iPhoto is SLOW

[imacfreak]

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I did a search and couldn't find anything. Apple says iPhoto can hold an unlimited amount of photos, but doesnt say that it will slow to a crawl if you have almost 2000 pictures. I have a G5 with over a gig of RAM, this is pretty ridiculous. I even turned off drop shadows and outlines, and it's still slow. Browsing pictures by scrolling is skippy, even clicking on an album has a delay. I really don't get it.

 

[Abstract]

iPhoto is the worst iApp, period.

It handles my albums well, meaning that its easy to organize my albums, but to look at or do anything with my pictures is slow as sludge. I think its time they start from ground zero and give us something we can use. If MS can give us an album viewer that crops pictures, and adjusts brightness and contrast quickly, surely a suped-up Apple G5 can. Yes, its good for organization, but why does that have to come in expense of speed? It shouldn't even make a difference.

PS: I only have 1000 pictures, and iPhoto still isn't fast. I don't even know what I'm going to do when I take more pictures. Maybe I'll download some of those iPhoto alternatives that were posted in the last "Why is iPhoto so slow" thread.

 

[stodmyk]

iPhoto buddy

It's not perfect, but I downloaded the iPhoto Buddy freeware. With it, you can separate your pics into different libraries so you're not grouping all your family shots with your scenery, and your work-related stuff with your play. I mean, who wants their straight porn and their man-on-man stuff in the same slideshow, anyway?. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Seriously, though -- (geez, I can almost HEAR the rimshots -- groan) -- iPhoto Buddy has given me more freedom to actually show the pics I need relatively quickly. Give it a gander, it might help you out.

Jason in Vancouver

 

[Abstract]

Yes, but without modifications that you need to hunt for and download, the iPhoto provided by Apple is still quite craptacular. I feel reeeeally bad for people who have 3000+ piccies.

 

[munkle]

I think the max iPhoto is meant to handle is 20-25,000 photos, so you're 2000 photos shouldn't be causing the problems it is. Personally I find iPhoto 4.0.3 handles my 1000 photos pretty well on my Powerbook with 768MB of RAM. To cut up on loading times maybe try keeping your film rolls closed in your photo library, so the photos aren't showing when you first start up iPhoto - hope that makes sense!

Otherwise you could try something like PhotoPresenter (shareware) which works well as a simple iPhoto library viewer and will still allow you to store all your photos in iPhoto.

Or for a heavy duty solution (and a very expensive one) you can give iView Media Pro a go.

 

[superbovine]

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I did a search and couldn't find anything. Apple says iPhoto can hold an unlimited amount of photos, but doesnt say that it will slow to a crawl if you have almost 2000 pictures. I have a G5 with over a gig of RAM, this is pretty ridiculous. I even turned off drop shadows and outlines, and it's still slow. Browsing pictures by scrolling is skippy, even clicking on an album has a delay. I really don't get it.

welcome to the club.

 

[crap freakboy]

Compare iViewMedia Pro and iViewMedia you'll see the difference between them isn't that great for your average user.
The price difference is though, £119 for Pro compaired to £29 for the non-Pro. I've been using the non-Pro since OS9 days with no problems, it's fast, adaptable, covers just about any format you may want to throw at it....oh and it's fast! I recently gave the the latest iPhoto another go in the hope that it's speed had increased with the latest version. I'm afraid I still found it slow, too slow for my needs with over 20,000 photographs to catalogue.
Apple really need to sort this out perhaps a complete rebuild ...but hey what do I know?? Try the iViewmedia demos and post wnat you think of them on your G5.

 

[wordmunger]

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I did a search and couldn't find anything. Apple says iPhoto can hold an unlimited amount of photos, but doesnt say that it will slow to a crawl if you have almost 2000 pictures. I have a G5 with over a gig of RAM, this is pretty ridiculous. I even turned off drop shadows and outlines, and it's still slow. Browsing pictures by scrolling is skippy, even clicking on an album has a delay. I really don't get it.

Either something is wrong with your install of iPhoto, or something is wrong with your computer. I have a Ti400 with 1367 photos and none of the performance issues you mention. Maybe try reinstalling?

 

[broken_keyboard]

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I did a search and couldn't find anything. Apple says iPhoto can hold an unlimited amount of photos, but doesnt say that it will slow to a crawl if you have almost 2000 pictures. I have a G5 with over a gig of RAM, this is pretty ridiculous. I even turned off drop shadows and outlines, and it's still slow. Browsing pictures by scrolling is skippy, even clicking on an album has a delay. I really don't get it.

Are you using version 4? Because there was a big increase in photo limit for v4. Steve did a demo in a keynote where he scrolled a huge library lightning fast.

 

[BornAgainMac]

If it's slow with 2,000 photos then you have the old version. The new version is suppose to have a limit of 30,000 photos. I tried loading 32,000 photos and it loaded but very slow (like the previous version of iPhoto) but it worked. I only have 1 GB of memory on my G5.

I have no problems with performance with 12,000 photos but I wish I had more tools to help me organize my photos.

 

[Horrortaxi]

I've got 3300 pictures in 4.0.3 and I don't see a problem.

 

[crazzyeddie]

I have a 1Ghz Powerbook G4 with 1GB of RAM and i can scroll through my whole (920 photo) library with only 1 or 2 very quick "stops/gaps" while scrolling through it very quickly. iPhoto 4 is at least twice as fast as iPhoto 3, so its a must to go buy iLife for $50 if you have 1000+ photos.

 

[imacfreak]

I don't think that iPhoto was this slow before i downloaded that update that Apple pulled a few hours later. I thought it might just be this slow because i added a lot of pictures, but the more i think about it i think it started to crawl after the update. I downloaded the "fixed" update that apple posted after the one they pulled, but maybe it still caused a problem. About iPhoto says "version 4.0.3 (4H2)".

 

[munkle]

I've got the fixed update, although I didn't download 4.0.2, and iPhoto is pretty peachy for me. If you've tried fixing permissions (not sure if it would help but seems to be the first point of call for any Mac problem! ) maybe a reinstall of iPhoto might be your best bet.

 

[bubbamac]

I've noticed that iPhoto is slowest (dramatically so) when I'm looking at the pictures 3-across. Next slowest is two abreast.

The software seems to prefer four or more across. Don't know why, but it does.

TiBook 667, 1gig RAM, ~1400pics.

 

[NusuniAdmin]

iPhoto runs fine on my ibook g4 1.2 ghz, but then again i have less than 200 photos.

edit: If i do add any more i might just write my own photo app Maybe ill even release it on versiontracker.

 

[brap]

Yep.

iPhoto is slow. Always has been. Probably always will be, if you've ever looked behind the scenes it's a mess inside those 'iPhoto library' directories... ugh.

I separate my libraries manually, with Applescripts to load sparse images - much more secure and allows for a bit of choice - example, the pornos, the holiday snaps, the trainspotting shots, you know the sort. Split it up and at least remove a bit of the stress.

Now, when will Apple let me get rid of those useless buttons down below, hm?

 

[senseibiz]

I've got 3300 pictures in 4.0.3 and I don't see a problem.

Same here, I have close to 5000. works great for me.

 

[syniac]

I gave it up long ago for ACDSee (bundled with Wacom stuff).

Simple difference: it doesn't have to load every single picture you might ever want to view with it, just a particular folder. It also doesn't make it purposely difficult to view the actual locations of the photos in the Finder, because it doesn't rearrange anything.

Non-existent unicode support, though.

I wish I could complain the following:

I only have 1 GB of memory

... but then, I don't have a G5.