Ultimate 13 and Aperture = Fail ?

[cparktd]

New to Aperture, not new to Mac. Started on a 604e 225mhz clone.

So I bought an Ultimate 13 Air mostly to support my photography hobby on road-trips. Sweet little machine! I was on cloud 9!! Was...

Got Aperture installed last night and tried her out. Much to my dismay it took about one hour just to import 7 GB of .jpgs from an external HD. So I copied the files to the Air's Flash drive first and imported again... similar results. I found editing while importing "processing" unbearably slow, with just moving the loupe taking 20 seconds to update the view etc. This was while attached to an external 24" display. I will try one more time without the external display but doubt that will help. Didn't even try any RAW files.

So did I make a huge mistake assuming the maxed out Air wold actually be usable for real work? I did not expect blazing speeds, but I'm really sick with my purchase at this point. I shoot on 16 GB cards and can't imagine having to wait 2 hours to begin editing. I have a couple days left in my day return window. I NEVER expected to need to return so a couple questions...

Is there a restocking fee?
How do I wipe it clean? Reinstall from the USB stick? I have Passwords, email, itunes and iphone synced etc.

Guess I need to wait for a MacBook Pro update??? or is this just normal performance for Aperture??? I've been using PS CS on a G4 with 10.3 at home, and a now dead PC laptop on the road. I expected a nice bump from my 10 year old Desktop...

Or am I missing something here? Pleas help.

Thanks for any input you might provide...
TD

 

[torbjoern]

Have you tried to copy from SD-card to the disk first, and then import to Aperture? Does it still take 2 hours then?

 

[petvas]

Considering the processor speed of the MBA, I find Aperture quite ok. I didn't import anything, but my Aperture library which I copied from my Mac Pro, is 35GB. Browsing the library isn't slow at all. It opens photos relatively fast and it is certainly usable (for small tasks). I wasn't expecting anything more.
The Macbook Air is a very light and thin laptop, ideal for people that want a great computer to browse the Internet, check mails, work with Office files and do stuff that aren't very processor intensive. I wouldn't use my MBA to edit pictures in Photoshop. That would be a task for my Mac Pro.

 

[tdfreeman]

Do you really fill up a card before every import? If so, my guess would be that you need Mac Pro (MacBook Pro may work, but that's still only dual core instead of quad), not a MacBook Air. We use a T1i in RAW+JPG mode. I import the pictures in separate projects. Each JPG is around 7MB and each RAW is about 23MB. Normally we have around 100 pictures a day, so 700MB JPG and 2.3GB of RAW, and importing only takes a few minutes. I've never timed it, normally I start the import while doing other things. I import into Aperture to play with, then copy directly from the SD to a share for protection. It's never taken 20 minutes which would equate to the 1hr you said for 7GB. For viewing the files, it takes about 2 seconds to fully load a JPG and 4-5 for a RAW. I don't do much of any editing, the RAW files are more for when I get time to learn more about editing and manipulation. At that time, I'm not sure I'd be doing it on my Air, but I don't have a more powerful Mac to try Aperture on right now.

 

[AlvinNguyen]

I would be considered a heavy shooter (3k images in two days from 6 shoots) and I find the best way is to first import your images to another portable HD, then select the images through Bridge, then import the ones you selected to the SSD. That way, it saves your SSD space as well as make importing and exporting fairly easy. I've been working with 35mb RAW without issues and I'm on the 11.6" Ultimate (4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 1.6Ghz) which is a lot slower than your 2.13ghz 13.3" MBA. I think you might have some strange thing going on because it shouldn't take hours to load 7GB.

 

[hfg]

It's been a long time, but I seem to remember the first time I installed Aperture and imported a large amount of photos (and 7 GB is a lot of data), it spent a lot of time doing some kind of "housekeeping chores" which could be turned off. I don't recall if it was "indexing" something, or creating "thumbnail photos", or something. Once it was done, it never noticeably did it again.

 

[topmounter]

I haven't timed them or anything, but importing RAW files from my 60D doesn't seem much different on my 13" MBAu (SD card in slot) vs. my iMac (SD card in USB reader). I'm using a Transcend Type10 32GB SDHC card.

 

[flynz4]

New to Aperture, not new to Mac. Started on a 604e 225mhz clone.

So I bought an Ultimate 13 Air mostly to support my photography hobby on road-trips. Sweet little machine! I was on cloud 9!! Was...

Got Aperture installed last night and tried her out. Much to my dismay it took about one hour just to import 7 GB of .jpgs from an external HD. So I copied the files to the Air's Flash drive first and imported again... similar results. I found editing while importing "processing" unbearably slow, with just moving the loupe taking 20 seconds to update the view etc. This was while attached to an external 24" display. I will try one more time without the external display but doubt that will help. Didn't even try any RAW files.

So did I make a huge mistake assuming the maxed out Air wold actually be usable for real work? I did not expect blazing speeds, but I'm really sick with my purchase at this point. I shoot on 16 GB cards and can't imagine having to wait 2 hours to begin editing. I have a couple days left in my day return window. I NEVER expected to need to return so a couple questions...

Is there a restocking fee?
How do I wipe it clean? Reinstall from the USB stick? I have Passwords, email, itunes and iphone synced etc.

Guess I need to wait for a MacBook Pro update??? or is this just normal performance for Aperture??? I've been using PS CS on a G4 with 10.3 at home, and a now dead PC laptop on the road. I expected a nice bump from my 10 year old Desktop...

Or am I missing something here? Pleas help.

