The new EFI fix hardly fixes anything!

[rayhigh]

I had no problems before the firmware update that I could detect. After I did the firmware update, I had to hard reboot, because my receiver stopped detecting a DTS signal from any file with DTS audio I would play. At the same time, some of my external hard drives were not detected. I turned off the receiver, unplugged the HDMI cable from the TV, leaving the main monitor hooked up, shut down the Mini, turned on the receiver, powered the mini on. Once it was up, I plugged the TV back in, and DTS worked again. The drives were also detected.

I am posting this in case anyone else runs into these issues.

 

[jimmy83]

How are you guys testing the colours? Just using your eye sight or using calibration hardware/software?

 

[Mojo1]

Nothing huge. 12mp or 24 mp camera files. 16bit PSDs, with a couple of retouch layers and about 10 masked adjustment layers. (To be fair, I often have about 10 of these documents open at the same time.) Zooming in and out with Photoshop CS6 is very laggy. Often the brush cursor disappears and I have to restart Photoshop. I tried the 2011 mini Server before this one and had similar problems.

It seems like those are large files with a lot of edits and you have a lot of them open at one time. Is it actually necessary to have so many open at once? You can only work on one image at a time...

You should consider getting help on a photo forum such as DPReview.com or another pro-oriented forum with other Photoshop users. You will obtain more knowledgeable feedback from people who actually use the same software under similar conditions...

 

[motrek]

Minis are low cost and easy to use. I own 3 of them.
a 2010 a 2011 and a 2012. I have owned and used more then 10 mac minis. the graphics have never been good. okay yes good no.
...
Mac mini for photographers (not videographers) is low cost and colors can be adjusted with good monitors and the knowledge need to to more advanced color adjustments.
...

The video output from a Mini is digital. Thus if everything is working as intended, it will give you a 100% correct signal and 100% correct colors and you won't be able to do better with any other computer regardless of how much it costs.

The problem people are reporting with bad colors is clearly a bug where the Mini "thinks" it's connected to a TV and does some sort of unnecessary and detrimental adjustment/compensation.

If you aren't suffering from this bug then you can't possibly get better graphics than what the Mini gives you. (Unless by "graphics" you are talking about 3-D rendering performance.)

 

[elliotn]

It seems like those are large files with a lot of edits and you have a lot of them open at one time. Is it actually necessary to have so many open at once? You can only work on one image at a time...

You should consider getting help on a photo forum such as DPReview.com or another pro-oriented forum with other Photoshop users. You will obtain more knowledgeable feedback from people who actually use the same software under similar conditions...

Yes, all photos are for the same story, so I need them open to balance with each other.

Anyway this is last year's mini, so somewhat off-topic for this thread. I just wanted to support Philipma's assertion that Mac minis are limited for photographic applications.

 

[cmeisenzahl]

Just installed remotely, can't wait to get home tonight and see if it helped.

 

[7enderbender]

The problem that annoys me most is the bad colours and the delay in responding after turning the monitor on, none of which the new 1.7 EFI update fixes!

I really hope Apple considers this!

Well, that would be a problem than for photographers - while the machine in general seems to be a very good solution for folks like me. Is this an issue with all monitors and ways to plug them in? I'm looking to either get a Dell 27" or two Dell or NEC 24". I use the X-rite Colormunki for calibration. Can anyone confirm that this would still be a problem?

 

[Mojo1]

Yes, all photos are for the same story, so I need them open to balance with each other.

Anyway this is last year's mini, so somewhat off-topic for this thread. I just wanted to support Philipma's assertion that Mac minis are limited for photographic applications.

I think that the problem is with your workflow. The amount of installed RAM could be one cause of your problems... Certain Photoshop filters rely on the GPU and info on those filters are available at Barefeats.com and other websites. If it turns out that you rely on those filters then the Mini's GPU can indeed be a significant bottleneck.

As I suggested earlier, you could use some expert advice. You probably won't get it here...

As far as the HDMI bug goes, if you connect to a display using a Display Port to Mini DP adapter there won't be a problem. My NEC display has four different ports so I'm not limited to HDMI. I've had no display problems and the color is spot-on using the stock NEC profile for my display. I don't even need to calibrate the monitor.

