Speed up PC for photo editing? What to upgrade?

Slow switching between files in LR, slow rendering in PS, makes me wonder: just how big are the files you are working on? Because when they are DNG scans from medium format negatives (those run up to half a GB per file...) or 36MP Nikon files, that will slow any computer down, the DNG files even slow performance down dramatically. I'm saying, maybe you just gotta live with it...

Concerning LR, try ticking the 'Build Smart Previews' box when importing images. It slows the import down but speeds up the navigating in LR once the files are imported.

SSD: I replaced a regular HD in a 2009 MacBook Pro and reading files went from 54Mb per second to 250Mb per second. Upgrading the Mac Mini is next.
 
SSD's degrade over time and, just like almost any other component in PC. SSD's are relatively new, tech gets updated (controllers, firmware) and they still require some maintenance - done by controller, or by OS or manually from bundled software. Some are better in certain aspects, some go behind, but one can choose from.
This is why I bought small SSDs - to store there only OS and no content. Tech evolves rapidly and I will rather replace SSD every few years if it wears out rather than wait until they reach same price and reliability than HDD.

Remember SSD is very new compared to HDD which also fail occasionally. There's no free lunch and we have to pay for speed SSD delivers, by cash and downtimes (if we have backups) or data loss (no backups). But then we also drive cars and fly in planes despite they get involved in accidents.
 
btgc said:
SSD's degrade over time and, just like almost any other component in PC. SSD's are relatively new, tech gets updated (controllers, firmware) and they still require some maintenance - done by controller, or by OS or manually from bundled software.
Click to expand...

SSDs no longer degrade but they do fail, and failure is dramatic. They do not warn the user, with a few small issues like a traditional HD.

They can be recovered sometimes after a failure, but don't count on it.

Here is a good article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2038...-ssds-what-makes-these-speedy-drives-hum.html
 
haring said:
I would love to make my pc faster for photo and video editing. Adobe is trying to help us with some ionstructions on their website but it is not clear how much processing power I gain via replacing one or two components of my desktop. I have read tons of threads on the issue however but I don't seem to find the right way to do it... I would like Lightroom to respond faster when I switch between two images. I would love Portraiture to finish processing the photo I am working on faster in Photoshop, etc My PC: Windows 7, CPU: i7 3770K, Memory 16GB

My questions:
- How much speed do I gain by upgrading the memory to 32GB?
- Would an expensive video card help? Which one?
- Should I upgrade my CPU? Which one do you recommend? Have you done these modifications before?

What is your experience? Which upgrade yielded the best results? Thanks so much!
I would love to make my pc faster for photo and video editing. Adobe is trying to help us with some ionstructions on their website but it is not clear how much processing power I gain via replacing one or two components of my desktop. I have read tons of threads on the issue however but I don't seem to find the right way to do it... I would like Lightroom to respond faster when I switch between two images. I would love Portraiture to finish processing the photo I am working on faster in Photoshop, etc My PC: Windows 7, CPU: i7 3770K, Memory 16GB My question: - How much speed do I gain by upgrading the memory to 32GB? - Would an expensive video card help? Which one? - Should I upgrade my CPU? Which one do you recommend? Have you done these modifications before? What is your experience? Which upgrade yielded the best results? Thanks so much!
Click to expand...

Hi Haring,

The obvious questions haven't been asked or answered - do ye look after yer PC? Remove temp files and all the bric a brac amassed even over the short period of a year, since new.

e.g. do ye run "Disk cleanup" , registry cleaners, defrag etc? On a monthly basis...

Ah use Cleanup!

Widows own "disk clean up"

A third party defrag software

Vitsoft - another third party cleaner (registry cleaner)

Ah also use...Belarc Advisor one of the best pieces of software ye could put on a PC. It lists absolutely everything ye have installed on yer machine and even tells ye how long it is since ye used a particular app.

Ah ensure that all drivers and software are up-to-date. My Pc and memory is overclocked and ah can recommend that as a method for improving speed. Ye must know what yer doing though! Ah do run a powerful, expensive graphics card but that was bought primarily for gaming.

Overclocking does shorten components avg. life but not really noticeably. Ah ran an XP machine - Intel 3200, ran at nearly 3700 (with corresponding memory overclock), for more than 8 years. Ye need good fans or watercooling.

AH think ye should try a real spring clean of yer machine, removing apps and software that are never, or rarely, used and running all the above-mentioned software. See if it makes a difference - ah think it will.

Ensure that no other apps are running when using yer photo processing etc. As mentioned above, if yer processing large raw, TIFF files et., yer PC won't respond as it would when running a browser, it will run slow!

Learn tae understand the Task Manager in Windows, this'll show which apps are running, which ones are hogging resources which ones can be reduced in priorities, switched off etc.

Reaching for the Paypal button is rarely the solution...🙂😎
 
Fortunately modern UNIX file systems keep fragmentation at a minimum by keeping all blocks in a file close together, even if they can't be stored in consecutive sectors.

More important don't fill your hard drives past 85~90%. However you do want to repair permissions from time to time. If you are on a Mac just use Disk Utility.

Here is a simple article on Windows optimizing. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/improve-performance-optimizing-hard-drive

Overclocking is fun, but remember there will be HEAT, bigger heatsinks, fans, and more exotic methods of cooling are required.
 
locheeboy said:
Hi Haring,

The obvious questions haven't been asked or answered - do ye look after yer PC? Remove temp files and all the bric a brac amassed even over the short period of a year, since new. ...
Click to expand...