Thanks for any input you might provide...
TD

TD,

Have you disabled "faces"? At least originally... it really slowed down imports a lot because of the computational load. Most photographers that I know don't find the feature very useful. I do not know if it has improved.

I have kept mine turned off. It is located in the Aperture -> Preferences -> General.

/Jim

 

[topmounter]

I forgot to mention faces... turning off faces definitely sped up my iMac and I turned it off on my MBA as soon as I was done with the installation.

 

[cparktd]

Thanks for the super Quick replies!!!
Never intended for this as main machine, but might be for a few months...
I bought this to support and real time plan our road trips / vacations. Taken in a Miata, Space is a premium! Next trip 16 Days US South West in May.

My roughly planned workflow. (work in progress)
Manually import photos via Card reader to a working folder on the Air.
Import GPS data from my Data logger.
Location stamp photos via software. Cool! I see Aperture can do this now!!
Burn data backups via external superdrive
Import into Aperture, leaving in current location.
First quick culling
Select photos for posting to Facebook, travel Blog, email for family and frinds to follow.
Edit and upload those selected
Export library to external 1Tb HD
Delete todays Library from Air.
Reformat CF cards
When home, import libraries to desktop Mac.

A few facts of my test run..
875 .jpgs, 7GB worth of photos from Canon 7D.
Copied to a folder in my "pictures" folder on the Air from an external HD before importing.

Importing, leaving in current location, appending keywords (Road-trip, Natchez Trace)
Cooling fans ran wide open the entire time, and battery drained from 79% to 40%.

 

[turkey1]

I use CS5 on my 13" 4gb Air all the time. It renders things fast and flawlessly. There is a youtube video where A guy runs the air up against a pro in CS5 and they are very comprable. No experience with apature though. I would say if your like me and don't video edit your air can be your only machine. It works way better then my unibody macbook.

 

[cparktd]

Ahhhh....
Faces!
I bet that does require a lot of HP! On by default???

Running new test now.

Same 7Gb folder
Faces turned OFF!
unplugged external monitor (matters?)
turned OFF auto stack
turned off append key words

Fingers crossed!!!

 

[cparktd]

Whewww

Some relief.

New import 24 minutes!!!!
I feel MUCH better now.

Thanks, You guys rock!
Almost didn't post as I was afraid I'd get flamed, but sure glad I did!

Now if that new rumored Pro isn't toooooo irresistible, LOL!
Just checked, I do have till 3/1.

TD

Now if any comments on my proposed workflow...
Or places to visit US South west! Coming from TN.
If it works, a google map with potential POIs.
(work in progress, and OT I know)

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=e...2052237465266091091.00049c5d2c85b8badc88e&z=5

 

[Hands Sandon]

Whewww

Some relief.

New import 24 minutes!!!!
I feel MUCH better now.

Thanks, You guys rock!
Almost didn't post as I was afraid I'd get flamed, but sure glad I did!

Now if that new rumored Pro isn't toooooo irresistible, LOL!
Just checked, I do have till 3/1.

TD

Now if any comments on my proposed workflow...
Or places to visit US South west! Coming from TN.
If it works, a google map with potential POIs.
(work in progress, and OT I know)

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=e...2052237465266091091.00049c5d2c85b8badc88e&z=5

I haven't read the last few posts posts yet (glad you got help and posted your issues though) but I have the option to return my 13", but the screen is not shiny glass on the Air, as opposed to 13" MBP's. In fact it seems matt 99 percent of the time and it's got take anywhere weight. I'm a pro photographer (art) and whilst I just use my iPhone 4 for digital, this air is just the ticket overall.

 

[flynz4]

Whewww

Some relief.

New import 24 minutes!!!!
I feel MUCH better now.

Thanks, You guys rock!
Almost didn't post as I was afraid I'd get flamed, but sure glad I did!

Now if that new rumored Pro isn't toooooo irresistible, LOL!
Just checked, I do have till 3/1.

TD

Now if any comments on my proposed workflow...
Or places to visit US South west! Coming from TN.
If it works, a google map with potential POIs.
(work in progress, and OT I know)

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=e...2052237465266091091.00049c5d2c85b8badc88e&z=5

Your proposed workflow seems too cumbersome to me. Particularly importing into Aperture more than once. It is completely unnecessary in my opinion, as Aperture allows you to easily move projects from one machine to another. I would import your daily shoot into aperture on your MBA just once... using an external HDD for your library (since it seems that it will not fit on your MBA SSD). I would bring a 2nd HDD for daily Aperture backups... unless you know you will have enough internet bandwidth to support daily cloud backups. I would leave the optical drive at home. They are obsolete and unreliable anyway.

When you return home (or to your studio), you could relocate and consolidate masters to bring your projects out of your MBA, and into your home computer.

I recommend Robert Boyer's ebooks... particularly "Aperture 3 File Management". He covers how to use a combination of a Mac at the studio, combined with a laptop while traveling. He is the most knowledgeable A3 guru that I have read. He is very [justifiably] opinionated... and his writing style focuses on the "why" rather than the "what". You probably want to order all 3 of the ebooks, but for sure you should get the one mentioned above. I believe the url is http://photo.rwboyer.com/

/Jim

 

[flynz4]

Ahhhh....
Faces!
I bet that does require a lot of HP! On by default???

Running new test now.

Same 7Gb folder
Faces turned OFF!
unplugged external monitor (matters?)
turned OFF auto stack
turned off append key words

Fingers crossed!!!

Stacks are one of the best features of A3, and something you might want to study. The URL I provided for RB's ebooks goes into a lot of detail on their usage. I'd recommend keeping auto-stacks on. It will not slow down your import significantly.

/Jim