 

[philipma1957]

The video output from a Mini is digital. Thus if everything is working as intended, it will give you a 100% correct signal and 100% correct colors and you won't be able to do better with any other computer regardless of how much it costs.

The problem people are reporting with bad colors is clearly a bug where the Mini "thinks" it's connected to a TV and does some sort of unnecessary and detrimental adjustment/compensation.

If you aren't suffering from this bug then you can't possibly get better graphics than what the Mini gives you. (Unless by "graphics" you are talking about 3-D rendering performance.)

Yes, all photos are for the same story, so I need them open to balance with each other.

Anyway this is last year's mini, so somewhat off-topic for this thread. I just wanted to support Philipma's assertion that Mac minis are limited for photographic applications.

I think that the problem is with your workflow. The amount of installed RAM could be one cause of your problems... Certain Photoshop filters rely on the GPU and info on those filters are available at Barefeats.com and other websites. If it turns out that you rely on those filters then the Mini's GPU can indeed be a significant bottleneck.

As I suggested earlier, you could use some expert advice. You probably won't get it here...

As far as the HDMI bug goes, if you connect to a display using a Display Port to Mini DP adapter there won't be a problem. My NEC display has four different ports so I'm not limited to HDMI. I've had no display problems and the color is spot-on using the stock NEC profile for my display. I don't even need to calibrate the monitor.

A lot of the discussion about good graphics picture quality rendering 3d 2d etc and my first statement the mac mini does not have really good graphics color quality whatever.

Is limited due to the nature of forum "speak"


I Like mac minis I use mac minis. I sell them I upgrade them and I repair them. For size only the asrock models come close and they break a lot in comparison to mac minis. Mac minis have come a long way even in picture quality. They still fall short of really good graphics. Really good means you can do it all at least in the top 20 % of each and every category .

So if I want really good gpu card performance with a large screen in legal (no hackintosh) mountain lion use.

I need a mac pro. Or I can use the mac mini for all but my video needs. and for video, graphics, picture quality,gaming I use a diy pc. I just find it annoying.

I can build 3 of these machines. using hd7970's in them and i7-3770k's for the price of 1 six core mac pro. let check price to be sure.

a six core mac pro is 3 k. add a diy ssd and more ram and you are at 3.5k. I can build those window machines at 1.2k. so close enough

 

[elliotn]

I think that the problem is with your workflow. The amount of installed RAM could be one cause of your problems... Certain Photoshop filters rely on the GPU and info on those filters are available at Barefeats.com and other websites. If it turns out that you rely on those filters then the Mini's GPU can indeed be a significant bottleneck.

As I suggested earlier, you could use some expert advice. You probably won't get it here...

I have 16Gb RAM installed (and a Promise Pegasus as scratch), so memory shouldn't be a problem. Also, I don't use any of the esoteric Photoshop filters that tax the GPU. What is slow is basic things like zooming in and out of an image (CMD +/-). This is laggy (and the adjustment layers take a moment to kick in). It's not a major problem, but I never had it back in the day with a G5 tower and Photoshop CS2. Thereagain, back then I was running a 24" monitor, not a 27". FWIW, I have no issues with the mini and colour - I get a perfect match between my Eizo monitor and Epson 3800 printer. I just find the mini slow, and I think this is because of its limited graphics capabilities.

 

[Mojo1]

It's easy enough to check your RAM and verify if you are running out; even 16GB won't be enough if you have enough apps and files open with heavy editing going on.

My editing needs are modest so the HD4000 is fine. Photographers who do extensive edits, work with large files and do video... I don't consider the Mini to be the Mac for the job.

Let's face it: the Mini is not designed to be a pro machine. It's amazing how much it has evolved and how capable it is... and how little it costs. But if you rely on professional apps and push them hard then the iMac, MacBookPro and MacPro are what you should be using.

Even if Apple retained the discrete GPU option the Mini would be relatively anemic compared to its beefier brethren based on Apple's past designs. It's too bad the company won't offer a so-called "headless iMac" for those who need more than a Mini can offer and who don't want an all-in-one computer or a top of-the-line tower Mac.

 

[motrek]

... I think this is because of its limited graphics capabilities.

