think you missed his Father’s Day gift-idea hint. I guess he’ll just have to go buy one himself now.

hahaha. actually on father's day we asked my father about buying his 18 year old ford expedition (not quite a truck but close enough). really it's my mom's car. she doesn't drive it (maybe very rarely) but won't sell it. we are hoping to get to the front of the line on that car...they already have three other people wanting to buy it and it isn't even for sale.

as a stay at home mom with no income, unfortunately i can't surprise him with a car purchase like you see in commercials, as much as i'd love to. luckily he has a nice car that lives most of its days in the garage..... ?

 

[bunnspecial]

Bragging rights? I don't know. There are cases where 32GB might be necessary for photo editing. It's not often and not common among those I see here boasting about their equipment.

Trust me when I'm dealing with a 4x5 scan at 4000dpi, I need all I can get.

I have 96gb in my Mac Pro, which is my scanning workstation. That's plenty for that, but I can regularly go over 32gb even just scrolling around. Things like lens corrections hit the CPUs and not really the RAM, but I can still see RAM spiking doing them. Thank goodness at least I don't have to worry about perspective correction as long as I do it right in camera.

 

[jz0309]

Bragging rights? I don't know. There are cases where 32GB might be necessary for photo editing. It's not often and not common among those I see here boasting about their equipment.

those of us who deal with large files for editing do not "brag" about their configs, they know ...

 

[Clix Pix]

At the time I was starting to think about moving to mirrorless, I also began to realize that before I did that I also needed to consider updating/upgrading my computer.....and so my first move in the whole transition was to purchase an MBP with the specs that I knew I didn't need right at the moment but that as soon as I brought home new camera gear and started editing larger image files and spending much more time doing so, that I'd be glad I had done this. And, indeed that is how it worked out. Actually, though, I've always been a firm believer in having plenty of RAM, especially way back in my Windows days.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

hahaha. actually on father's day we asked my father about buying his 18 year old ford expedition (not quite a truck but close enough). really it's my mom's car. she doesn't drive it (maybe very rarely) but won't sell it. we are hoping to get to the front of the line on that car...they already have three other people wanting to buy it and it isn't even for sale.

as a stay at home mom with no income, unfortunately i can't surprise him with a car purchase like you see in commercials, as much as i'd love to. luckily he has a nice car that lives most of its days in the garage..... ?

Haha, I wonder how many spouses actually would like to have someone chose their car for them? “Here’s your used pink Mary Kay Caddy, hon!”

 

[kenoh]

Bragging rights? I don't know. There are cases where 32GB might be necessary for photo editing. It's not often and not common among those I see here boasting about their equipment.

In the days of yore when we had hard drives - spinning platters - then having ram reduced the disk IO which had a benefit to battery life on a laptop…. But yeah, 32GB braggage….

 

[kenoh]

Haha, I wonder how many spouses actually would like to have someone chose their car for them? “Here’s your used pink Mary Kay Caddy, hon!”

My wife didn’t even test drive her car. She just liked the front grille…. Took her 2 years to admit she missed her old car

 

[kenoh]

those of us who deal with large files for editing do not "brag" about their configs, they know ...

I work in IT…. With 4 virtual machines running on my machine most days then a few extra gigs of ram is a benefit for sure

 

[jz0309]

I work in IT…. With 4 virtual machines running on my machine most days then a few extra gigs of ram is a benefit for sure

yep, VMs are RAM eaters ...

 

[Fravin]

I've been using a 2018 Mini i7/32GB/1TB to edit my photos for the last couple of years.
I had an eGpu attached that didn't really offer much in the way of help with editing programs I use (ON1 Photo Raw, Capture One Pro, etc.)
Performance with the Mini's gpu is basic, but I knew that would be the case.

I’m a professional photographer shooting nature and landscapes.

I shoot with fujifilm XS10 now, an 26mp file. My previous camera was a Fujifil XT3, which outputs the same file.

