Photos app makes RAW files blurry after editing

[ctomyan]

I've done a bit of online research and it seems like this problem has lingered in some iteration of iPhoto/Photos for over a decade, going back to 2008. For recently imported RAW files, the photos will show up fine at first, but after editing through Photos, they will be blurry until I click through to the editing function again. On some photos, this will freeze photos and force me to restart the app. Other times, the photo will turn grey after editing and I need to reset all edits to see the photo again.

A potentially related problem is that the ImageConversionService process is a huge memory hog, and sometimes runs way too hot and pushes into swap memory. Earlier today, the background photos library process also ran hot to 19GB of swap memory, at which point I shut down my laptop. This has always been a problem, but never this bad before.

I've never had this problem before to this extent, and I upgraded to macOS 10.15.5 a couple of days ago. Wondering if this could be related. Please let me know if anyone is having this problem or if anyone has any fixes. I've already repaired by Photos library, deleted/reimported, rebooted, etc.

 

[koroman]

I got a new MacBook Air base model and upgraded to Catalina 10.15.5.
ImageConversionService is running now for more than 11 hours.
Is this expected?
How long does it take?
I have around 20.000 photos and 64 videos, no usage of iCloud, elements are linked to Apples Photo app.
Just copied the Picture folder from my old MacBook Pro to the new Air including the photos library file.

 

[ctomyan]

Mine's been going for days after I repaired my Photos library as a part of the above issue. 8GB of RAM on my machine; ImageConversionService running at 7GB+ and photolibraryd running at 4GB+. Can't force kill and will start on its own after a restart.

 

[koroman]

Problem disappeared: ImageConversionService did not start after reboot
Now the MBA runs without problems.

 

[Spacetime Anomaly]

I get this all the time with RAW images. I sometimes have to force quit both Photos and the the ImageConversionService process to get it back to normal (until it inevitably happens again)

I have plenty of memory, a decent machine, no other problems, yadda yadda yadda. It's a real pain.

 

[Jadedogsome]

Has there been any fix for this? Same thing happens on 2021 MBP running Monterey

 

[cap7ainclu7ch]

Any update with this? Getting real tired of editing RAW photos only to have them turn blurry and unable to share (just says downloading for sharing and never makes any progress).

 

[Great_White_North]

So, I was having this same issue. But when I had blurry photos, the face names wouldn't appear. When I clicked "return" to get into edit mode, the picture would clear up, and the names would return. Until I exited edit mode.
I went into the images menu and turned off faces. I think that might have been secret. Then all the photos cleared up, and then when I turned the faces back on, it stayed sharp and shows the face names.
I hope it works for others...AND...that I didn't click something else inbetween that actually fixed it! lol

 

[ChpTrk]

So, I was having this same issue. But when I had blurry photos, the face names wouldn't appear. When I clicked "return" to get into edit mode, the picture would clear up, and the names would return. Until I exited edit mode.
I went into the images menu and turned off faces. I think that might have been secret. Then all the photos cleared up, and then when I turned the faces back on, it stayed sharp and shows the face names.
I hope it works for others...AND...that I didn't click something else inbetween that actually fixed it! lol

Where did you find Faces in the Images Menu? Are you running an older version of Photos? We have the latest (8.0) and I don't see any option for Faces under Image menu.