The Mini's graphics capabilities aren't really limited. Every graphics card in the last 10+ years has had such good 2-D performance (i.e., like what you're doing with Photoshop) that it's so irrelevant that the benchmarking web sites don't even test it anymore. The HD 4000 in a Mini will be just as good for your Photoshop work as any other graphics card.

Are you using an SSD? That might give you a pretty huge performance boost.

Another thing is that recent versions of Photoshop might have gotten slower. I used to use a version of Photoshop that was > 5 years old, and when I updated to the latest one I noticed a pretty big slowdown. Bloat, I guess.

----------

...
Let's face it: the Mini is not designed to be a pro machine. It's amazing how much it has evolved and how capable it is... and how little it costs. But if you rely on professional apps and push them hard then the iMac, MacBookPro and MacPro are what you should be using.

Even if Apple retained the discrete GPU option the Mini would be relatively anemic compared to its beefier brethren based on Apple's past designs. It's too bad the company won't offer a so-called "headless iMac" for those who need more than a Mini can offer and who don't want an all-in-one computer or a top of-the-line tower Mac.

You have to realize that a discrete graphics chip is only valuable if you're doing 3-D work (usually 3-D gaming since 3-D raytracing will use the CPU, not GPU) or if you're doing something that's OpenCL accelerated, which basically means a small number of video filters and certain scientific computing tasks.

Otherwise GPU performance is basically irrelevant, and the Mini will be just as fast at almost everything as a MacBook Pro or a Mac Pro from 2010 or earlier. You have to step up to an 8 or 12 core Mac Pro to get something that's significantly faster than the 2.6 Mini.

I'm not trying to say the Mini is the best thing you can buy, but to give things a little perspective, the high end Mini today is faster than basically any Mac you could have bought 2-3 years ago, and people were using Macs 2-3 years ago just fine to do HD video editing, high end photography, etc. etc.

 

[Malte.]

No black screen since the patch!

 

[fhall1]

Set up my 2012 Mini Nov 26th using HDMI to DVI adapter....didn't notice any blackouts, flickers, whatever since then. I do have the "crushed whites" issue but haven't tried any calibration (monitor is in PC mode though so it's not that). Installed the EFI update last night...no problems yet (but I didn't have any before either)....colors seem a little better, but still not great.

 

[Jig3n]

No black screen since the patch!

Same. My displays looks richer as well.

 

[fricotin]

I cannot install the update, I download it and when I try to install it it tells me I have the "wrong package" or something to that effect.
What am I doing wrong ?

 

[Mojo1]

The Mini's graphics capabilities aren't really limited. Every graphics card in the last 10+ years has had such good 2-D performance (i.e., like what you're doing with Photoshop) that it's so irrelevant that the benchmarking web sites don't even test it anymore. The HD 4000 in a Mini will be just as good for your Photoshop work as any other graphics card.



----------



You have to realize that a discrete graphics chip is only valuable if you're doing 3-D work (usually 3-D gaming since 3-D raytracing will use the CPU, not GPU) or if you're doing something that's OpenCL accelerated, which basically means a small number of video filters and certain scientific computing tasks.

Otherwise GPU performance is basically irrelevant, and the Mini will be just as fast at almost everything as a MacBook Pro or a Mac Pro from 2010 or earlier. You have to step up to an 8 or 12 core Mac Pro to get something that's significantly faster than the 2.6 Mini.

I'm not trying to say the Mini is the best thing you can buy, but to give things a little perspective, the high end Mini today is faster than basically any Mac you could have bought 2-3 years ago, and people were using Macs 2-3 years ago just fine to do HD video editing, high end photography, etc. etc.

Barefeats tested the 2012 Mac Mini using Photoshop CS6 filters for non-video image editing. The results clearly show that when using certain Photoshop functions such as Iris Blur performance is dramatically slower because of the HD4000.

The test results can be found at http://barefeats.com/minivim.html. The article includes video editing tests.

 

[motrek]

Barefeats tested the 2012 Mac Mini using Photoshop CS6 filters for non-video image editing. The results clearly show that when using certain Photoshop functions such as Iris Blur performance is dramatically slower because of the HD4000.