+1

Any serious photo editing machine should be set up as a "lean clean fighting machine". There should be no active internet functions running in the background other than the software licensing checks. You should also shut down all malware scanners and run them manually.

The OS and all application software should have automatic update turned off and time set aside for manual updates on a frequent basis. You don't want updates to kick in while you are trying to do your work; you need to control the timing.

If you have to have a web browser open and/or some streaming music, do it with a separate machine. You'll spend less for a modest Win notebook for these functions than you will spend on boosting your editing machine's performance enough to take on these chores without them having a negative impact on editing.
 
photomoof said:
SSDs no longer degrade but they do fail, and failure is dramatic. They do not warn the user, with a few small issues like a traditional HD........
Click to expand...

I had a slight warning when mine failed. My laptop was starting to freeze up and wouldn't always wake up from sleep mode, etc. I had to restart it by pressing "option" at startup and finding my local drive. After a number off restarts like this, my local drive suddenly vanished. And that was that.

Jim B.
 
A thought might be to use the free version of Process Lasso and raise the application priority to "high". This has given me good results on my dinosaur, which is an old XP box maxed at 2 gig ram... It sped up some games as well as apps like Corel Painter... noticeable improvement. YMMV.
 
Mackinaw said:
Plus, contrary to popular opinion, SSD’s can die too. The SSD on my 2011 Macbook Air conked out after three years. I lost everything. Luckily my Air is my travel computer so nothing of importance was stored on it. I will say the SSD was easy to swap out and replace with a new SSD. I reinstalled the operating system and have been good-to-go for the past two years (fingers crossed).

Jim B.
Click to expand...

Statistically, the life expectancy of new SSDs have long since caught up with HDDs. Which one lasts longer will depend on the specific application involved, but for heavily used, travel machines my money is on the SDD.

Of course, just as camera shutters, fail rates follow a normal distribution pattern...the first SSD I ever bought is still humming along, and that was 7-8 years ago.
 
Get a moderate sized SSD and put your OS and app(s) on it and carve out a work area for the files you are working on. Use your existing HD for medium term storage.

If you don't have USB 3 get a PCIe card, it is much faster than USB 2. If you don't have it or can't upgrade buy either a NUC from Intel or a Mac Mini.

More main memory takes some tweaking and perhaps a OS upgrade (64 bit).

Upgrading 32 bit machines is of questionable value these days IMHO.

B2
 
I'd say RAM might be your best bet, and it's relatively inexpensive.

I've found that GPUs only make a little bit of difference, I went from Intel integrated graphics to Nvidia GTX 750, which benchmarks about 5 times faster. Even on photo apps which I know uses the GPU (I know because I wrote it myself!), the difference isn't as great as you'd think.

SSD storage can make quite a big difference too.

Are you running programs in the background which might slow things down? Your machine has a pretty nice spec, it should be nice and fast.

Are the files you're dealing with particularly big? If they are, I think RAM is probably your best bet.
 
I'd say we are playing the game where people put hands under blanket and try to guess what's under. We have listed most of possible variants and approaches but as input data stays same and isn't complete it's somehow unproductive to continue. OP just have to analyze his environment to find out bottlenecks instead of blindly putting big$$$ into stuff which may and may not increase performance.
 
Some people talked 'bout a Mac Pro - if somebody is already using a Mac, by all means. If you're using a windows machine, I would think twice. It is a completely different system and going from one to another is a bit like going from Nikon to Canon: both good, but different.

Like the others said, I would take a look at a SSD. Cleaning your PC (like locheeboy said) will have some effect, but it will be small.
 
Addy101 said:
Some people talked 'bout a Mac Pro - if somebody is already using a Mac, by all means. If you're using a windows machine, I would think twice. It is a completely different system and going from one to another is a bit like going from Nikon to Canon: both good, but different.

Like the others said, I would take a look at a SSD. Cleaning your PC (like locheeboy said) will have some effect, but it will be small.
Click to expand...

If you are only running Photoshop you will never notice the difference, the learning curve is about 10 minutes. No one buys a Mac Pro to run their email. 🙂
 
View Range said:
Turn on the CPU and RAM monitors to see what amount of resources you are using. I think Windows 7 still supports gadgets; there are nice monitors available as gadgets to leave open on the Desktop. You can also see usage in the system manager Ctl+Alt+Del.

The answers above apply to Photoshop, but not to video editing. I use a new MacPro and Adobe Premiere Elements for modest video work. Premiere uses my 4 cores 100% and 16GB of real RAM and 16GB of virtual RAM.

Photoshop is set up to use processors on certain high end video cards, such as nVidia Quadros. I don't know how measurable the impact is.

You seem to be a professional. So why not get fully up to date with a Dell Precision T7910, if you want to stay with Windows, rather than patching up an old machine.
Click to expand...

Let me check the Dell Precision T7910! Thanks!
 
thegman said:
I'd say RAM might be your best bet, and it's relatively inexpensive.

I've found that GPUs only make a little bit of difference, I went from Intel integrated graphics to Nvidia GTX 750, which benchmarks about 5 times faster. Even on photo apps which I know uses the GPU (I know because I wrote it myself!), the difference isn't as great as you'd think.

SSD storage can make quite a big difference too.

Are you running programs in the background which might slow things down? Your machine has a pretty nice spec, it should be nice and fast.

Are the files you're dealing with particularly big? If they are, I think RAM is probably your best bet.
Click to expand...

The files are 24mp files. I run the programs and LR on an SSD.
 
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