I have been using Capture One for developing my RAWs since the version 3.4, back in the early 2000s.

I have been using Capture One for developing my RAWs since the version 3.4, back in the early 2000s.

I used to manage my RAW files in a Desktop PC running Windows, a powerful one:
16 core i9
64Gb RAM
RTX2070

This computer has offered me the performance that I was looking for. Responsiveness, not struggling, not beach balling….

But I purchased this M1 base model MacMini. And for two months I did used one side by side with other. Comparing how each one will handle the same files.

I have sold the PC 3 months ago. It’s gone. And I don’t want to look back.

The M1 Mini runs fast, really fast. Capture One is optimized for M1 and it is a rocket!

My PC was big, noisy and power hungry. The M1 Mac Mini is dead silent, besides not having a dedicated GPU it tackles all the tasks that photographers would expect.

Photoshop is blazing fast too. The overall system is snappy.

In my i9 15” 2019MBP the system is hanging here and there, some animations in OSX is struggling as usual… But no the M1. Everything is damn fast.

I will update with some measurements I made with the two desktops.

 

[Fravin]

Importing 430 pictures in Capture One: i9 5:35 - M1 3:40
Exporting 100 High Resolution JPEGs in Capture One: i9 2:30 - M1 1:45
Opening a batch of 15 JPEGs in Photoshop: i9 1:45 - M1 0:30
Rendering FCP 6´ 4k footage: i9 3:40 M1 2:30

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Importing 430 pictures in Capture One: i9 5:35 - M1 3:40
Exporting 100 High Resolution JPEGs in Capture One: i9 2:30 - M1 1:45
Opening a batch of 15 JPEGs in Photoshop: i9 1:45 - M1 0:30
Rendering FCP 6´ 4k footage: i9 3:40 M1 2:30

Thanks for the empirical measurements. Having done edits of 20MP RAWs on iPads since the 2017 model, I can tell you Apple does have this use-case figured out, and whatever their API is, they make it easy for developers to use the hardware effectively.

 

[Fravin]

Thanks for the empirical measurements. Having done edits of 20MP RAWs on iPads since the 2017 model, I can tell you Apple does have this use-case figured out, and whatever their API is, they make it easy for developers to use the hardware effectively.

That’s a good point. How effectively Hardware and Software were bond together.

I think that Apple had spent some time developing this chip with some kind of contributors. I am hearing wonders about how optimized Video Editing Software is for the M1. This shows that Apple aimed at us when launched M1 computers. All of the offerings were consumer grade machines with incredible amount of power.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Yeah, the fact that one can edit and export video with relative ease on even an A12Z suggests they have a good thing going.

 

[kenoh]

Oh, let's see i had to do some googling, but he started with Munich but has moved on to Stuttgart. ? but to be honest he also has a fondness for american trucks although we don't currently own one.

Sorry and this is going to draw a line between us… but long may the lack of an American truck continue… unless he is looking at a F150 Lightning. That looks interesting…. Though it would look like a monster truck over here.

 

[Clix Pix]

I've never gotten the fascination with pickup trucks being purchased and used in highly urban/suburban environments by people who are not out on a ten-acre farm or who are not doing the type of work in which such a vehicle would be highly useful.

 

[mollyc]

You don't have to live on a farm to find the utility in a pickup truck. I know you are retired and living in a condo, but ever know someone who needed a 2x4? A sheet of plywood? Cleaning up after a big storm and have a lot of tree debris that needs to go to the dump? Heck, even getting a Christmas tree is easier with a truck.

My husband rents a truck probably 4-5x a year just for basic around the house jobs. It's due to the infrequency of the tasks that we no longer have a truck but I can imagine as our children get closer to being off to college and all the stuff that goes along with that, that we may add one back into the fleet.

Also, @kenoh, I should have specified that he'd prefer a vintage Ford -- 50/60/70s. He does not like the modern trucks. ?