The test results can be found at http://barefeats.com/minivim.html. The article includes video editing tests.

Yeah I guess I forgot that the GPU is used for certain photo filters by some software in addition to certain video filters. But just dragging windows around and applying adjustment layers shouldn't be affected by GPU speed to my knowledge.

 

[BingClawsby]

Barefeats tested the 2012 Mac Mini using Photoshop CS6 filters for non-video image editing. The results clearly show that when using certain Photoshop functions such as Iris Blur performance is dramatically slower because of the HD4000.

The test results can be found at http://barefeats.com/minivim.html. The article includes video editing tests.

Granted the iris blur there's quite a difference, but with the others listed the mini may be around 10 seconds slower. I can live with that.

I'm using PS CS5 on a '07 macbook C2D. I discovered the GMA950 in there doesn't do OpenGL and unable to perform a simple task like rotate document. (I mean, I could do that in Painter on my 15 year old 7600 for crikes sake)

I'm looking at an i7 mini now.

Extra 10 seconds is fine. I'm concerned that the HD4000 can do whatever document handling features there are. Unfortunately Adobe lists a recommended Intel HD3000P and HD4000P but not a plain old HD4000.

Confusing

 

[elliotn]

Regardless of whether it's a graphics card issue, an OS graphics driver issue, or bloated Adobe software issue, Photoshop CS6 on my 2011 mini (AMD graphics, 16Gb RAM) is a graphically compromised environment - laggy zooming, slow-to-update previews in ACR, and disappearing brush cursors. It's usable, but far from ideal.

The Mac Pro won't work for me as it doesn't have Thunderbolt. The Imac won't work as I need to use my Eizo screen (and don't need a second screen). Nearly all my photographer friends use Macbook Pros, and that's probably the most sensible solution. But at present my 2011 Air solves most of my portable needs and I'd like to see a mini working well. As soon as the HDMI issues are resolved I'll try the new mini.

 

[motrek]

...
Extra 10 seconds is fine. I'm concerned that the HD4000 can do whatever document handling features there are. Unfortunately Adobe lists a recommended Intel HD3000P and HD4000P but not a plain old HD4000.
...

The reason the rMBP is a little faster on most of those benchmarks is almost certainly because it has an SSD.

 

[Mojo1]

Iris Blur Isn't The Only CS6 GPU-Based Function...

Granted the iris blur there's quite a difference, but with the others listed the mini may be around 10 seconds slower. I can live with that.

Barefeats only tested one of a long list of CS6 features that take advantage of OpenCL acceleration. If you can live with the performance hits then go for it... Fortunately, I don't need Photoshop in 2012. CS3 is the last version for me.

Here is a list of CS6 processes that utilize OpenCL acceleration:


Adaptive Wide Angle Filter (compatible video card required)
Liquify (accelerated by compatible video card with 512 MB of VRAM)
Oil Paint (compatible video card required)
Warp and Puppet Warp (accelerated by compatible video card)
Field Blur, Iris Blur, and Tilt/Shift (accelerated by compatible video
card supporting OpenCL)
Lighting Effects Gallery (compatible video card required with 512 MB
of VRAM)
New 3D enhancements (3D features in Photoshop require a compatible video card with 512 MB of VRAM):
Draggable Shadows
Ground plane reflections
Roughness
On-canvas user interface controls
Ground plane
Light widgets on edge of canvas
IBL (image-based light) controller

There is a long list of GPU features that were introduced in previous versions at http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html#cs6_features.

 

[BingClawsby]

Thanks fellas

I did plan on a mini with the fusion drive if that helps. I figure the i7 2.6 quad w/16gb will do me for a good 5 or more years. Hell, I went with a '96 7600&8600 over 10 years till I sprung for the 2007 macbook!

I'm not much on effects anyway... I like a photograph to look like a photograph.

I also do home recording and use Logic among other things. It is more on the audio side of things that I could use more power now. If it was just for photography and photoshop, the macbook I have now is plenty.

Not sure if I'm going to CS6 either. I went from PS5 to CS5. Adobe is out of control. I'm hoping they'll cave on this 'you have to upgrade on every release or pay full price' garbage I've been hearing about.
Probably do LR3 to 4 though... its cheap